Reprint: Resilience and "Bouncing Back"

‘Bouncing back’ is a myth – resilience means integrating hard experiences into your life story, not ignoring them

Into each life some rain must fall. Anastasiia Voloshko/Moment via Getty Images

Keith M. Bellizzi, University of Connecticut

When Maria looked at herself in the mirror for the first time after her mastectomy, she stood very still.

One hand rested on the bathroom counter. The other hovered near the flat space where her breast had been. The scar was raw and angry. The loss was quiet but enormous. Her body felt foreign.

In moments like these, people are often urged to be resilient – which can feel like being told to show no weakness, to push through no matter what. Or they imagine resilience as bouncing back: returning somehow unscathed to be the person you were before.

But standing in that bathroom, Maria knew there was no going back. And toughness wouldn’t change what had happened. The real question was how she could move forward, carrying this experience into her new reality.

Maria’s story, one I came to know personally, is far from unique. Loss, trauma and illness often bring the same wrenching questions of identity and the painful uncertainty of what comes next.

I’ve spent more than two decades studying resilience, particularly among individuals and families navigating these kinds of life-changing events. I am also a four-time cancer survivor and author of a new book, “Falling Forward: The New Science of Resilience and Personal Transformation.” If there is one myth I wish society would retire, it’s the idea that resilience means “toughness” or “bouncing back.”

Resilience doesn’t rely on relentless positivity in the face of traumatic challenges. pocketlight/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Rethinking resilience based on research

Moments like Maria’s reveal something important: The way people tend to talk about resilience often doesn’t match how people actually live through adversity.

In popular culture, resilience is often equated with grit, toughness or relentless positivity. People celebrate the warrior, the fighter, the triumphant survivor.

But across research, clinical practice and lived experience, resilience is something far more nuanced, raw and human.

It’s not a personality trait that some people simply have and others lack. Decades of research show resilience is a dynamic process. It’s shaped by the small, everyday decisions and adjustments individuals make as they adapt to significant adversity while maintaining, or gradually regaining, their psychological and physical footing over time.

And importantly, resilience does not mean the absence of distress.

Research on people facing serious life disruptions shows that distress and resilience often coexist. For example, in my study of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors, participants reported being upset about finances, body image and disrupted life plans, while simultaneously highlighting positive changes, such as strengthened relationships and a greater sense of purpose.

Resilience, in other words, is not about erasing pain and suffering. It is about learning how to integrate difficult experiences into a life that continues forward.

Book Review: A Brilliant Ecological Disaster Fantasy From Martha Wells

City of Bones (Updated and Revised Edition) by Martha Wells (Tor)

This is an updated and revised, “author’s preferred” version of a novel by the same name that was published by Tor in 1995. Somehow, I missed the earlier edition, but this one is a long, intricately detailed story that is part ecological apocalypse, part mystery, part fantasy, part racial conflict in a rigidly hierarchical society, and pure adventure.

In a world like Earth, and yet unlike, an ecological cataclysm has reduced human life to a chain of cities on the edge of the Waste, an immense desert that is all that remains of once-mighty oceans. Water and food are scarce, and poverty ensures starvation, except for the nonhuman semi-marsupial krismen, whom legends say were bred by the Ancients to withstand desert conditions. The story begins with Khat, a kris, and his human partner, Sagai, who deal in relics in the bottom tiers of the city Charisat, trying to stay one step ahead of the dreaded Trade Inspectors, for Sagai has a measure of protection as a human, but Khat has none. When Khat is approached by Elen, a magic-wielding Warder, to find relics hidden in a deep-desert artificial structure called a Remnant and believed to be part of one of the Ancients' arcane engines, he really has no choice. What begins as a reluctant expedition quickly turns into a struggle for survival, a deepening mystery, betrayals upon conspiracies, a fanatical cult bent on transforming what remains of human civilization, and revelations about the technology and nature of the Ancients.

Although City of Bones was first released three decades ago, this version represents Wells at her best. Her characters are vividly drawn, especially Khat, and the gradual way she peels back layers of past and personality is superb. The world-building, contrasting the rigidly hierarchical Charisat against the lawlessness of the Waste and the utter chaos of the looming cataclysm, is intricate, well-thought out, and revealed without ever overwhelming the reader with a mass of details. There’s enough context and backstory to fill an entire series.

And then there’s Khat, as human emotionally as he is alien in physiology. I loved his combination of confidence, physical prowess, inner wounds, capacity for tenderness, and courage. Most of all, his integrity shines through the story so that in the end, his choices ring true. Wells created a character I cared deeply about and then refused to cheapen him with a too-easy solution.

This is a long book, worthy of being savored, and sure to inspire readers to return to it for all the nuances we missed the first time.

Highly recommended.

