I’m
at the point in my recovery where it’s time to focus more closely on
consolidating the intermittent gains I’ve made during the various phases of my
recovery. To that end I have been
reading several books which are technically classified within the self-help
genre but are nonetheless based upon the findings of scientific research
studies. Instead of writing what
amounted to book reviews, however, I chose to wrap it all together. This is the initial entry of a two-part post
on integrating the insights of theses texts into what I’ve achieved through
therapy.
My
choices of readings were specific to ongoing challenges I have: overcoming my recent failures; handling the toxic relationships in my life; and how to overcome the pragmatic issues
of “simple” daily living. It was my hope to find a way beyond what were heretofore intractable hallmarks
of my CPTSD and ADHD - socialization/relationship challenges, emotional
regulation, behavioral adaptations, and development of healthy habits within a
new life structure.
The
seemingly obvious starting point is the overall fiasco my life has become after
the disintegration of my defensive repression of childhood traumas. That’s what led me to first pick up
Rebounders by Rick Newman. It was
written primarily to identify the attributes of "rebounders" - successful people
who had been spectacular failures at previous junctures of their lives. I wasn’t interested in reading about sappy
success stories with trite maxims functioning as shortcuts to real change. I wanted to know about why failure happens,
how to overcome it, and most importantly avoid it in the future.
The
crucial feature of recovering from failure seems to be a person’s resilience. The term “quality resilience” is a
psychological term for people becoming more robust, skilled, and durable after
setbacks. In fact, I'm trying to internalize a reframing of the very occurrence of
a setback as a weapon wielded to improve myself.
Whether my setbacks are truly life-altering like divorce or fairly small in the grand scheme of things like an orthopedic injury, what matters
is having the resilience to recover. It
does not matter if the setback is singular or one in a seemingly endless series
thereof. As the legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi
said, “It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many
times you get up.”
This
quote seems to be clichéd, but it’s not one of those shortcuts I mentioned
wanting to avoid. It’s an enduring
statement of resilience because life never stops throwing you curveballs. I'm not getting caught up in the optimism of the saying,
however, because the truth is that hard work within the construct of a
well-constructed plan is how I can learn to adapt and get up off the mat. (Yeah, I’m a weekend warrior athlete who just
shamelessly dropped multiple sports metaphors in one paragraph!)
I
have been completely ensnared in the blame game - complaining about what people
do to me and generally feeling sorry for myself. This was my default attitude after I finally
accepted my childhood of abuse and the subsequent problems I’ve
experienced. It turns out that I was
what Newman referred to as a “wallower.”
I got rattled about being emotionally overwhelmed due to having never been taught any emotional regulation. I became angry and indignant about my
circumstances. "It's not fair, damnit!" Just realizing this
painful truth about myself did not get me past it, however.
This
brings me to another book I read, Toxic Parents by Susan Forward and Craig Buck. While the topic is self-explanatory, I was
able to extrapolate the lessons to toxic relationships of any nature. This book crystallized for me the idea that
my behavior regarding my circumstances was partially due to my refusal to
reclaim my own life from those who mistreated me. I don’t have to
forgive an unrepentant father or a vindictive ex-wife, and I don’t have to
allow their actions to drive negative overwhelming emotional responses such as
anger and indignation.
Don’t
get it twisted, though. I’ve learned
through therapy and Toxic Parents that I don’t have to meekly forgive and
forget. Unearned absolution for what
these people have done and continue to do to me is just another form denial. Denial is a significant maladaptive behavior I used as a child to survive
and brought forth into adulthood. To
just forgive and forget is to pretend none of it happened which is the clearest form of denial.
It
is important that I instead process what has already occurred and respond
intelligently to what continues to happen instead of knee-jerk reacting. Otherwise I just allow myself to devolve into
emotional chaos. Unilateral forgiveness
is to deny my reality and feelings and possibly subconsciously ascribe
responsibility to myself, which is flat out crazy-making. I need to accept what has happened, not get
overwhelmed or angry, and move forward for myself. Interestingly enough, this approximates what
rebounders do regarding their failures.
Rebounders
get past the circumstances of their problems and get to the business of solving
them. One term that stuck with me was “own
the suck.” It referred to military
helicopter pilot Tammy Duckworth who lost both legs after being shot down. The “suck” is an oft-used term by service
personnel to describe fighting in terrible environmental conditions in various Mideast conflicts. Owning the suck in my context means accepting my situation
for what it is and doing what I can about it instead of wasting personal resources
bemoaning the situation itself.
Rebounders
have the self-awareness that allows for an accurate appreciation of why things
go right or wrong both in the external environment and also within
themselves. I can’t successfully solve a
problem if I cannot diagnose all of its facets properly, so I had to get my
arms around my internal issues irrespective of their potential external origin.
It’s okay to be wrong, but it’s not okay
to be wrong-headed. My emotional
immaturity and lack of regulation is part of what drove my stubbornness.
My
emotions came over me like a tsunami after a lifetime of suppression. One maladaptive aspect of my personality that
carried over from childhood was not feeling virtually any emotion at all. Of course the emotions were always simmering
underneath my veil of calm and being comported at virtually all times. Rebounders actually are recognized for their
ability to compartmentalize emotion without ignoring it altogether, which is what I had done. They do not become dominated by emotion
as I had been for the past six years after becoming a father.
Developing
resilience is not something to be done merely by force of temperament,
however. The important piece here is
that self-awareness is paramount to bouncing back. Wallowers rarely question their own judgment
or conduct a truly introspective analysis even when giving the appearance of doing so.
They get hung up on external factors while also tending to overestimate
their abilities and talent. Former US
President Calvin Coolidge once noted, “nothing is more common than unsuccessful
people with talent… (and) the world is full of educated derelicts.” I refuse to be categorized as such.
The
upside is that the resilience of rebounders is neither developed nor maintained
like inherent talent or intelligence.
Mother Nature doesn’t need to endow us with it because we can develop
the attributes of resiliency incrementally. Once we own the suck it becomes time to take
action to adopt the other traits rebounders have which allow them to keep
moving in spite of their negative situations.
One
critical action is preparing for the things which will inevitably go
wrong. I need to prepare for how to be comfortable with setbacks, hardship, and inconvenience because that is what's required to move toward my goals. My internal desire to do things as perfectly as possible engenders impatience
both with respect to having failures at all as well as the length of time it takes to realize
substantial gains. This impatience,
combined with my CPTSD-generated anxiety, tends to spiral me downward into
self-loathing, frustration, and inability to act. Therefore I need to remain cognitively vigilant about responding well.
I
also continue working on internalizing the reality that I’ll never be
completely free of the anxiety, guilt, fear, and confusion in my life because
of what I’ve endured. These things can
simply no longer be allowed to define me or control my actions and responses to
triggers. I can plan to anticipate these
issues as well. This will allow me to
develop the change in habits required to alter those maladaptive behaviors
which linger and occasionally continue to control my life.
Now that I’m doing my best to own the suck, the process of changing
daily habits to effect a consolidation of my gains made during recovery is what I focus on next... and the
subject of Part 2.