What doesn’t kill us

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Short film
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Click on the image to watch the short film on the director’s page (YouTube video).
What Doesn’t Kill Us by Alexandra Mignien. Released on September 21, 2020.
Full text in French of the short film in PDF format: ce_qui_ne_nous_tue_pas_alexandra_mignien_2020.pdf A personal translation in PDF format: what_does_not_kill_us_alexandra_mignien_2020.pdf

Introduction▲

Why am I interested in resilience? Throughout my life, I have had to face tragedies and, in my opinion, I have managed to get through them as best I could. We can always question the nature of each drama, simple accident or serious trauma, and also the reality and the salutary degree of my reaction to these events with their impact on interpersonal relationships. This questioning is precisely the theme of Alexandra Mignien’s short film, hence my keen interest.

Furthermore, I note, a very objective observation it seems to me, that the concept of resilience is hard to grasp in social life: knowing how to behave with people in pain is not easy in our society. Lack of sensitivity, tact, skill. Not in the right proximity. Too much of this, not enough of that. It thus seems delicate to relate to people who have experienced trauma, for multiple reasons. But is the concept of resilience already well understood? Have I myself assimilated it well?

The short film therefore invites us to reflect on the concept of resilience and I decided to write an article about it. To begin, I transcribe the text of the short film. Several ideas on various subjects are expressed throughout the script. Then, I take up certain passages to discuss and share a point of view, contribute to personal reflection, provide elements to bounce back and feed the subject. To develop, share and mature one’s own reflection. Happy reading!

1. The script of the short film▲

Ce qui ne nous tue pas nous rend plus fort·e.
C'est faux.

Quand on survit à un accident de voiture, on n'en ressort pas plus fort·e. On en ressort souvent, cassé·e, blessé·e, amputé·e d'un membre, handicapé·e. Parfois, c'est réversible, et parfois, il faut se rééduquer pour espérer revenir au point de départ d'avant l'accident.

Alors pourquoi ce serait différent pour les blessures psychologiques ?

Ce qui ne nous tue pas nous rend fragile, nous détruit, nous change complètement. Nous fait perdre du temps, de l'énergie, souvent des amis. Nous prive de plusieurs années de bonheur parce qu'on est trop occupé·e à se reconstruire pour avancer.

Et parfois, ce qui ne nous tue pas nous laisse exactement comme avant. Parce que si c'est dans ta personnalité d'encaisser les chocs plus facilement qu'un·e autre, personne n'a le droit de te culpabiliser de ne pas être impacté·e.

Et quand on survit à ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es, on ne devient pas un·e survivant·e. On n'a pas gagné de super-pouvoirs, on n'a pas acquis la sagesse des ancien·nes. On confond souvent la sagesse avec la maturité et on confond parfois la maturité avec le fait d'avoir perdu une part de son innocence et de sa naïveté. Et c'est souvent ça que les gens qui se reconstruisent doivent apprendre à retrouver : la légèreté. Parce que tout est devenu plus grave, même l'air semble plus lourd. Souvent, on ne retrouve pas vraiment la légèreté. On apprend juste à vivre avec une pesanteur différente. Et quand on arrive à s'habituer à cette nouvelle lourdeur de l'air, qu'on apprend à respirer différemment, à se mouvoir différemment dans l'espace pour retrouver le contrôle de notre corps, quand on y arrive, les gens nous félicitent. On nous applaudit pour notre résilience.

La résilience, c'est physique. C'est l'aptitude d'un corps à résister à un choc. Mais quand ça s'applique aux sciences humaines, ça signifie :

"La capacité à vivre et à se développer positivement, de manière socialement acceptable, en dépit du stress ou d'une adversité comportant normalement le risque d'une issue négative."

Socialement acceptable. Il est là le problème.

Parce que dans la plupart des cas, ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es au départ finit quand même par nous tuer, bien plus lentement. Mais si tu arrives à t'en sortir et qu'en plus de ça, tu arrives à le faire sans faire chier trop de monde avec tes problèmes, alors tu obtiens le badge de la résilience. Félicitations. Tu deviens une sorte de saint ou de sainte qu'il faut respecter parce que tu as tant vécu. 

Et on te prête des dons communs à toutes les victimes de ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es. Par exemple, ça te transforme automatiquement en artiste talentueux·se. Parce qui connaît mieux le monde que celui ou celle qui a souffert ? C'est le point de départ de toutes les grandes histoires épiques. Si tu as envie de peindre en rouge, on va te dire que c'est la représentation de tes traumas, de ta psyché. Mais parfois le rouge, c'est juste du rouge. Quelle horrible pression à se mettre que de devoir trouver de la beauté dans ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es quand parfois il n'y en a pas. Il y en a ailleurs, mais pas là.

Et parfois avoir souffert, ça ne nous donne pas du talent. Ça nous en prive au contraire. Parce que tout est plus difficile. Même se lever le matin, ça devient compliqué. Alors, écrire un livre ou composer une chanson, c'est de l'ordre de l'impossible. Et heureusement qu'il ne faut pas forcément avoir souffert pour avoir du talent. Qu'il ne faut pas forcément être alcoolique et mourir à 27 ans pour être une rockstar. Sinon, la totalité des œuvres de ce monde serait bien sombre.

