This past week, when I was doing my week long training with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, or BARCC, I thought a lot about resilience, particularly as it relates to human beings and how much resilience some people have, particularly women. We talked a lot about survivors and their significant others, which can mean anyone that is close with the survivor that is not a caregiver, and I reached a few intense moments where I was angry, upset, razzled, mostly because I thought about how some survivors had to fight to get through the day, to feel okay, for years. They had to go to counseling, or go to doctor’s appointments, write about what happened, or talk to others about what happened: however, that person was going to overcome what happened to them, it was usually going to take a lot of resources: time, energy, and thought, to get through it…to thrive again.

 

But then I shifted, a couple of times, to the other, more positive outlook side. It makes sense that I felt all those feelings, and will feel them again, but at the same time BAM it also hit me, a few times, for a few aha! moments, that these people are RESILIENT, and that’s a remarkable thing. To have experienced something so traumatic as sexual assault and to face it all and come out thriving on the other end is a feat in and of itself, and it makes me feel proud of my fellow human beings in spite of the disappointment and anger and even sickness I feel towards some of the other human beings.

 

Resilience: n. the ability to recover readily from adversity, or the like; buoyancy.

 

Thank you, survivors, for being strong, and beautiful, and wonderful and resilient human beings, for reminding me how remarkable human beings can be. I admire you.

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