Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [119]
Reactions to trauma depend on many things. In general, one discrete traumatic incident is more easily handled than years of chronic stress. The Kakuma refugees and Bintu and Mohamed, who had long periods of great stress, had more trouble healing than refugees who had one terrible experience.
Whether a person is singled out for victimization is also important. It is easier to deal with abuse that is random or the result of membership in a group than with abuse that feels personal. Torture is a great injury to the human spirit. No matter how serious the physical wounds, the spiritual wounds are worse.
ATTRIBUTES OF RESILIENCE
Psychology has documented with great precision all human inadequacies. We have the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to catalog our problems, but we have no equivalent inventory of human strengths. Writing this book, I discovered certain qualities in resilient people from all over the world, and I labeled them the attributes of resilience. Few refugees had all the attributes, but the ones who were successful at adapting to America had many of them. Those refugees with few or none of the attributes were in a great deal of trouble in America.
All of us can benefit from the attributes of resilience. As we cope with loss or adjust to new situations, we will do better if we have a sense of humor, if we are hardworking and honest, and if we know how to stay calm. On airplanes, we hear, "If needed, an oxygen mask will appear automatically." In times of crisis, these attributes are our oxygen masks. This list of attributes of resilience, while neither perfect nor exhaustive, summarizes what it takes to adjust to new and difficult environments.
Attributes of Resilience
Future Orientation
Future orientation is about letting go and moving on. It is about newcomer zest. All refugees must put their hearts into America if they are to succeed in our country. Bintu is a good example of someone who has experienced great sorrow, but who looks toward the future. She began computer classes right away and made plans for bringing her "kids" from Ghana over to America.
Having a future orientation doesn't mean repression of memory or silence about the past. On the contrary, dealing honestly with pain often allows refugees to leave the past behind. Nor does it mean leaving loved ones behind. Many of the most successful refugees are deeply tied to their homeland, and often much of their motivation to succeed is because they want to help people in their old country. However, having a future orientation does mean that refugees have plans and purpose. They do not live only in the past; they can envision a better future.
Energy and Good Health
Adjusting to America and recovering from loss requires an enormous amount of energy. Just facing each day, with difficult jobs and coworkers who are hard to understand, is exhausting. Life is hard enough for the healthiest refugees, but it is almost impossible for refugees who are in chronic pain from injuries, who cannot work because of disabilities, or who have previous histories of mental illness. The children at Sycamore School, filled with life and wriggly with energy, exemplify energy and good health. I think of Khoa and Ly, so lively they could barely sit in their chairs. Youth is a great advantage in a new culture.
The Ability to Pay Attention
Paying attention means being aware of subtle cues, knowing whom to trust, and accurately sensing danger. It means catching on to patterns and rules, picking up on how things work, and not repeating mistakes. Paying attention includes being empathic, remembering, and detecting small changes in tone and nuance.
The Kurdish sisters had survived by paying attention. All of them could expertly read other people and respond quickly and sensitively to the slightest needs in others. I was struck by how rapidly they responded to changes in my face or mood. The