Dans la vie, si tu sors de la norme physiquement ou mentalement, on estime avoir le droit de te juger. Tu es trop grosse, trop maigre, trop triste, trop enjoué·e. Et si tu expliques que ta différence est due à quelque chose qui ne t'a pas tué·e. Oui, je suis trop grosse, parce que je suis devenue boulimique suite à mon viol. J'ai des scarifications, parce que c'était le moyen de survivre quand mon père me frappait étant enfant. Je suis trop enjoué·e, parce que ça me permet de cacher la dépression dont je souffre depuis 10 ans. Alors les gens s'excusent de t'avoir jugé·e trop hâtivement. Leurs expressions changent. Iels sont sincèrement désolé·es pour toi. C'est ce qu'on appelle la pitié. Et ça te donne automatiquement droit à une carte libéré·e de prison que tu peux utiliser ou non quand bon te semble.

Et parfois, on n'a pas le choix.

Mais iels font comment les gens qui n'ont pas la chance d'avoir une excuse validée par la street. La fétichisation des malheurs et des traumatismes, c'est compliqué, parce que d'un côté, on fascine les gens qui n'en ont pas vécu. Oui, parce que ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es nous a rendu·es plus fort·es mais elleux, jamais rien n'a essayé de les tuer. Donc iels n'ont jamais eu la chance de devenir plus fort·es.

Et d'un autre côté, va essayer de construire une relation amicale ou amoureuse avec des bagages traumatiques. Sur le papier, c'est excitant, mais une fois passé le charme de vivre avec une personne brisée, il ne reste souvent qu'une personne plus difficile à supporter que la normale. Ça fait fuir beaucoup plus de gens qu'on veut bien le croire.

Donc non seulement ce qui ne t'a pas tué·e ne t'a pas rendu·e plus fort·e mais, en plus, ça t'a rendu·e plus seul·e. Et la solitude, il faut arriver à la gérer aussi. Pas la solitude physique, la solitude mentale. Celle qui te fait te dire que personne sur cette Terre ne peut comprendre ce que tu as vécu au moment où tu l'as vécu. 

Et que même si tu t'en es sorti·e, tu ne seras plus jamais tout à fait sur le même plan d'existence que les autres.
C'est faux aussi.

Mais c'est difficile de relativiser ça quand le monde entier essaye de te faire croire que tes blessures t'ont donné accès à une élévation spirituelle. Donc non. Quand je suis perdue, le regard dans le vide, ce n'est pas forcément du stress posttraumatique. Ce n'est pas non plus parce que je pense à la vacuité de l'existence ou à la poésie de l'obsolescence. Souvent je ne pense à rien. Ou alors j'ai faim. Ou alors je pense à la robe que j'ai vue en magasin ou à la chanson que j'ai dans la tête depuis 15 jours. Parce que je suis normal·e, ni plus ni moins exceptionnel·le. Même si c'est facile de se complaire dans le rôle que la société trouve acceptable de nous donner.

Ce qui ne nous tue pas ne nous rend pas plus fort·e. Mais une chose est sûre. Ce qui ne nous tue pas ne nous définit pas.

Now, I share below my personal translation of the script.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
That's wrong.

When you survive a car accident, you don't come out stronger. You often come out broken, injured, with a limb amputated, disabled. Sometimes it's reversible, and sometimes you have to rehabilitate yourself to hope to get back to where you were before the accident.

So why would it be different for psychological injuries?

What doesn't kill us makes us fragile, destroys us, changes us completely. Makes us waste time, energy, often friends. Deprives us of several years of happiness because we are too busy rebuilding ourselves to move forward.

And sometimes, what doesn't kill us leaves us exactly as before. Because if it's in your personality to absorb shocks more easily than someone else, no one has the right to make you feel guilty for not being impacted.

And when you survive what didn't kill you, you don't become a survivor. You haven't gained superpowers, you haven't acquired the wisdom of the ancients. We often confuse wisdom with maturity, and we sometimes confuse maturity with having lost part of our innocence and naivety. And that's often what people who are rebuilding themselves must learn to find again: lightness. Because everything has become more serious, even the air seems heavier. Often, we don't really find lightness again. We just learn to live with a different gravity. And when we manage to get used to this new heaviness of the air, we learn to breathe differently, to move differently in space to regain control of our body, when we get there, people congratulate us. They applaud us for our resilience.

Resilience is physical. It is the ability of a body to withstand shock. But when it applies to the humanities, it means: 

"The ability to live and develop positively, in a socially acceptable manner, despite stress or adversity that normally carries the risk of a negative outcome."

Socially acceptable. Therein lies the problem.

Because in most cases, what didn't kill us in the first place still ends up killing us, just a lot more slowly. But if you can get through it and, on top of that, you can do it without annoying too many people with your problems, then you get the badge of resilience. Congratulations. You become a kind of saint who must be respected because you've been through so much.

And you are given common gifts to all victims of what didn't kill us. For example, it automatically transforms you into a talented artist. Because who knows the world better than someone who has suffered? This is the starting point of all great epic stories. If you want to paint in red, we will tell you that it is the representation of your traumas, of your psyche. But sometimes red is just red. What a horrible pressure to put on yourself to have to find beauty in what didn't kill you when sometimes there isn't any. There are some elsewhere, but not there.

