Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl
the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects,
then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and
observations.
Today's article talks about resilience, which is the psychological term for the ability of some people to get knocked down by life, get back up, and be stronger than ever, even in really stressful situations. Rather than letting failures upset them and gnaw away at their self-esteem, resilient people focus on learning from their mistakes and rising from the metaphorical ashes. Some factors that play into resilience are optimism, a positive attitude, good emotional regulation, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback.
This is most obviously relevant in bullying situations. Almost all kids get bullied in school, and autistic kids and other kids with special needs tend to be the favored targets because of our differences and deficits. Often it can be hard to recognize bullying when we see it, for instance. But even if we do recognize it, responding to it effectively is a whole different can of metaphorical worms. And of course even once you finish school, you're not free of bullies. They just got smarter and subtler as everyone got older.
So some people, when bullied, crumple after a while, and some people don't. That's resilience. This article focuses on another apparent benefit of resiliency: it protects you somewhat from bullies. I guess the researchers theorize that the resilience serves as a buffer, insulating the person from the bully's influence somewhat, as well as making the person a less attractive target. Ergo, bullied less often, and with less effect.
How does one get this magical trait? Well, apparently the capacity for it is innate... but it has to be trained. Adults can model effective strategies to deflect, dismiss, or rise above the insults and hate. And I guess for autistic kids, maybe directly teaching them as well as modeling the correct actions would be appropriate. Simply seeing the behavior probably wouldn't have been sufficient to teach grade-school me how to not get bullied every day...
And by that, you can tell that I was no exception from the horrifying statistics regarding special needs kids and bullying. I like to say I got my victimization out of the way nice and early in life, starting in Kindergarten (age 5) or maybe 1st grade (age 6), and continuing through the end of 3rd grade (age 9). It was at a small, private Christian school, for people who like irony.
I won't say the experience wrecked my life, because it didn't. But it did profoundly change me, and not in a good way. It propelled me into avoiding people, for the most part, because not only did some jackass boy in school tease me, literally no one defended me. So at the tender age of 9, I resolved that no one would do that crap to me again, and set about trying to be Spock (with anger issues, and I'd never seen Star Trek to recognize the parallels at the time).
I didn't stop growing, but it took four more years to find an actual friend. I found him online, in a cesspit section of the Internet, and fortunately he was kind enough to put up with my neuroses and scars and still like me most of the time. Also, he taught me sarcasm, to the point that I am now fluent in it. It took another few years to find friends in real life, and they literally had to shove me across the gymnasium floor to get me to sign up for a club in high school. Like, bodily shove, like you see in TV shows, one on each side, pushing so I skidded on the backs of my shoes toward the club's table.
I did join the club, make some acquaintances, etc. In college I made some actual friends after a bit, through clubs and events and such. I don't think I'm great at it, but at least I think I can manage it, and I semi-maintain a social life of sorts. Also, I courted and married my spouse and while we argue on things, we're making it work, too.
Am I resilient? I'm not really sure, having researched the proper definition for it. I didn't crumple and get eaten alive by my anxiety and depression. But the traits I listed above? The positive attitude, optimism, emotional regulation, seeing failure as a learning opportunity, knowing methods to diffuse or brush off bullying, etc? I... don't have that. Any of it, I think. I'm only developing reasonable emotional recognition and regulation now, and I'm almost 30. I identified as a cynic rather than a pessimist for part of high school and college. I am... now probably just a very light pessimist. I don't see failure as the end of everything, but I certainly don't see it as a learning experience. Failure happens. It's life. And I'm autistic, bullying comes in so many flavors it's hard to recognize let alone handle properly.
So if I don't have those things, what exactly do I have? Why am I still going and trying to do things? Why did I get through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college? As far as I can tell, the answer is that I am just too stubborn to stay down. That seems to be the story of my life. I'm not really good at things, I'm just too stubborn to quit until I get them figured out or the situation passes.
Is resiliency not fully defined yet? Should I count, given the eventual relative success of my life? I'm not sure. But either way, this article highlights one more reason to recognize and try to train resilience into people we care about, and especially autistic and other special-needs people.
