TO DIAGNOSE MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS, doctors, psychologists, and therapists use the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM), which was written and is periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association. In the fourth edition of the DSM, the catch-all category NOS, which
stands for “not otherwise specified,” was used fairly often. NOS was used to label symptoms that don't neatly fall into a well-defined diagnosis but are clearly part of a specific family of diagnoses.
For example, there are various types of anxiety, eating, or sexual dysfunction disorders (to name just a few of the broad categories). If a doctor can tell a patient has anxiety issues, but those issues don’t lend themselves to a clear-cut sub-category, he or she can diagnose: “Anxiety Disorder,
NOS.”
Although much of this book was written to deal with discouragement that people face in their work — be that their career or some volunteer work — in the past year it seems that a broader category of discouragement has emerged. Let’s call it: “Discouragement, NOS.” By this we mean
feeling down and discouraged, not because a particular mission or job is going poorly, but rather our whole life is discouraging us.
By the way, the more recent DSM-5 stopped using the NOS label, and tried to build more precision into each diagnostic category. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes a more generalized “NOS” can be helpful.
The Oxford Dictionary defines discouragement as "a loss of confidence or enthusiasm; dispiritedness." Webster's adds the word "disheartened" to the mix. Synonyms include apathy, hopelessness, dismay, vexation, depression, demoralization.
These words describe what I see in the people around me these days: people are disheartened, demoralized, vexed, depressed, dispirited.
"Discouragement can be temporary — or it can destroy our lives. The choice is ours. If we refuse to deal with discouragement head-on, we are opening the door for it to completely dominate our
lives.”
– Charles Stanley
As I wrote in the introduction, it's been a rough year. The pandemic has left sickness and loss in its wake, along with high levels of stress and anxiety. Efforts to control the spread have led to job loss, business closures, financial problems and fears, along with unprecedented levels of isolation and
loneliness.
Obviously, when we're trying to do important work — to accomplish something meaningful — we get discouraged when we encounter obstacles and don't see the results we hoped for. But in these times, it seems that many people are struggling with discouragement not just in their WORK, but also in their LIFE.
What do we do about it?
What we need to deal with these challenges is wrapped up in a word that seems to be having a "moment" these days: resilience. We need something that enables us to keep our mental / emotional equilibrium during hard times, and, just as important, to find the inner strength to keep going
when things are hard.
Resilience seems like the best word to name what it is that helps us do just that.
Psychologists define resilience as the capacity to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, or stress. It's the capacity to respond to challenging experiences without coming undone, to bounce back reasonably fast from them, and to learn and grow from them.
“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something
that's good.”
– Elizabeth Edwards
To help us get clear about what this important quality is, and how to develop it, let's begin by clarifying what it is NOT:
1. Resilience is not about "not feeling distress." It’s not about denial. It’s not about being detached from our emotions. One of the goals of our small self (or ego) is to self-protect, to avoid having to experience negative emotions. So often, instead of allowing ourselves to experience
feelings of distress or sadness, we try to deny them, push them down, or distract ourselves from them. Anything to not feel them.
This is not resilience. This is denial. Resilient people still feel things. They feel pain and loss, sometimes quite strongly. But they are able to process their experiences, to work through them.
Think of it like eating and digesting food. The experiences of our lives can be compared to taking food into our bodies. Food comes in, gets digested, is absorbed by the body as nutrients, and the waste is expelled. Now try to imagine what happens if a piece of food goes into our body but gets stuck in our stomach
or intestine. What happens if the food doesn't get digested? The area around it will become infected, keep other food from passing through, and cause great harm.
That's how trauma works, and why it’s so damaging. Trauma is negative experience so overwhelming that we are unable to process it. It doesn't go away, it doesn't get better. It gets stuck. This also happens with other negative experiences that we live in denial about, even though they might not fit the label of
“trauma.” It’s not that they were so overwhelming we are unable to process them, it’s that they’re so painful we’d rather not. They don’t just disappear — they need to be “digested,” or processed in some way.
Resilient people let the experiences of life come into their awareness, and they deal with them. They allow themselves to feel the sadness, frustration, loss, whatever. They talk about the experience, and their reactions to it, with other people. Maybe they write about it in a diary or journal. And then they let
go.
2. Resilience is not a personality trait. While it is true that some people are more resilient than others, it's not the case that resilience is an in-born trait. It's a skill — or set of skills — that can be developed. It's like building a muscle.
Shelby Forsythia writes about this in relation to working through loss in her book “Your Grief, Your Way.” She says this:
“While some people are born with a greater propensity for resilience, it is not a static characteristic. Resilience can be practiced, nourished, and built across your lifetime. If you feel like you’re not bouncing back — well, you’re in good company. The death of a loved one often marks the first time that people
are forced to come back from something hard, scary, and life-changing. Each day that you are living beyond the day of your loss is another day you’re building resilience. You’re teaching your heart, mind, and body what it means to continue to live after the very worst has happened.”
Resilience involves learning to control and direct our thinking and taking specific actions. The good news is that anyone can learn this. Even you and me.
The chapter of the book goes on to list six strategies for building resilience. Then subsequent chapters go on to offer more guidance and suggestions about how to know if you're being successful, what to do when you wonder if you should quit or change strategies, and a six step plan to do your work successfully and fight
discouragement.
In case you're curious, and so I don't leave you hanging, here's a list of the six strategies I talk about in this chapter that will help you build resilience. They all sound deceptively simple, but the key is figuring out ways to actually implement them. Read the full chapter to find out more about them:
1. Build connections with positive and supportive people.
2. Focus on self-care for your body.
3. Don’t make things worse by turning to addictive substances or behaviors.
4. Find purpose by helping others.
5. Embrace healthy thoughts.
6. Get help when you need it.