And sometimes having suffered doesn't give us talent. On the contrary, it deprives us of it. Because everything is more difficult. Even getting up in the morning becomes complicated. So, writing a book or composing a song is almost impossible. And fortunately, you don't necessarily have to have suffered to have talent. You don't necessarily have to be an alcoholic and die at 27 to be a rock star. Otherwise, all the works of this world would be very dark.

In life, if you deviate from the norm physically or mentally, people feel they have the right to judge you. You're too fat, too skinny, too sad, too cheerful. And if you explain that your difference is due to something that didn't kill you. Yes, I'm too fat, because I became bulimic after my rape. I have self-harm, because it was a way to survive when my father beat me as a child. I'm too cheerful, because it allows me to hide the depression I've suffered from for 10 years. Then people apologize for judging you too quickly. Their expressions change. They are sincerely sorry for you. This is called pity. And it automatically gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card that you can use or not whenever you want.

And sometimes you don't have a choice.

But what do people who aren't lucky enough to have an excuse validated by the street do? The fetishization of misfortunes and traumas is complicated, because on the one hand, we fascinate people who haven't experienced it. Yes, because what didn't kill us made us stronger, but nothing ever tried to kill them. So they never had the chance to become stronger.

And on the other hand, will try to build a friendship or romantic relationship with traumatic baggage. On paper, it's exciting, but once the charm of living with a broken person wears off, what's left is often a person who is harder to bear than normal. This scares off a lot more people than you'd like to believe.

So not only did what didn't kill you not make you stronger, but it also made you more alone. And loneliness, you have to manage it too. Not physical loneliness, mental loneliness. The one that makes you think that no one on this Earth can understand what you experienced at the time you experienced it.

And that even if you got through it, you will never be on the same plane of existence as everyone else again. That's also wrong. But it's hard to put that into perspective when the whole world is trying to make you believe that your injuries have given you access to spiritual elevation. So no. When I'm lost, staring into space, it's not necessarily post-traumatic stress. Nor is it because I'm thinking about the emptiness of existence or the poetry of obsolescence. Often I don't think about anything. Or I'm hungry. Or I think about the dress I saw in the store or the song I've had stuck in my head for the past 15 days. Because I'm normal, no more or less exceptional. Even if it's easy to wallow in the role that society finds acceptable to give us.

What doesn't kill us doesn't make us stronger. But one thing is for sure. What doesn't kill us doesn't define us.

2. A potentially destructive, even deadly trauma▲

Ce qui ne nous tue pas nous rend fragile, nous détruit, nous change complètement. Nous fais perdre du temps, de l’énergie, souvent des amis. Nous prive de plusieurs années de bonheur parce qu’on est trop occupé·e à se reconstruire pour avancer.
 

A personal translation:

What doesn’t kill us makes us fragile, destroys us, changes us completely. Makes us waste time, energy, often friends. Deprives us of several years of happiness because we are too busy rebuilding ourselves to move forward.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

A trauma is a significant event with very often heavy impacts on the well-being and health of a person. Moreover, we note a before and after this event, on the contrary, a trivial, insignificant fact that we ignore de facto. To illustrate: like a natural disaster, an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, and not a downpour or a wind of lesser importance, but in the life of a person.

So, be able to resume the course of life as if nothing significant had happened is normally of the order of the impossible. Understand the adverb normally as something that is objectively measurable in our society. Otherwise, the word trauma itself would not exist, it would be a ghost word in the dictionary. We could also put all dramas on the same level with the same degree of impact and repercussions and of course it is just wrong, absurd and even unworthy, inhuman.

To express the importance of considering trauma, drama, and grief in a person’s life, I share a French excerpt from the book Le passager by the writer Jean-Christophe Grangé, which supports the director’s comments:

Tout ce qui ne me tue pas me rend plus fort. C’était une connerie… Du moins dans son acception banale et contemporaine. Au quotidien, la souffrance n’endurcit pas. Elle use. Fragilise. Affaiblit. L’âme humaine n’est pas un cuir qui se tanne avec les épreuves. C’est une membrane sensible, vibrante, délicate. En cas de choc, elle reste meurtrie, marquée, hantée.
 

A personal translation:

Anything that doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. It was bullshit… At least in its banal and contemporary sense. In everyday life, suffering doesn’t harden. It wears you down. It weakens you. The human soul isn’t leather that tans with trials. It’s a sensitive, vibrant, delicate membrane. In the event of a shock, it remains bruised, marked, haunted.

Jean-Christophe Grangé, Le passager, 1er septembre 2011.

But our reactions as human beings are not at all the same and are so circumstantial that the responses to a trauma range from an unscathed exit to death. Note that the unscathed exit in no way takes away from the reality of the traumatic event, which the context, the circumstances make unique, “specific to this reality because it is this one”, and death can be instantaneous or gradual. The existence of these differences in reaction to adversity is the subject of the next paragraph.

3. Inequalities in behavior▲

The consequences of trauma on a person vary considerably according to the context and due to a multitude of resilience factors which will allow healing or not: they are unequal and unfair.

