Resilience

List all the ways you have been resilient throughout your life. Rupi Kaur's Gratitude Writing Prompts

So, I am 70 and have many stories of resilience. I will tell but a few. Maybe 3 minutes worth, or 600+ words per Vocal.

When starting life, I had two loving parents. I was the oldest and for 18 months I was the only child. I learned to walk at nine months and was doing everything ahead of schedule, according to my mother.

Before age 5, I remember very little. When I was five I had one brother 18 months younger, a sister three years younger, and another brother who was just born, who missed my birthday by one day.

My mother was a stay-at-home mom and my dad was a welder. We lived on the reservation that my parents were from that year as my father was on lay-off from his job in the city. While there I had my tonsils out, didn't get to attend kindergarten, and enjoyed being with some of my cousins.

We stayed in a nice house with puppies pixie and dixie and a play house.

When I got my tonsils out I was given an easy bake oven for the trouble. I remember being miserable for a while but it didn't last. Winter was fun as my favorite cousin was there and we went sledding and made ice cream with snow.

Early on I was mom's helper with the babies. She started taking diet pills when she was pregnant with my brother next in age to me. She was told by the doctor that he didn't want her to gain as much weight as with her first pregnancy.

My brother would have convulsions until the age of 8 or 9. I was mom's helper and together we got my brother into the bathtub to cool him off and stop his convulsions and that was his last convulsion. I was very stressed in the beginning of all of that but by the time I was age 10, no more stress.

Many times I had seen that he would come through the convulsion. How that impacted him is not clear. He has always been a kind, loving man and has raised a good family. I witnessed an uncle and a cousin with epilepsy and that never threw me, because of the experience with my brother.

My uncle had grand mal seizures and I witnessed a handful of his seizures in my lifetime. My cousin had petit mal seizures and I recognized them the first time I saw her experience one.

Resilience.

My dad died on my birthday. That was a terrible memory. And it affected every birthday after until I wasn't happy about an upcoming birthday and a co-worker said, "Didn't your dad die on your birthday?" That helped me to change that experience for me to begin celebrating my birthday all month.

Resilience.

Ten years old is much too young to lose a parent. And my mother had a five-month-old baby. Taking care of my siblings became more and more of what I did after my dad died. We moved when I completed fourth grade. I had a very supportive teacher who helped me through that year.

Now my favorite teacher wasn't there. My mother became unavailable in her grief. We moved and my mother took me to her doctor's appointment and she was given diet pills and valium. Both were very popular at the time. I discovered I had to be 5 pounds overweight and I could be on diet pills too.

By age 12, there were many times I had tried my mother's scripts. Diet pills helped me to get going in the morning, to talk to people, and to have a lot of energy to do all that was expected of me. It turned into a dependency by age 16, I had a prescription, and I crossed the line into addiction.

Recovery shows my resilience.

With the help of others, I am a woman in long-term recovery. I got an education and helped others and by doing that I help myself. I did all of my grief work around abuse, discrimination, and loss of loved ones and have helped others to do the same. I have forgiven others and stopped blaming.