Cultivating Resilience: A story of Triumph

Upon the start of the new academic year, a set of twins had joined Jake's class, Adam and Mike. In terms of personality, they had a strong charm initially. They knew how to make fast friends, and they knew how to make people laugh easily. However, every laughter they created came at the cost of someone's feelings.

Seeing Jake's popularity with the other kids as well as the teachers, he became an easy first target for Adam and Mike. Every time he would pass by them in the hallway, they would make fun of his unkept hair or the way he buttoned his shirt all the way to the top. Everyone around him would laugh, but he would not seem to realise that it was him they were laughing at.

Over time the jokes started to become more cruel and practical, and would sometimes even get Jake in trouble at home. They would write obscenities on the back of his notebooks and then complain to the teacher about him ruining the sanctity of the classroom, or they would pull down his pants in front of the school during the morning assembly. One time, they even placed pins on Jake's chair and laughed as he limped his way to the nurse's cabin.

Owing to the slow progression in the severity of their bullying, nobody realised the toll that could have been taking on Jake's well-being. They had started to recognize this as the trademark of their dynamic and enjoyed it as they would a television cartoon.

A few years down the line, Jake grew up to have lost the sense of joy and wonder he once had a child. His creativity was replaced by obsessive organization and his humour became self-deprecating. He would frequently have severe nightmares, and sometimes dissociate from his reality into flashbacks from his school days with Adam and Mike. Jake was displaying symptoms of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

One day, when he realised that he cannot let the memories of these dark times consume every waking hour of his life, he decided to start his journey in trauma recovery.

He used his organization skills to create himself a new time-table that allowed him two hours at the end of every day to focus on an activity that rebuilt his self-esteem. He took baby steps by starting to write a journal in which he would note down his highest and lowest points of the day, and how each point made him feel in his body.

A month later, journaling became so natural to him that he no longer needed more than 10 minutes a day to feel in-tune with his body and note down his emotions. So he started to take a small step in the direction of finding his inner creativity again. He had known his creative potential as a child; so now when he didn't see immediate results within his first two paintings, he started to agonize over the idea that he may have lost his love for art with all that he has seen. The next day, he found himself dissociating once again, only to realise that he would much rather draw a few bad paintings than face a grief he wasn't ready to cope with just yet.

With time, the paintings become better and better, along with his self-image. His jokes were no longer on his own expense, and life slowly returned to his laughter that had turned into a half-hearted smirk with time.

Even today, Jake's memory of his school days is as vivid as it was the day he started his journey in trauma recovery. And even today, Jake still has a long way to go. Having gone through unimaginable effort, frustrating days, sleepless nights, confusing emotions, and a lot of self-doubt.. Jake finally acknowledges the impact that those days had on shaping his personality, and how difficult was the process that he had to undergo to reshape it so that he could finally feel like he's starting to live up to his potential again.. His grief never grew smaller, but his life grew bigger around it.

Please note that the names in this story have been changed to protect the identity of the person who shared it. This person has undergone PTSD because of severe bullying faced in his childhood, but through the help of intensive reading and occasional therapy, has found problem-focused coping strategies that help him lead a fuller life he feels more content with. Problem-focused coping is useful for individuals that actively wish to change aspects in their life surrounding trauma, such as removing the stressor from one's life, or introducing active components to one's life to regain a sense of autonomy. Jake found journaling and painting to be useful active components in his life as it reconnected him to a version of himself that he knew before the trauma, but you might find other components that better suit your emotional and physical needs.

If you found this story helpful, or believe that it will help someone in need, please feel free to share this post. Stay tuned to Reclaiming My Voice for learning more about the ground realities of trauma recovery.