3.1. Resilience is unfair▲

Another reaction that can happen when faced with trauma is to continue as before. Because we are not equal when faced with life’s challenges. The way we build ourselves is unique to us and the way we resist a shock is also unique. We can therefore note major behavioral differences when faced with similar psychological injuries: from unharmed to dead. In the same way that in physical sciences, a resistor in electronics lets more or less current pass depending on its characteristic or that a material resists more or less a shock depending on its nature (steel, glass, cardboard, etc.). It’s hard to accept, it’s unfair but it’s reality. The director reminds us with these words:

Et parfois, ce qui ne nous tue pas nous laisse exactement comme avant. Parce que si c’est dans ta personnalité d’encaisser les chocs plus facilement qu’un·e autre, personne n’a le droit de te culpabiliser de ne pas être impacté·e.
 

A personal translation:

And sometimes, what doesn’t kill us leaves us exactly as before. Because if it’s in your personality to absorb shocks more easily than someone else, no one has the right to make you feel guilty for not being impacted.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

It is not because some people can easily overcome a cataclysm that it is possible for everyone. The ability to absorb shocks, to resist dramas is absolutely not equal. And then it is not because we can do it once for a type of trauma that it guarantees success for the next time or for another type of trauma.

3.2. Don’t feel guilty▲

To get through it or not to get through it? In any case: don’t feel guilty. Why was I able to heal and not others? Why can’t I heal even though I try with all my might? It’s terrible, it’s cruel, but the way out depends on many parameters, some of which are inaccessible, and so willpower is not enough. Maybe willpower is necessary, I personally doubt it, but willpower is certainly not enough. In fact, we don’t have much control over what makes it possible to “knit together your resilience” without it is meaning that there is no point in doing anything about it. Only the efforts to get through it do not necessarily lead to a complete cure, but they are not in vain: they can lead to living in another state differently. I rewrite it: living in another state differently. Perhaps less well, or unfortunately in a state of more or less bearable suffering, or against all expectations much better, better than if the trauma had not occurred or also… none of that, just another state more or less satisfactory depending on the context of life.

3.3. Societal consequences▲

Among the major consequences of these inequalities in behavior to deal with trauma, we can note: societal misunderstanding of trauma, victim blaming, difficulty in caring for the person in pain, minimization of what the victim is experiencing, denial of the intensity of pain and suffering, non-recognition of being a victim, among others. With of course major repercussions on living together.

4. Shades of weight▲

4.1. Beware of confusion▲

In understanding resilience, words and concepts need to be nuanced. Among them: wisdom, maturity, loss of innocence and naivety. Beware of preconceived ideas.

Et quand on survit à ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es, on ne devient pas un·e survivant·e. On n’a pas gagné de super-pouvoirs, on n’a pas acquis la sagesse des ancien·nes. On confond souvent la sagesse avec la maturité et on confond parfois la maturité avec le fait d’avoir perdu une part de son innocence et de sa naïveté. Et c’est souvent ça que les gens qui se reconstruisent doivent apprendre à retrouver : la légèreté.
 

A personal translation:

And when you survive what didn’t kill you, you don’t become a survivor. You haven’t gained superpowers, you haven’t acquired the wisdom of the ancients. We often confuse wisdom with maturity, and we sometimes confuse maturity with having lost part of our innocence and naivety. And that’s often what people who are rebuilding themselves must learn to find again: lightness.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

Overcoming trauma is an ordeal that is often difficult to live with. We can also lose lightness. The feeling, the relationship to the weight of life seems to be a significant parameter: depending on the perception of the weight of life, we can evolve, progress or on the contrary stop or be slowed down. Could it therefore be a factor that acts as a driving force or a brake in resilience? Like the driving force of the theory of evolution, to be able to adapt as best as possible to the environment, to what surrounds us? Because it is the essence of life?

4.2. Where is the merit?▲

5. Definitions of resilience▲

5.1. Definition of resilience according to the director▲

The director draws attention to the expression “socially acceptable”, believing that this is precisely a major pitfall for the society in which we live. As if there seemed to be a constraint, a social condition on how to get out of it, as if society had a say, a right to review the behavior of the victim while the latter is undergoing a trauma that is terribly harmful to his or her entire being. This right to review can thus cause havoc and hurt more than the trauma itself. And so, resilience can be achieved without it being ethical. Indeed, when a person is pushed to their limits and their life is in danger, the conditions for survival can become restricted and then lead to asocial, immoral behaviors that are vital for the person.

5.2. Definitions of resilience from dictionaries and encyclopedias▲

(psychology, neuroscience) The mental ability to recover quickly from depression, illness or misfortune.

Wiktionary, the free dictionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/resilience

Psychological resilience is the ability to cope mentally and emotionally with a crisis, or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.

The term was popularized in the 1970s and 1980s by psychologist Emmy Werner as she conducted a forty-year-long study of a cohort of Hawaiian children who came from low socioeconomic status backgrounds.

Numerous factors influence a person’s level of resilience. Internal factors include personal characteristics such as self-esteem, self-regulation, and a positive outlook on life. External factors include social support systems, including relationships with family, friends, and community, as well as access to resources and opportunities.

