Roadmap to Resilience:
A Guide for Military, Trauma Victims and Their Families
Donald Meichenbaum, Ph.D.
What is Grit? Grit is the passionate pursuit of long-term goals and the commitment to fulfill a mission with unswerving determination no matter what the obstacles. (Discussed in more detail in Action Plan #28 in the book)
A five-year-old child watched helplessly as his younger brother drowned. In that same year, glaucoma began to darken his world, and his family was too poor to afford medical help that might have saved his sight. Both of his parents died during his teens. Eventually he was sent to a state institution for the blind. Because he was African-American he was not permitted access to many activities, including music. Given the obstacles he faced, one could not have predicted that he would someday become a world-renowned musician. His name is Ray Charles. (As cited in Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein's book, The Power of Resilience)
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Kayla Harrison won the first U.S. gold Medal in judo at the London Olympics. For three years, from ages 13 to 16, her judo coach had had illicit sex with her. As Kayla commented at a news conference, "It is no secret that I was sexually abused by my former coach. And that was definitely the hardest thing I had to overcome. I feel a necessity to speak out so that others in my position could take heart." (New York TImes, August 3, 2012)
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How does a 17 year old suicidal patient who was hospitalized for 26 months, at times confined to an isolated seclusion room because she engaged in self-injurious behaviors (burning her wrists with cigarettes, slashing her body, head banging) become one of the leading psychotherapists of the 20th century? Dr Marsha Linehan, who developed Dialetical Behavior Therapy for victimized, suicidal patients has told her story of her journey of resilience.
"I had to tell my story. I owed it to others. I cannot die a coward. One night I was kneeling in there, looking up at the cross, and the whole place became gold — and suddenly I felt something coming toward me,” she said. “It was this shimmering experience, and I just ran back to my room and said, ‘I love myself.’ It was the first time I remember talking to myself in the first person. I felt transformed.”
This transformation led Marsha Linehan on a journey of resilience to earn a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and to becoming a clinical researcher who developed a treatment approach to help others who had similar experiences. (New York Times, June 23, 2011)
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The RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) ambush in Fallujah, Iraq destroyed his upper palate, and his left eye. It pulverized his left arm and right leg. It took sixty operations and six years to recover. One thing kept him going. He wanted to return to his men. He is now in command of 150 infantrymen, armor soldiers during their one year tour in Afghanistan. His men accept him, even though he can’t see out of his left eye, and he eats with prosthesis. He is the most seriously injured active-duty soldier. His name is Army Captain D.J. Skelton.” (Esquire Magazine, Dec. 2011)
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The RPG blast of her Humvee in Iraq collapsed her right lung and led to the amputation of her right arm. She reports that deep-down, ‘I have not changed. I don’t walk around all day looking at a mirror. I’m myself.’ But there are moments that catch her by surprise. ‘Oh my gosh, I only have one arm. I get anxious. It is never going to be easy.’ In spite of her injuries and losses, she went on to demonstrate courage, a warrior spirit, thriving in the recovery from war. She evidenced what Plato called ‘thumos’—a kind of ‘fire in the belly’ that is essential to the reintegration process. There is also anxiety, frustration, fatigue, phantom pain, restricted mobility, self-pity, embarrassment, shame and a wish to retreat. There is mourning for the past and what she once could do. And there is also happiness.
Through grit and a can-do attitude she is now the founder and CEO of a 100 person defense contracting firm which she started after leaving Walter Reed Hospital. She drives, uses a BlackBerry, plays tennis left-handed, and does yoga. Her name is Dawn Halfaker. You can read her account and others like her in Nancy Sherman’s The untold war. You can also see an interview with Dawn in a wonderful HBO movie, Alive Day Memories.” (Sherman, 2010)
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Quanitta Underwood was ten years old and her sister was twelve years old when they were regularly sexually abused by their father. The psychiatric wounds and suicidal attempts are told in a New York Times story (February 12, 2012) and on Quanitta’s website www.livingoutthedream.org. It is a story of resilience, as Quanitta (known as Queen), is the five-time U.S. female boxing champion and is rated fourth in the world, and is also competing in the Olympics.
Quanitta, a girl who felt like a nobody, but always imagined there was a somebody within. That’s why she called her website ‘Living Out the Dream.” I am a survivor of child abuse, and I became strong and independent. That dream carried me through a lot of days.” (Barry Bearak, 2012)
