Rejecting Resilience - A Reflection / For Antoinette & Resilient Black Women

I've been reflecting on the idea of resilience for the last year and the hidden detriments within the practice of resilience. As defined by Psychology Today, resilience is the psychological quality that allows some people to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back at least as strong as before. This positive portrayal of resilience as popularized by Nietzsche's "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" quote often paints resilience as an effective tool in being able to navigate painful and challenging situations in order to . However, when resilience is practiced ineffectively or excessively, it can be a dangerous pathway to trauma.

It's not to say that resilience isn't an important skill to cultivate. Resilience has been the key to much of our survival as humans on this earth, from surviving the worst of atrocities such as slavery , war, and genocide to the more mundane challenges of everyday life. We need to "bounce back" after adversity in order to thrive and flourish as human beings. However, there are not endless bounds on the elasticity of our minds, spirits, and bodies. Resilience must be practiced alongside both temperance and prudence. Very rarely when we find ourselves in a challenging position where it seems that we must be resilient do we do the additional reflection to understand whether or not resilience is the correct course of action. We rarely pause to wonder: Should I even be practicing resilience right now? Have I been too resilient or had to practice resilience more than I should need to given this situation. We sometimes view obstacles, challenges with the tenacity of Sonic the Hedgehog going into his final boss fight. But, what if we didn't have to fight the boss?

There are situations where the regular practice of resilience may not be appropriate. Take a toxic family or romantic relationship. Often times, because we've grown in some ways used to managing and finding solutions to cope with the negative behavior patterns we experience, we forget that we don't need to be experiencing these things at all. We grow to adept or too skilled at managing pain that we don't often stop to think , do I need to even be experiencing these harmful behaviors at all? When we are too adept at navigating our pain or discomfort, our increased resilience gives us a false sense of security, allowing us to think we can withstand violent, abusive, uncomfortable situations with minimal harm to ourselves. When in reality, some of these situations we shouldn't be enduring to begin with. We think "I can do this. I can take this" and continue to engage with people and experiences that our sometimes unbeknownst to us extremely detrimental to our own physical, emotional, and phycological health. Thus, we must reject the notion of resilience that keeps us in unnecessary proximity to harm.

Sometimes retreat, not resilience, is the thing that enables our protection and survival. Imagine, you are living in a town that is in imminent danger of being destroyed by a nearby volcanic eruption. You have the option to stay and face a possible (near certain) death or you can pack your bags and find shelter in a neighboring town out of harm's way. For most of us, it would seem that the safest choice and most obvious choice here is to flee from the town facing destruction and seek refuge elsewhere. While the decision to retreat isn't always as obvious and the stakes don't always appear to be as high as it is in this example. We often find out only much later on how deeply damaging and traumatic certain situations were for us, only to wish we could've escaped them. When the trauma becomes too big or too much or too frequent, it can destabilize us and at its worse can lead to catastrophic and life-altering mental health issues , depression, anxiety, cPTSD, suicide. And so the point is to practice discernment so that we can identify if we can leave situations before they become dangerous to our own well-being. Because if we don't, we can unknowingly water the seeds of trauma by continuing to exist in spaces or engage in situations that are ultimately unsafe.

And thus, we need to learn to practice resilience with temperance and prudence. Before jumping to the thoughts like "I can do this. I can overcome this. I can manage this", perhaps it is helpful to ask ourselves more questions before deciding to take on or work through particular challenges. Is this an appropriate place to have to practice resilience or this quantity/frequency of of resilience? What patterns have I recognized and what do they tell me about the safety of this person/situation/environment? Would retreat be a safer option for me? Many times, we may have to still have to choose resilience. But combined with intentional discernment, we may be able to spare ourselves unnecessary harm and secure a safer route to self-actualization.

For Antoniette & Resilient Black Women :

Throughout this year, I thought much about my own relationship to resilience. Looking back at some of the harmful, destructive, and dehumanizing behavior, I found myself tapping in quite regularly to my resilience. In every instance though, before I could even practice discernment, I found myself rushing to the thought "I can handle this. I can get over this, get through this etc.". Part of this comes from my own schema and the false sense of invincibility I had having endured much bullying and abuse as a child. In situations where I didn't have the option to retreat, I had to be resilient to survive. I can't cry about what this bully said today, I have to see them in class again and I've got to study for tomorrow's Math test. I can't harp on the harmful things my caregiver said, I've got to go to rehearsals and perform with friends. But it would often come back to bite me in ways I didn't anticipate.

But the other part of this comes from my experience of life as a black woman. As a black woman, resilience is an almost daily practice when you are navigating a world in where the dual isms of sexism and racism are embedded in many spaces from family, to career, to romantic relationships. Historically, because our mistreatment and dehumanization is such a "normal" occurrence, we develop strategies that help us to be extremely proficient in thriving despite the frequency of these challenges. But these experiences can be so disruptive and destructive, that we internalize this idea that we must endure it, and in some sense "grin and bear it" in order to move on and strive for a sense of peace or work towards our goals. We rejoice in our strength and ability to overcome. But the physical and emotional cost of this strength can take unexpected toll us resulting in trauma that is deep and pervasive.

According to a study done by Boston University, amongst all women, black women are at the highest risk of suicide. In another study, psychological risk factors for suicide attempts for black women included : psychological distress , post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (hopelessness, and drug abuse, relationship discord ), physical partner abuse , nonphysical partner abuse, childhood maltreatment, and low levels of social support. And thus even resilience cannot guarantee our safety. Sometimes our reliance on our own resilience is what threatens us in the first place. In the past few weeks, our community has been shaken seeing prominent successful black women take their own lives, the most recent of these stories include that of Antoinette Bonnie Candia-Bailey'. While we can only know but so much of what she was going through we do know that Antoinette, alleged bullying and racism by the school's white male president. Like many members of the black community , I find myself mourning for her imagining the harm and mental damage she faced at the hands of this administrator. In the recently revealed emails from HR, we can see how she reached out to folks who simply were not able to hold this person accountable or provide Antoinette with assistance. And thus, she continued to endure a situation and exist in a space that was ultimately harmful for her.

Her death is a tragic reminder of an experience that is resonant for many black women, finding themselves without support, constantly having to practice resilience in order to survive situations and people perpetuating systems of oppression and furthering our mistreatment. But our resilience wears thin with overuse in enduring racial, gender-based, and general trauma. Retreat becomes our last option because too many of us wait for it to hurt too much as our sign to leave. I used to think like this. But even when it did hurt too much, this idea that I needed to be resilient kept me in proximity to people/experiences that were destructive and toxic and ultimately caused extreme harm to me. I say this to say, we don't need to always practice resilience; we need start practicing retreat. It is as equally necessary for our survival. We need to exist in spaces that are safe and leave ones that are harmful to us. So reach out to your community. Check in with your body. Reflect on your spaces. Find spaces where you do not need to continually practice resilience because you are overexposed to mistreatment.

With time, I've become more mindful of being in situations I'm in. I've learned to see them as they are, not what I would like them to be. I don't practice resilience in most if not any of my relationships regularly because the people in my life do not put me in situations where I need to be resilient. And finding that there were places where I could simply exist , without having to weather through mistreatment, cruelty, abuse etc., where I could exist safely has been liberating. This is my prayer for all women. This would be my prayer for Antoinette and all black women who've had to be too resilient for far too long.