People can leverage psychological interventions and other strategies to enhance their resilience and better cope with adversity. These include cognitive-behavioral techniques, mindfulness practices, building psychosocial factors, fostering positive emotions, and promoting self-compassion.

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_resilience

Au fig., rare. Force morale; qualité de quelqu’un qui ne se décourage pas, ne se laisse pas abattre. Dans ce deuil, une fois encore, elle étonna ses amis par son immédiate résilience (Maurois, Lélia, 1952, p. 469 ds Quem. DDL t. 22).
 

A personal translation:

In the fig., rare. Moral strength; quality of someone who does not get discouraged, does not let themselves be defeated. In this mourning, once again, she astonished her friends by her immediate resilience (Maurois, Lélia, 1952, p. 469 in Quem. DDL t. 22).

Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (French National Center for Textual and Lexical Resources)
https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/résilience

5.3. Definitions of resilience in social psychology▲

5.3.1. In a French movie entitled Boris Cyrulnik, à l’assaut du malheur▲

Boris Cyrulnik is a psychiatrist. He popularized in France the concept of resilience, created by Emmy Werner, an American developmental psychologist. To learn more about this concept, I watched a documentary discovered at the local media library: Boris Cyrulnik, à l’assaut du malheur, which I later found a link on YouTube. At the beginning of the film, the psychiatrist gives his personal definition of resilience; I share it with you below because his words, which I took directly from the film, are worth knowing:

En travaillant avec les enfants traumatisés, ils m’expliquaient comment ils se débattaient au quotidien, et très souvent, c’est eux qui employaient la métaphore : ‘On m’a jeté dans un torrent et je me débats comme je peux’. Quelqu’un qui est poussé dans un torrent par un accident de la vie, il ne peut s’en sortir que s’il apprend à naviguer dans ces torrents. Il ne peut s’en sortir que s’il est habile à mettre la main pour éviter un caillou, passer sous un tronc d’arbre, se laisser tomber dans un trou d’eau, et s’il arrive à ce moment-là à naviguer quand même, il arrivera un jour à la navigation tranquille.
 

A personal translation:

When working with traumatized children, they explained to me how they struggled on a daily basis, and very often, it was they who used the metaphor: ‘I was thrown into a torrent and I struggle as best I can’. Someone who is pushed into a torrent by an accident of life, he can only get out if he learns to navigate in these torrents. He can only get out if he is skilled at putting his hand out to avoid a stone, going under a tree trunk, letting himself fall into a hole of water, and if he manages to navigate at that moment anyway, he will one day arrive at peaceful navigation.

La définition de la résilience la plus simple : “c’est comment reprendre un nouveau développement après une agonie psychique ; on reçoit un trauma ; on est hébété, on est mort psychiquement, comment faire pour revenir à la vie et quelles sont les conditions du retour à la vie.”.
 

A personal translation:

The simplest definition of resilience: “it is how to resume a new development after a psychic agony; we receive a trauma; we are dazed, we are psychically dead, how to come back to life and what are the conditions for returning to life.”.

Boris Cyrulnik, à l’assaut du malheur, movie directed by Youki Vattier, July 22, 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ohv_UNFbs

5.3.2. In a social psychology class▲

To shed light on the notion of resilience, I am writing two definitions from the courses given by Françoise Mariotti, doctor in social psychology and also a teacher:

La résilience constitue un phénomène psychologique qui consiste, pour quelqu’un touché par un traumatisme, à prendre acte de son traumatisme pour ne plus vivre dans la dépression que ce traumatisme peut causer. C’est ‘vivre avec’, dans le sens où cela fait partie de la vie de la personne, ne la diminue pas mais au contraire lui permet de revivre et de reprendre un développement stoppé par le traumatisme.
 

A personal translation:

Resilience is a psychological phenomenon that consists, for someone affected by trauma, of acknowledging their trauma in order to no longer live in the depression that this trauma can cause. It is ‘living with it’, in the sense that it is part of the person’s life, does not diminish it but on the contrary allows them to relive and resume a development stopped by the trauma.

Françoise Mariotti, psychosociologist, doctor in social psychology and teacher
http://www.mariottipsy.com/

La résilience peut aussi se définir d’une part comme la capacité pour un sujet confronté à des stress importants au cours de son existence de résister à l’adversité grâce à la possibilité de mettre en jeu des mécanismes adaptatifs, et d’autre part comme l’aptitude à transformer une expérience personnelle douloureuse en dynamique permettant d’ouvrir de nouveaux horizons, de construire et de reconstruire. La résilience implique donc une capacité d’aller de l’avant.
 

A personal translation:

Resilience can also be defined on the one hand as the ability of a subject confronted with significant stress during his or her life to resist adversity thanks to the possibility of putting adaptive mechanisms into play, and on the other hand as the ability to transform a painful personal experience into dynamics allowing new horizons to be opened, to build and to rebuild. Resilience therefore implies an ability to move forward.

Françoise Mariotti, psychosociologist, doctor in social psychology and teacher
http://www.mariottipsy.com/

5.4. My personal view on the factors enabling resilience▲

5.4.1. Not everyone can become resilient▲

There should be no contempt or pretension in what I say. Quite the opposite. It would be disrespectful to all sick and suffering people to suggest that they can get through it by following a miracle recipe to the letter or by respecting a strict health protocol.

