I've often wondered why some people become so comfortable saying their fine despite the fact they're clearly not. It's not a new concept to me; I've done it myself. 

It’s something that, through time, makes you realize that you don’t always have the opportunity of falling apart because there's still many things that you need to do and many people who still depend on you, as well as many decisions that you need to make. So you get up. You carry on, you become good at functioning.

And eventually, people start believing that this is simply who you are.

The dependable one. The calm one. The person everyone calls when something goes wrong. The one who somehow keeps moving when everything around them seems to be falling apart. They go to work. They answer messages. They make decisions. They listen to other people’s problems. They smile whenever there’s something that calls for a smile. And if you ask, “How are you doing?” they would tell you, “Yeah, I’m good.”

Perhaps not really.

“Yeah, I’m good” could very possibly be not about how they actually feel; maybe it’s just the easiest thing to say.

The reason why we fail to understand resilience is that we only see the end result of it. They stand up, so we take their ability to stand as easy. They keep moving forward, so we think that the thought of stopping never crossed their mind. We see the survivor and exclaim, “You’re so resilient!”

But perhaps we forget to ask at all.

Some individuals become incredibly adept at masking their pain simply because they know from experience that life must go on in spite of it.

We only see the survival, and not the suffering that brought it about.

 There will always be bills that have to be paid. Work that has its deadlines. Family members that require someone to take charge. The world generally does not stop turning just because you've had an awful day. They figure out how to function. And they become functioning.

They become the dependable one. The calm one. The one who doesn't lose their head. The one who knows how to handle tough situations. The one who's “been through worse.” And then enough time goes by and even they have forgotten that being able to shoulder something is not the same thing as being expected to carry it alone.

This is the odd part about resilience. The more resilient you are, the less people might realize that your struggling.

People know that if your falling apart, it's because your hurting. But if simply continue to show up for work, smile, field phone calls, and get things done, you must be fine. 

Surely.

But pain does not always look like collapse. Sometimes pain looks like productivity. Sometimes it looks like silence. Sometimes it looks like someone sitting alone at night after spending the entire day making sure everyone else was alright.

And sometimes it looks like a person saying, “Don't worry about me,” when they desperately wish somebody would worry anyway. The ability to carry something does not mean it isn't heavy. There is another reason resilient people rarely talk about their pain. They may not know how.

When you spend years solving problems instead of discussing them, you become better at asking, “What do I do about this?” than asking, “How does this make me feel?”

You turn emotions into tasks. Something hurts? Manage it. Something scares you? Think through it. Someone disappoints you? Move on.

Yeah, sure. Maybe that works for a while. Maybe it even saves you during the worst periods of your life. But survival strategies have a strange habit of staying long after the danger has passed. You keep telling yourself you can handle it because you always have.

But can you?

Or have you simply become very good at handling things that should have been shared? There is a difference between resilience and emotional isolation, although from the outside they can look almost identical. A resilient person may say, “This hurts, but I will get through it.” An isolated person may say, “This hurts, but nobody needs to know.”

The first contains hope. The second contains loneliness. And sometimes they exist inside the same person. The most resilient aren’t always those who don’t cry. They aren’t those who never become afraid, confused, frustrated, tired, or disappointed. They aren’t those who somehow have immunity to feeling pain. They feel it. They just keep on living despite feeling it. This means waking up after crying all night. It means acknowledging that something has broken you but getting up and going to work anyway the next day. It means reaching out to get help because you’ve finally accepted that doing everything yourself is no longer strength but punishment.

Even having a regular day could be it. Because resilience doesn’t always have to be dramatic. Resilience could be about brewing tea when your mind is in shambles. Resilience could be replying to one important email. Resilience could be taking a shower, having some food, and trying once more tomorrow.

Nobody ever claps for such things. Nobody sees them. But  that is precisely why they matter. There are also resilient people who have been hurt so many times that they become careful about revealing anything real. They have learned that once people know where you are vulnerable, they may start treating you differently. Some become overly concerned. Some become uncomfortable. Some give unwanted advice. Some just walk off and disappear.

. . .Sometimes what a person needs is not advice. Not another speech about how everything will be okay. At times, all that is needed is just having someone who can sit by their side and say, "You don't have to do it alone.”

That sentence is oddly difficult to believe, but that's a topic for another time. 

Being looked after is not the same as being competent. You could be competent yet still need someone. You could be independent yet wish for some company. You could have gone through things far worse yet still be hurt because of what is happening at the present time. You don't have to prove your competence before you deserve consolation because you can live without it. Perhaps one of the more uncomfortable facts about resilience is that one may end up becoming imprisoned within oneself, the version that everyone admires.

Maybe you don’t always have to suffer on your own. You can say that you’re tired.

You can get a little bit of help from somebody else without feeling like you’ve failed at resilience.

Because the point was not to become an invulnerable person.

Perhaps the point was for you to become a person who understands that vulnerability does not equate weakness. Perhaps the most resilient people continue their journeys.

But once in a while, they need to take a moment to allow someone to see what effect the journey had on them. Not because they're breaking down. But because they shouldn't have to hide their weaknesses just because they're capable of standing up.