The way I understand resilience, no one is born with it, everything that we do, resilience included, is learned. The way to become more resilient is consciously changing your behaviors and thoughts. Your brain processes a lot on the unconscious level and controls quite a bit of what you do and how you react.
So many times, I would think that the world would be better off without me.
Actually, no, I was way too selfish for that, I would be better off not being in the world. To hell with the world. Seriously. I wanted out for me, not anyone else.
This discussion about alcohol and its role in our life is not new. Before his deployment, we talked about finding something that we had in common that did not revolve around alcohol.
The real reason that I was minimizing and invalidating my own story is really because of the immense shame that I still feel. It’s bullshit.
Watching, listening to, and reading about other child abuse survivor’s stories validated and helped me to come to terms with my childhood. Other people’s stories helped me, and I hope to help others through the telling of my story.