5.4.2. A broad spectrum of trauma response: from no harm to death▲

But then when an accident occurs with a bang in one’s life, is it prohibitive? Is the trauma fatal? What can be done? What degrees of freedom in actions for people suffering from trauma? I try to formulate some answers. In fact, I think that trauma acts on the degrees of freedom of the victim, which can range from no severe impact to different serious handicaps, its harmful action can even lead to death more or less quickly. In my opinion, the event thus induces more or less on the freedom of action of the person and, depending on the circumstances, adaptability can or cannot be done, or more or less well, and one property of this adaptability is contingency. Like life itself in fact.

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This is why it is so difficult to develop an effective care protocol for victims. Chance has allowed the emergence of life but it can also kill. This adaptability is to be linked to the notions of energy and structure, for a report heavy with consequences. What is it?

I hypothesize that a person’s healing from trauma and even human behavior in general depends on the ability to build and evolve within a given structure in a contingent context with the energy adequate for one’s development.

Sonia Kanclerski, Pause-café chez Sonia, What Doesn’t Kill Us article, 2024.

5.4.3. A Being to Rebuild: The Power of Personal Harmony▲

What am I writing here? In fact, to survive a tragedy, a crash in life, I note that you have to be able to be in harmony with yourself, that is to say be in resonance frequency with your being. For a system, the resonance frequency is the frequency that guarantees the optimal use of energy. Let us sadly note the use of the injunction because I am writing a necessary condition that also happens to be sufficient. For resilience, we can also note that it is very difficult to achieve this harmony because of the fragility of the process that allows it. But this story of optimizing energy, of harmony also constitutes a great hope: we can continue to develop even if the development is not optimal. Doing what we are able to do is already considerable and admirable.

6. Resilience, a heavy label because it is inappropriate?▲

6.1. A badge in the name of resilience▲

Parce que dans la plupart des cas, ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es au départ finit quand même par nous tuer, bien plus lentement. Mais si tu arrives à t’en sortir et qu’en plus de ça, tu arrives à le faire sans faire chier trop de monde avec tes problèmes, alors tu obtiens le badge de la résilience. Félicitations. Tu deviens une sorte de saint ou de sainte qu’il faut respecter parce que tu as tant vécu.
 

A personal translation:

Because in most cases, what didn’t kill us in the first place still ends up killing us, just a lot more slowly. But if you can get through it and, on top of that, you can do it without annoying too many people with your problems, then you get the badge of resilience. Congratulations. You become a kind of saint who must be respected because you’ve been through so much.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

When you survive a traumatic event, the circumstances and the person you are in the psychosocial framework in which you live have made it possible for resilience to occur, but there is nothing to be gained from it. A trophy for survival? A medal of merit? And for people for whom resilience was impossible, do they have a post-mortem decoration? And so: just be able to live in a state where you feel alive and not just surviving.

6.2. Suffering that brings out talent?▲

Et on te prête des dons communs à toutes les victimes de ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es. Par exemple, ça te transforme automatiquement en artiste talentueux·se. Parce qui connaît mieux le monde que celui ou celle qui a souffert ?
 

A personal translation:

And you are given common gifts to all victims of what didn’t kill us. For example, it automatically transforms you into a talented artist. Because who knows the world better than someone who has suffered?

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

Drawing on the resources deep within oneself to survive is no guarantee that talent or a particular gift will emerge. It is possible but in no way automatic. If the necessary and sufficient conditions are not met, then talent will not manifest itself. Suffering is not a magic wand that makes genius and inspiration spring forth ex nihilo.

6.3. A symbolic projection that poses a problem▲

Mais parfois le rouge, c’est juste du rouge. Quelle horrible pression à se mettre que de devoir trouver de la beauté dans ce qui ne nous a pas tué·es quand parfois il n’y en a pas.
 

A personal translation:

But sometimes red is just red. What a horrible pressure to put on yourself to have to find beauty in what didn’t kill you when sometimes there isn’t any.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

Trauma and its causes and repercussions should not be overinterpreted. Pain is what it is. Trying to make it talk, interrogate it, extort symbols from it is absolutely unnecessary and can even be harmful. If there is nothing to be gained from it, then accept the traumatic event itself and its lack of meaning in your life.

6.4. The suffering that prevents life▲

Et parfois avoir souffert, ça ne nous donne pas du talent. Ça nous en prive au contraire. Parce que tout est plus difficile.
 

A personal translation:

And sometimes having suffered doesn’t give us talent. On the contrary, it deprives us of it. Because everything is more difficult.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

A trauma that causes physical and/or psychological suffering objectively constitutes a barrier to personal development. Be able to resume one’s life, rebuild oneself and even get up in the morning can represent a challenge in itself. Suffering makes it difficult to live peacefully or even just to live, so be able to express any talent is an exploit, an exception in the strict sense.

6.5. An apology or pity▲

6.5.1. A question of social responsibility▲

Dans la vie, si tu sors de la norme physiquement ou mentalement, on estime avoir le droit de te juger. […] Alors les gens s’excusent de t’avoir jugé·e trop hâtivement. Leurs expressions changent. Iels sont sincèrement désolé·es pour toi. C’est ce qu’on appelle la pitié. Et ça te donne automatiquement droit à une carte libéré·e de prison que tu peux utiliser ou non quand bon te semble.
 

