Life Past the Development of Resilience

I am relishing your interest and curiosity Dr. NIcole.  As a child I was walking around with PTSD and my family was mystified by my behaviors. The dissociation was one of my troubling symptoms. It earned me the nickname "Cloud Nine" and "Scrambled Eggs" by my elementary school teachers. One time I got in trouble for writing a nasty letter to a pen pal, but I had no recollection of writing it.

Fortunately another nick name my teachers had for me was "Nature Boy" (many of my teachers lived together in the convent next door). I spent a great deal of my youth exploring the outdoors, catching frogs and snakes, clearing trails, later fishing, hunting and camping. So I was doing self nature therapy. I also had good enough parents and a great extended family. 

The thing that strikes me is that I was like your study participants which you said "none of the participants were able to sustain healthy adult relationships across the relational spectrum outlined in the study when they all reported feeling they had reached a level of resilience". Even though I had good attachment and resilience, the challenges of marriage were too much for the way my nervous system was affected by my earliest experiences.

Rich

Hello, Rich,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. I want to better understand if you are questioning your level of resilience. I believe I hear you saying as a child your skills help but as ou transitioned into adulthood you struggled.

To answer your query, Resilience and attachment are not the same things but are closely related when you tie attachment to external protective factors, which consist of connection outside of the adverse environment. A  child at the early stages of development will continue to try and build good bonds even when in a very poor environment because they do not know any different. The more they are not given the love and affection in return, the more they stop trying to offer love and run into attachment issues. Which then triggers a reason for the development of resilience. 

There are also those who build what are called trauma bonds and attach to an unhealthy situation because they find commonalities in those situations. In such a case, they have found an attachment but they are still struggling.  I looked briefly at attachment while conducting the research and one can become attached to individuals outside of the adverser environment and still struggle with the trauma which has occurred. Meaning they may find temporary fixes for a long term problem. Life after the development of resilience requires more than just external connections which are just a part of the process. one must also work on self to foster and maintain resilience.  I am not sure if I touched on what you were looking for. Please feel free to let me know if I missed the ballpark

Best Regards,

Hello, Robert, do you have to consider trans-generational impacts of trauma as what is know is tram is passed down. Almost every participant spoke of their abuser/s having experienced some form of abuse in their childhood. Now, this brings me to address many of the others who have posted with similar questions. The first actions when helping this population is treatment of the result of trauma. Living life past resilience requires practitioners to treat the trauma, not the results of trauma suns as behavior or as you mention PTDS.

Have you ever had someone say they feel a particular way but could not explain what that feeling was? They have been going through years of treatment and several diagnoses and still, nothing seems to pull the right side. There is a need to tap into the trauma. 80% of the participants stated they wised their therapist would have looked at more than just their behaviors and beyound their diagnosis. They said once the realization rose that they needed to address the event which caused the behaviors and diagnosis life began for them.  Resilience is not just making it through the trauma alive. There are many adults who have made it through their childhood but they are still reliving the trauma every day. 

In 2000, at a [then Dartmouth, now] Geisel Medical School 'Grand Rounds', an Epidemiologist presented: "52% of Detroit Metropolitan Area Schoolchildren met the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD." Similar numbers have subsequently been reported in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, and in June of 2018-at five charter schools in New Orleans. Might this be more than just an 'epidemic'-if we consider the 'trans-generational impacts' of 'trauma' ? ? ?

While my 'ACE score' varied from 4-6 [not using the WHO ACE I.Q.], my 'Resilience score' [on one 'Resilience screening tool'] was 10. 

Rich Featherly posted:

What I have heard about attachment is that the first year or two is the most important. Having a caregiver that is attuned to your needs at least 30% of the time, but not 100% is important. When I look at resilience questionnaires, they point to connections that exist throughout childhood, implying that poor attachment can be repaired. I guess what I am saying is that attachment and resilience seem to be the same thing or at least closely related.

In my own case, my traumas happened during and up to three months after being born and were perpetrated by the medical system. My resilience factors in childhood are high, but they didn't negate the habits that my nervous system developed at that early time. Until I learned to do EFT tapping on myself, I was very likely to go into a freeze state when in a conflict situation or even if someone with a little power over me looked at me a certain way. I have also had a few experiences where I make a mistake at my job and end up being fired when I had been otherwise getting good feedback on my work. The effects that my nervous system had on my marriage were the most unpleasant and are what got me interested in all this stuff.  The term PTSD didn't exist when I was a kid and, even now, kids can be walking around with symptoms of stress and no one around them realizes it is a traumatic stress disorder. Then they grow up into adults with various degrees of difficulty in life without a clue there's a physical/neurological cause for it.