Today's article talks about resilience, which is the psychological term for the ability of some people to get knocked down by life, get back up, and be stronger than ever, even in really stressful situations. Rather than letting failures upset them and gnaw away at their self-esteem, resilient people focus on learning from their mistakes and rising from the metaphorical ashes. Some factors that play into resilience are optimism, a positive attitude, good emotional regulation, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback.
This is most obviously relevant in bullying situations. Almost all kids get bullied in school, and autistic kids and other kids with special needs tend to be the favored targets because of our differences and deficits. Often it can be hard to recognize bullying when we see it, for instance. But even if we do recognize it, responding to it effectively is a whole different can of metaphorical worms. And of course even once you finish school, you're not free of bullies. They just got smarter and subtler as everyone got older.
So some people, when bullied, crumple after a while, and some people don't. That's resilience. This article focuses on another apparent benefit of resiliency: it protects you somewhat from bullies. I guess the researchers theorize that the resilience serves as a buffer, insulating the person from the bully's influence somewhat, as well as making the person a less attractive target. Ergo, bullied less often, and with less effect.
How does one get this magical trait? Well, apparently the capacity for it is innate... but it has to be trained. Adults can model effective strategies to deflect, dismiss, or rise above the insults and hate. And I guess for autistic kids, maybe directly teaching them as well as modeling the correct actions would be appropriate. Simply seeing the behavior probably wouldn't have been sufficient to teach grade-school me how to not get bullied every day...
And by that, you can tell that I was no exception from the horrifying statistics regarding special needs kids and bullying. I like to say I got my victimization out of the way nice and early in life, starting in Kindergarten (age 5) or maybe 1st grade (age 6), and continuing through the end of 3rd grade (age 9). It was at a small, private Christian school, for people who like irony.
I won't say the experience wrecked my life, because it didn't. But it did profoundly change me, and not in a good way. It propelled me into avoiding people, for the most part, because not only did some jackass boy in school tease me, literally no one defended me. So at the tender age of 9, I resolved that no one would do that crap to me again, and set about trying to be Spock (with anger issues, and I'd never seen Star Trek to recognize the parallels at the time).
I didn't stop growing, but it took four more years to find an actual friend. I found him online, in a cesspit section of the Internet, and fortunately he was kind enough to put up with my neuroses and scars and still like me most of the time. Also, he taught me sarcasm, to the point that I am now fluent in it. It took another few years to find friends in real life, and they literally had to shove me across the gymnasium floor to get me to sign up for a club in high school. Like, bodily shove, like you see in TV shows, one on each side, pushing so I skidded on the backs of my shoes toward the club's table.
I did join the club, make some acquaintances, etc. In college I made some actual friends after a bit, through clubs and events and such. I don't think I'm great at it, but at least I think I can manage it, and I semi-maintain a social life of sorts. Also, I courted and married my spouse and while we argue on things, we're making it work, too.
Am I resilient? I'm not really sure, having researched the proper definition for it. I didn't crumple and get eaten alive by my anxiety and depression. But the traits I listed above? The positive attitude, optimism, emotional regulation, seeing failure as a learning opportunity, knowing methods to diffuse or brush off bullying, etc? I... don't have that. Any of it, I think. I'm only developing reasonable emotional recognition and regulation now, and I'm almost 30. I identified as a cynic rather than a pessimist for part of high school and college. I am... now probably just a very light pessimist. I don't see failure as the end of everything, but I certainly don't see it as a learning experience. Failure happens. It's life. And I'm autistic, bullying comes in so many flavors it's hard to recognize let alone handle properly.
So if I don't have those things, what exactly do I have? Why am I still going and trying to do things? Why did I get through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college? As far as I can tell, the answer is that I am just too stubborn to stay down. That seems to be the story of my life. I'm not really good at things, I'm just too stubborn to quit until I get them figured out or the situation passes.
Is resiliency not fully defined yet? Should I count, given the eventual relative success of my life? I'm not sure. But either way, this article highlights one more reason to recognize and try to train resilience into people we care about, and especially autistic and other special-needs people.
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