Don’t Talk About Resiliency Unless You Want to Talk About Trauma
I’ve seen a lot of talk about the power of resiliency. It’s often discussed in a way that sounds heroic. It’s romanticized as a skill or quality that feels magical. We might imagine someone who has lost it all and then, in a moment, they find the will to move forward despite challenging circumstances.
The Problem with the Resilience Narrative
I don’t think rising out of difficulty is a bad thing. But I do think resiliency is often spoken of out of context. If fails to acknowledge the conditions that required the individual to become resilient in the first place. Being poor, not white, disabled, queer, and gender nonconforming are all identities, alone and combined, that place individuals in positions requiring them to “bounce back.” And if they don’t, they likely won’t survive.
The dictionary defined “resilience” as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change.” Adversity, in the world of marginalized individuals, is a given. Resilience almost feels like a test to prove if those who have it the hardest can rise up against all odds instead of it being a test for how the playing field is not, nor has ever been, level. It’s a Hunger Games where we root for the underdog. And who doesn’t like to root for the underdog?