Thanks Rich.  And I wholeheartedly agree. The amount of damage that can be repaired and insight that can be gathered using the somatic and limbic regulators of EFT/Tapping are dynamic and remarkable. I use this as the core of my work. : ) - Jondi

What I have heard about attachment is that the first year or two is the most important. Having a caregiver that is attuned to your needs at least 30% of the time, but not 100% is important. When I look at resilience questionnaires, they point to connections that exist throughout childhood, implying that poor attachment can be repaired. I guess what I am saying is that attachment and resilience seem to be the same thing or at least closely related.

In my own case, my traumas happened during and up to three months after being born and were perpetrated by the medical system. My resilience factors in childhood are high, but they didn't negate the habits that my nervous system developed at that early time. Until I learned to do EFT tapping on myself, I was very likely to go into a freeze state when in a conflict situation or even if someone with a little power over me looked at me a certain way. I have also had a few experiences where I make a mistake at my job and end up being fired when I had been otherwise getting good feedback on my work. The effects that my nervous system had on my marriage were the most unpleasant and are what got me interested in all this stuff.  The term PTSD didn't exist when I was a kid and, even now, kids can be walking around with symptoms of stress and no one around them realizes it is a traumatic stress disorder. Then they grow up into adults with various degrees of difficulty in life without a clue there's a physical/neurological cause for it.

Good morning Jondi, 

Yous said, "One of the things I have been pondering is the idea of resilience as an by-product of healthy attachment, coupled with the idea of heightening 'learned' resiliency by providing and modeling simple self-care self-regulation early in childhood, using a variety of safe 'role models,' from parent, teacher, sibling or group leaders." 

You are on the right track with your thought process. One of the most important aspects is addressing any issues in early childhood. Another is the assurance of proper connections. I am excited to hear when individuals who are connected to this population have ideas and solutions such as yours. I would be honored to speak with you and answer any questions which you may have. I hope I can take you off pause and you flourish in the important education you provide. Please feel free to reach out to me privately.

Best Regards 

I am very interested in this subject, and appreciate the thread. One of the things I have been pondering is the idea of resilience as an by-product of healthy attachment, coupled with the idea of heightening 'learned' resiliency by providing and modeling simple self-care self-regulation early in childhood, using a variety of safe 'role models,' from parent, teacher, sibling or group leaders.  Anyone have anything to help me on these two thoughts I am pursuing? (I teach emotional first-aid to tall for the small, among other things, and am hopeful I can be of help in this sector of our collective futures we're building together, here.) 

Hello Daun,

You may find the link below. Please enjoy and let me know if you have further questions.

Best,

https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/7017/

Hi Nicole,

I do not see the study here .  Is there a link ?

Daun

Hello Rich,

Thank you for your reply. Deffinalty, early studies on resilience found and/or believed resilience to be an innate part of humans who face adverse situations. I would agree to some level we all have to be slightly resilient to make it through adverse situations. However, most recent studies on resilience, have found a small percentage of individuals, specifically only 1to 5 percent become resilient when faced with CHM, only 10% say they feel no effects from exposure to CHM,  and a larger percentage of individuals who only reach a level of resilience once they reach adulthood due to entry into therapeutic service.  I found this to be true.

The other aspect is therapy, religion, and familial connections outside of the adverse environment are huge components of external protective factors, but another huge aspect is intrapersonal/Internal protective factors as well as the need for early interventions that focus on the experienced trauma which would foster resilience early on. In this case,  the issues with relationships have very little to do with isolating of self, but more to do with the ability to cope in adulthood using skills developed for adult adversities and not using protecting factors/coping mechanisms implemented while facing childhood adversities.

I would love to talk more about this with you as this is an important conversation to have.

Best Regards,

Thanks Nicole. My interest in your research spiked in the last paragraph. Humans are naturally resilient, that's why we are still here. Our adaptations get in the way of maintaining our society's less natural form of relationships where we tend to think isolated one on one relationships are normal.  If we rely on just one person to provide for too many of our universal needs and desires, our stress reactions (fight/flight or submit/freeze) get in the way of that happening. Sure, we can survive adverse experiences as a child, but we will be more reactive unless an effective therapy neutralizes those reactive tendencies.