Why Resilience is Overrated
#2: It creates “good” and “bad” survivors
Note: This article was inspired by watching a naked man get shot by the Vancouver Police Department. I am ashamed that I watched the video. I won’t link to it here because the news outlet that aired it should also be ashamed. I am now reflecting on all the times that I “behaved erratically”; that I ‘acted aggressively”; and that people called the VPD on me. I was never shot because I am a petite White woman, an identity that becomes especially salient while in psychosis and on drugs. Fuck — and I cannot stress this enough — the police (in Vancouver, in every major urban centre, in every rural area, on every reserve in Canada, across Turtle Island, and globally). In death, this man is not a success story. The only minor contribution I can make, and the only thing keeping me from completely PTSD — ing out (“I’m gonna leave my body”) is reflecting on what it means to be “successful” when one is left for dead, and encouraging us to say fuck that narrative, too.
I hear it a lot: “Wow, you’re so…resilient.” People mean it as a compliment, but what I really want to say is, “I wish I didn’t have to be.”
We love resilience. It appears in our collective story — telling, it garners awards, and it is seen as an admirable — perhaps the admirable — character trait. There’s even a diagnosis for resilience, “post — traumatic growth,” and when something has been medicalized, you know we take it seriously.
So what’s wrong with resilience? Surely the ability to mentally and emotionally cope with crises, to use assets to protect oneself from the potentially negative effects of stressors, and to return to pre — crisis status quickly is a good thing?
Well, yes and no. Venerating resilience has unintended consequences, all of which miss the forest for the trees.
Doing so detracts from prevention
You know what’s even better than resilience? Not being harmed in the first place.
Individualistic societies are cruel, and many of us struggle to grasp basic trauma prevention. We may recognize that interpersonal abuse is bad, but what about the other, more insidious violences embedded into our DNA?
For instance, poverty is violence. If wealth were distributed more evenly, North America could eliminate homelessness. This isn’t a radical statement, but we have been taught that poverty reflects poor choices and can be overcome through individual effort alone. It is seen as a consequence of self will run riot, and even if we won’t admit it aloud, we think some people deserve it. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in how we discuss people who were poor but now aren’t, particularly if they had concurrent addictions. Former drug addicts are the poster children for resilience: Institutions who share their stories divulge gut — wrenching trauma porn, and we are led to believe that moral fortitude and wise decisions elevated these once — victimized, now — victorious folks into a life that is comfortably middle — class (and in some cases, even luxurious).
The problem with these recovery narratives, however, is that people don’t need to become homeless drug users in the first place. If we had a robust social safety net, taxed the rich accordingly, prioritized the availability of affordable housing, accommodated diversity in the labour market, properly compensated those who can’t work, and legalized all drugs, the social category of “homeless drug addict” would eventually disappear.
It doesn’t, because we are invested in maintaining it. Elevating the journeys of those who “make it out” is an effective strategy for legitimizing inequalities, and the rhetoric of resilience is parlayed into the myth that being a functional, productive member of society is attainable for all — should we just try harder.
If we stopped admiring what people can endure, we’d stop putting them through it.
It creates “good” and “bad” survivors
For every “resilient” person, there are dozens more who aren’t. Not everyone who experiences difficult things survives. Some suicide, some get murdered by cops, others stay alive physically but are spiritually and psychically dead. How does this encourage us to conceive of them — and what gives us the right to judge how people cope?
Returning to the example of addiction, research tends to treat drug use as an inhibitory behaviour (risk factor) against resilience or as proof that someone isn’t. Empirical evidence shapes the social world, so when study after study conclude that addicts are fragile and maladjusted, society believes it. The primary issue with this is that it overlooks access to resources or lack thereof. It would be lovely if we could all spend $200 an hour to sip herbal tea and divulge our deepest secrets to a gentle and affirming therapist. In reality, those who suffer the most brutal structural and interpersonal exclusion are least likely to have safe ways to talk about it, and drugs become a useful way of coping. When this is then pathologized, it triggers a cascade effect: What may have started as a “rough patch” escalates into something much more serious, and what could have been a “blip” in an otherwise decent life becomes a totalizing identity. Then, when we get shot by police, the public feels that it was justified.
Because of this, those who can’t overcome barriers are viewed as disposable. We decide that people don’t want stability bad enough, and we give up on them after they haven’t amended their lives as we see fit. This entitlement is partly derived from our constant exposure to “success.” It trains us to expect remarkableness, and the notion that shitty circumstances are something we are responsible for “beating” makes a game of life and death.
Pay attention to how we talk about the losers; it reveals a lot about ourselves.
It makes it harder to ask for help
Resilience is not static. Chronicling trauma as linear is rooted in western conceptions of time, but past, present, and future don’t march ceaselessly forward, our wounds healing steadily and predictably the further we move from an event.
I have been an unhoused, psychotic drug addict. I have also been a fully funded doctoral candidate at Oxford, and within a few weeks of beginning my degree, I was an unhoused, psychotic drug addict. This was mostly because I had grown so accustomed to hearing how impressive I was that I couldn’t ask for help. Moreover, nobody asked me if I needed any. By dichotomizing survivors, we ignore that healing is messy and regression often inevitable. Yet we are so intolerant of complexities that we transpose stories onto who someone should be without considering whether our assumptions are valid. People may be OK and then, without warning, be very not OK. If all we’re told is how admirable we are, vocalizing our not — OK — ness is going to a struggle.
How to discuss resilience
Resilience is not a bad thing unto itself. We shouldn’t discourage people from making positive change, and if someone feels emboldened by attaching certain meaning to events, who are we to argue? Empowerment generally requires tangible improvements to one’s life, though, and for those in deep poverty, whose cultures may have been decimated through attempted colonial genocide, and whose humanity is denied, resilience as we’ve defined it isn’t always feasible.
Honour people anyway. This includes the dead and the left — for — dead, and as you do so, work toward a kinder, gentler world — one where resilience is less necessary.
Next, remember that it’s not a badge of honour to have survived horrific things. Many who do, myself included, emerge weary, cynical, and with all the un — romantic symptoms of complex post traumatic stress. Don’t hold us to such high standards that we perform wellness just to keep you comfortable. We will let you down, and if we’ve already been abandoned, your unease or anger will exacerbate our pain.
Finally, reflect on how you’re complicit in reproducing resilience discourse. Disrupt “what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now” arcs by asking how one can’t be neatly categorized. Intervening may garner surprising results, particularly if one is used to being admired. Doing so could also be life — affirming, which is something we all need.