A personal translation:

In life, if you deviate from the norm physically or mentally, people feel they have the right to judge you. […] Then people apologize for judging you too quickly. Their expressions change. They are sincerely sorry for you. This is called pity. And it automatically gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card that you can use or not whenever you want.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

Resilience should not be used as an excuse, an alibi for the actions of the resilient person; that would be unfair and a lack of respect towards them and all victims, resilient or not. Surviving or triumphing over trauma does not give any rights, should not give rise to any privilege, any immunity. While it is rejoicing that a traumatized person was able to get through it, it is irresponsible and distressing to give them carte blanche for this reason.

6.5.2. Does resilience have value?▲

Mais iels font comment les gens qui n’ont pas la chance d’avoir une excuse validée par la street. La fétichisation des malheurs et des traumatismes, c’est compliqué […]
 

A personal translation:

But what do people who aren’t lucky enough to have an excuse validated by the street do? The fetishization of misfortunes and traumas is complicated. […]

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

Resilient people don’t need to be crowned with a halo. The fetishization of misfortunes and traumas denounced by the director says a lot about the relationship to success, victory, and personal accomplishment in our Western societies. The question therefore arises: what is the value of resilience? Why shouldn’t everyone deserve a trophy, a reward? Isn’t living in our societies a success in itself? No merit or medal because we don’t have a “good” excuse or “something to show for it”? Is resilience one of them? No. In my opinion, it should be no. Resilience should not constitute a sociological label, an identity badge, an immunity card.

6.6. A definite obstacle in interpersonal relationships▲

6.6.1. A brake in the relationship with others▲

va essayer de construire une relation amicale ou amoureuse avec des bagages traumatiques. Sur le papier, c’est excitant, mais une fois passé le charme de vivre avec une personne brisée, il ne reste souvent qu’une personne plus difficile à supporter que la normale. Ça fait fuir beaucoup plus de gens qu’on veut bien le croire.
 

A personal translation:

will try to build a friendship or romantic relationship with traumatic baggage. On paper, it’s exciting, but once the charm of living with a broken person wears off, what’s left is often a person who is harder to bear than normal. This scares off a lot more people than you’d like to believe.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

This is why a resilient person should not feel guilty for having gotten away with it and it is also highly inappropriate to make a victim feel guilty because, as a reminder, resilience factors are not controllable. It can be difficult for this person to act, even if it may seem simple, trivial, accessible to own eyes. Even by helping or showing empathy towards the person. So, this impacts or not, strongly or not, interpersonal relationships, from the closest people to the most distant.

6.6.2. Be able to experience solitudes▲

Donc non seulement ce qui ne t’a pas tué·e ne t’a pas rendu·e plus fort·e mais, en plus, ça t’a rendu·e plus seul·e. Et la solitude, il faut arriver à la gérer aussi. Pas la solitude physique, la solitude mentale. Celle qui te fait te dire que personne sur cette Terre ne peut comprendre ce que tu as vécu au moment où tu l’as vécu.
 

A personal translation:

So not only did what didn’t kill you not make you stronger, but it also made you more alone. And loneliness, you have to manage it too. Not physical loneliness, mental loneliness. The one that makes you think that no one on this Earth can understand what you experienced at the time you experienced it.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

The occurrence of a traumatic event can thus isolate. The victim being so affected or undergoing an alienating moment to live that the loved ones can become distant or the victim prefers to take some distance. This solitude can be something that can be disconcerting to understand, to live, to accept. Like another mourning for a double punishment.

6.7. A spiritual elevation, really?▲

Et que même si tu t’en es sorti·e, tu ne seras plus jamais tout à fait sur le même plan d’existence que les autres. C’est faux aussi. Mais c’est difficile de relativiser ça quand le monde entier essaye de te faire croire que tes blessures t’ont donné accès à une élévation spirituelle. Donc non. Quand je suis perdue, le regard dans le vide, ce n’est pas forcément du stress posttraumatique. Ce n’est pas non plus parce que je pense à la vacuité de l’existence ou à la poésie de l’obsolescence. Souvent je ne pense à rien. Ou alors j’ai faim. Ou alors je pense à la robe que j’ai vue en magasin ou à la chanson que j’ai dans la tête depuis 15 jours. Parce que je suis normal·e, ni plus ni moins exceptionnel·le. Même si c’est facile de se complaire dans le rôle que la société trouve acceptable de nous donner.
 

A personal translation:

And that even if you got through it, you will never be on the same plane of existence as everyone else again. That’s also wrong. But it’s hard to put that into perspective when the whole world is trying to make you believe that your injuries have given you access to spiritual elevation. So no. When I’m lost, staring into space, it’s not necessarily post-traumatic stress. Nor is it because I’m thinking about the emptiness of existence or the poetry of obsolescence. Often I don’t think about anything. Or I’m hungry. Or I think about the dress I saw in the store or the song I’ve had stuck in my head for the past 15 days. Because I’m normal, no more or less exceptional. Even if it’s easy to wallow in the role that society finds acceptable to give us.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

Resilience does not necessarily lead to a “transcendental” spiritual state for the resilient person or to a change in their psyche: thus, if a resilient person is in the clouds, they are very often just in the clouds. Why consider anything else? On what basis? Furthermore, we do not have to feel obliged to honor the resilient person for what they have managed to accomplish. We can but we must not. The nuances are important. This is debatable of course, but misplaced consideration is not honoring human values.

