Dear Alicia,
I'm so grateful for your thoughts that many voiced concern over the Resilience questionnaire and perhaps we need something else. I'm grateful you posted the Devereux Adult Resilience Survey (DARS) pdf with different criteria. But both the current Resilience score and DARS system seem to be rating us survivors on how well we can perform. Which might not be the issue?
Isn't the issue how cam we get healed? How we can gain secure attachment and community and feel loved? Sure, after I've done all that, I'll have a better DARS score! But HOW do I get healing?
I just looked at the last two months comments on Resilience at the bottom of http://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/ and several survivors are echoing something I wrote two months ago, so I'd like to post here.
On Mar 10, 2015, Kathy Brous wrote:
> I've long had questions about the Resiliency score. My ACE score is 4 and my Resiliency score would be zero (since zero parenting was done in our home, so then I alienated teachers, kids, everyone I met). I had No to each Resilience score item except #s 10, 13, and 14.
But my "yes" responses to 10,13 & 14 are also born of dysfunction. #10. Yes, "we had rules" -- nothing but rules, like the rules in prison or the zoo. Rules were enforced abusively to push us away from attachment and feelings. #13 Yes, I was "an independent go-getter" because with zero parenting, often comes "premature ego development," an attachment disorder, and also comes zero trust of others. So like "The Boy Named Sue," we "grow up fast and we grow up mean/our fists get hard and our wits get keen." Not mental health. And #14 Yes, "life is what you make it," can also be produced by abusive childhoods like those of we Boys and Girls named Sue.
> So I still think my childhood Resiliency score is zero.
> Now as an adult, "How many are still true for me?"
> I don't think my current situation is really any Resiliency score -- it seems more like an "earned secure attachment" score which could only be earned by years of incredibly painful therapy, emotional work, and bone-crunching scary body work. For "earned secure attachment," see footnoted on it at bottom of http://attachmentdisorderheali...tured-topics/dating/
> I can now claim #11, "When I feel bad, I can find someone I trust to talk to," but that's my therapist and my Recovery partners after a 6 year Recovery journey of incredibly painful hard work. And such folk are few and far between; most folk haven't the guts to listen as we talk about what deep childhood trauma does to us. You can't just call up any old person and spill the real stuff that must be shared "in dyadic consciousness" to be healed.
> And sure, as an adult, #12 "people always noticed I was capable and could get things done," but again that's the pre-mature ego development which kept me grinding out high-tech documents for the Pentagon and working 2 jobs to support my ex's addiction for the last 15 years of my abusive marriage. #12 in my case did not indicate mental health, far from it.
> Maybe we could add a third survey, an "Earned Secure Attachment Score (ESAS)"? I'd bet a lot of high achievers on ACEsConnection and in the responses below are in my boat. If we all could start to discover the difference between being The Boy Named Sue, and actually doing the deep emotional work it takes for people like us to fully attach to other humans, we all would benefit enormously.
> - Kathy
Lastly, I can't find it searching this site, but Christine Cissy White wrote something recently asking why are we rating the survivors at all; survivors don't need to be graded like misbehaving kids taking a difficult test; they need compassion. I recall she wasn't too keen about scoring on resilience and I've sent her a dialogue message to see if she'd like to post a reference to it here.
Thank you again for all you do!
Kathy