Resiliency

Thought you might like to see this, it was written by Marjean Fichtenberg, her son was murdered many years ago, she is a member of the Victims Advisory Council, this article was posted on facebook.

 Resiliency -

If we portray resiliency as the ability to recover from traumatic events only by measuring it against those who have suffered trauma and gone on to achieve acclaim as activists, advocates, public speakers, workers of healing for others then how does that affect those whose greatest measure of resiliency that could be mustered up on a day was planting 2 feet on the ground in the morning, or getting children off to school, or vacuuming the floor. I would imagine it would leave them feeling woefully inadequate in the resiliency department. Even if for them, they were displaying just the right amount of resiliency in that given moment or time period.

I have the utmost in admiration and respect for those who do use their experiences to work good for all of society, and I know some and have the utmost in respect for them. This is not in any way meant to diminish anyone's accomplishments.

But I am wondering if it is fair, or wise or prudent or helpful for 3rd parties hold the accomplishments of the exceptional few up as an example of what resiliency would look like for most people. And compare it to the resiliency of those whose experiences took them on a different journey. Would they themselves begin to see the person whose greatest claim to resiliency was cooking dinner, going to work as lacking in resiliency?

I remember shadowing a Parole Hearing where a victim was giving a statement and someone passed the judgement that that person hadn't been able to "get on with their life". That was one moment in time out of that person's life and it is impossible to tell from that particular setting if that judgement was fair or not. How do we know that the next day they didn't go to work, plan a vacation, help their kids with their homework? Just because we see someone in a particular setting where they may be recounting a tragic event in their life and become emotional about it does not mean that is how and where they are every day of their lives. Yet, we pass judgement on what we think they need, (more resiliency, etc, etc) based only on brief encounters, and what little bit we know about their whole life's story.