In a recent Opinion piece featured on Aljazeera America, Melissa Chadburn brings a new perspective into the conversation about trauma and resilience, specifically the potentially damaging impact the term can have on low-income communities. The ways in which individuals and communities cope with past experiences and protect themselves from future traumatic experiences looks differently around the world. How should a child, for example, who grew up in poverty and experienced intense food insecurity, act as an adult if they are resilient? Is their resilience demonstrated by their hard work in school, getting a “good job” and then providing a financially sound existence for themselves and their family? Or is it shown by their involvement in a local drug sale operation which provides the individual with enough money for a nice home and food on a regular basis? Chadburn says, that “the unspoken byproduct of cultivating resilience, in other words, is the expectation that individuals and communities function the way we think they should.” The infamous “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” motto is pervasive.
Chadburn states:
Public and privately funded projects that promote resiliency may mean well, but they are wrong to valorize the idea that we should remain unchanged, unmoved and unaffected by trauma. Because here’s what happens to me when I embrace it: I quiver with a fake sense of pride and accomplishment for withstanding rape, poverty, bureaucracy, the child welfare system, our sexist workforce and low wages — and coming out unscathed. Yet what I’m really doing is assuaging those in authority by saying, “I am not broken. I can take more.”
Having interned with Multiplying Connections now for about 6 months, I have spent a significant amount of time thinking and talking about trauma, ACEs and resilience. In our trainings, we want to foster hope in individuals and populations that if trauma does occur, it is not a linear process to completely negative outcomes; your destiny is not explicitly written. However, we are cognizant of the fact that trauma, in particular when it occurs in childhood, literally changes the functioning of an individuals’ brain. Their “ability to bounce back” becomes harder and harder, especially as the number of ACEs increases.
Taking all of this into consideration, it may be time to re-evaluate what the term “resilience” actually means: what it perpetuates, what it represents, and the ways in which it could be dis-empowering those we as providers are trying to help.
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