7. The relationship to being with resilience▲

Ce qui ne nous tue pas ne nous rend pas plus fort·e. Mais une chose est sûre. Ce qui ne nous tue pas ne nous définit pas.
 

A personal translation:

What doesn’t kill us doesn’t make us stronger. But one thing is for sure. What doesn’t kill us doesn’t define us.

Alexandra Mignien, French short film entitled ‘Ce qui ne nous tue pas’, Sep 21, 2020.

7.1. The use of the verb to be▲

The use of the verb ‘to be’ can constitute an ambiguity, be equivocal about what we mean: by using the verb ‘to be’, do we designate the state or an identity characteristic of a person? This may seem like a trivial question but on the contrary I consider it to be of great importance. Between “I am sick”, “I am right-handed”, “I am a teacher”, “I am a victim”, “I am sad or happy”, the verb ‘to be’ is used in each sentence but does not have the same meaning. It can thus inform about the state of form, health, a biological, physiological or cognitive characteristic, the profession practiced, a status, a psychosocial attribute, the emotional or sentimental feelings of the person, and the list is not exhaustive. And there is a major pitfall here: the tendency to make the qualifier a definition of being, to make it an identity. I thus make the following observation: if this ‘verbal being’ is important for recognition within society, it can also be detrimental, harmful for the person because it locks them into a label. This psychosocial verbal use in language is not to be taken lightly because the nuances between a state, a qualification, a characteristic of the being and the identity itself are tenuous. Always think that the being can change, evolve and… be in the making (so using -ing) even if unfortunately for some people the ability to change or evolve is almost non-existent. So be careful to consider the proxemics of the verb to be.

By the way, I share a remark on a ritual, a common habit that can be seen in a different light: the way of getting news with the question “How are you?”. In French, we say “Comment ça va ?”; Literally: “How is it?”. Historically, the “it” refers to the intestines, to the digestive system of the person being questioned, which depending on their condition would give an idea of ​​the person’s state of health; this common question can go hand in hand with the French expression: “when the appetite is good, everything is good”. In English, as i understand it, health status is directly questioned. Answering is not so “self-evident” or a simple formality because of how we use the verb to be and how we understand it ourselves. The question that seems innocuous can thus upset, create unease to the extent that it comes precisely to be part of these verbal nuances of the relationship to being. And then are we required to evaluate our state of form? And to communicate it? It is a conventional question but which can therefore be inappropriate.

Like the director, it seems to me very important not to attach the word resilience to the person as if the term defined them entirely.

7.3. A little aside: the metamorphosis▲

As I was thinking about the concept of resilience, another word that stood out in my thoughts was the word metamorphosis. It is used in zoology and is also a common word to describe a significant change in a person’s behavior. In fiction and in our imaginations, it is an important spell and a magical ability that is very useful and impressive in the world of witchcraft. Like resilience and life, metamorphosis is a process. It involves a particular structure and energy.

For example, the caterpillar can transform into a butterfly because it is in its nature to be able to do so if the conditions are right. An adult person was able to reach adulthood in a certain state of form because he was able to grow and go through a certain number of states induced by puberty. Understand the word form with both meanings: structure and health. The allegory of the metamorphosis of the caterpillar transforming into a butterfly is telling to understand what a process implies. To become a butterfly, the caterpillar must be able to be in a favorable place to build its cocoon and must also have the resources to do so, particularly in terms of food to have the energy to weave the silk structure around it. In addition, once metamorphosed into a butterfly, this small living being is no longer structured to carry out another metamorphosis. It is impossible for it. In its life as a lepidopteran, it can only achieve the four successive stages of development: the egg, the caterpillar, the chrysalis and the butterfly when conditions allow it. We can thus see the importance of the structure imposed by DNA with the environment and energy, that is to say the essential resources for this metamorphosis to be possible. We also note a certain determinism represented here by the biological structure of the insect.

For the process to go as well as possible, we can therefore only act in full awareness on malleable resources while taking into account those that are undeformable, frozen by determinism. The whole problem in healing, fulfillment or self-fulfillment is to be able to act on what is possible, to be able to have the necessary and sufficient energy to do what is oneself and it is infuriating to realize that the room for maneuver can turn out to be quite narrow to achieve this.

Sonia Kanclerski, Pause-café chez Sonia, What Doesn’t Kill Us article, 2024.

Conclusion▲

Resilience is a concept that is often misunderstood, where we can hear a lot of confusion when it is discussed. In an individualistic and consumerist society where self-fulfillment is advocated through personal efforts, where personal merit is praised, the leitmotif is that it is up to oneself to get there or to get through it, even in the event of trauma: this is false, it is a myth. This short film provides material to reflect on it, to put words to ideas and to take a step back from preconceived ideas. To share to spread these reflections.