 

Personal Statement Regarding Marion Zimmer Bradley and Sexual Abuse of Children

In light of the Epstein Files revelations, the charges against Rep. Swalwell, and my past association with Marion Zimmer Bradley:

I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault and adult rape. I stand unequivocally with my fellow survivors. I believe their stories, because mine is one of them. Overcoming the pain, self-blame, and paralyzing shame often requires time for those stories to come to light, but they are no less true. In my case, as for many others, survival meant shutting off my gut reactions to dangerous people and situations. What happened to me as a child was only the first incident, but it left a lingering conviction that I was never allowed to say NO. When I look back at my association with Marion Zimmer Bradley, which also involved contact with her ex-husband, the convicted pedophile Walter Breen, I knew on some level that the household was profoundly unhealthy. I wish I had been able to listen to my instincts and sever all contact when I realized what he was and that, although divorced, they remained close. I am horrified that Breen had any contact at all with my children. I assisted the police in their investigation of him that led to his incarceration, but that does not alter my responsibility.

I was overwhelmed by the revelations about Bradley herself.  It was not until later, when I grappled with my own history of assault and denial, that I was able to face the truth. I deeply regret that I did not come forward sooner or add my voice to those of other writers in condemning the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. I am doing so now.

The violation of children (and adults) – both by the perpetrators and those who enable them – is a betrayal of the most fundamental human trust, that of children for the adults who ought to care for them. Those like Bradley who know of such crimes and do not take action, or who participate by procuring children for pedophiles, are just as guilty because they could have stopped the abuse, they could have protected the innocent and spared them decades of nightmares, and they failed to do so.

If anything I have said or done in any way excuses Bradley or any other pedophile or pedophile enabler, I truly regret it, and I ask for your understanding.

 

Regarding my posthumous Darkover novel collaborations:

Under the auspices of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Literary Trust, I wrote nine Darkover novels. The writing is mine, but because she created Darkover, her name also appears on the cover. After the allegations came out, I fulfilled my existing publishing contracts. There will be no more Darkover novels written by me. The decision to reject works by an author who has done reprehensible things is a personal one. However, it was and remains my hope to make the Darkover series available to readers who loved it, written by someone other than Bradley.

Short Book Review: Penric and Desdemona Tackle Possessed Ox

The Adventure of the Demonic Ox, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Subterranean)

The Demonic Ox is yet another enchanting adventure featuring cleric-scholar Learned Penric and the centuries-old chaos demon, Desdemona, who has taken up residence in his mind. In past adventures, Des has given Pen supernatural powers of healing, perception, and strength, and she has a wicked (literally, since she is a demon) sense of humor, but her long existence through many hosts has made her extraordinarily powerful, a fact that Pen never forgets. Now Pen is summoned to investigate a different sort of demonic possession, the host being a valuable ox. Under the quite reasonable expectation that this will be a simple enough matter to resolve (is the ox actually possessed or crazed with a natural illness?), Pen brings along a small coterie of youngsters from his household. He expects the outing to be pleasant and instructive, but unfortunately, he is mistaken. A series of increasingly disastrous turns of events risks not only Pen’s life but those of his young charges.

Like previous adventures, Demonic Ox begins in a slow-paced manner, focusing on everyday family relationships. The sudden reversals spin the story at a breakneck pace, and the increasingly desperate conditions reveal new aspects of the central characters. Although Demonic Ox is not a good entrance point into the series, for established readers, it offers a richly rewarding journey.

I can hardly wait to read what happens next!

Short Book Review: The Return of You Sexy Thing

Devil's Gun, by Cat Rambo (Tor)

At the end of You Sexy Thing, the crew of the space yacht found themselves on the run from a vengeful pirate king. Not only that, but each of them is left grappling with wounds old and recent. The most poignant of these is Talon, a teenaged were-lion whose twin brother was killed by the pirate, and who can barely function alone. A captain grieves the loss of a love, her second-in-command can’t forget his lost daughter, a cloned princess searches for meaning in her life, and the ship itself tries to figure out emotions. Their next step involves transit through an intergalactic Gate, or so they hope. The Gates, created by the mysterious, vanished Forerunners, are supposed to be eternal, yet rumors abound of them dying. When a xenoarchaeologist claims to be able to fix the problem, the captain suspects a con. Nevertheless, the Gate opens as promised, taking them to the most dangerous place known, the corpse of a gigantic space moth, where they might be able to find the one weapon that can put an end to the pirate king.

Rambo’s writing is inventive, sympathetic, and full of vivid imagery. Best of all, her characters invite the reader into their lives and thoughts, weaving together a diverse crew bound by respect, affection, and suspicion. This novel, like the one before it, is a joy from one page to the next.

But wait, there’s more…

Recommended.