Why I hate the word 'resilience' as an autistic woman...( and why I am proud to be a kingfisher and never the swan).

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[This blog first published on wonderfully wired women in July 2018. Revised in 2022. Written by Justine Gaubert]

Resilience is a term that I’d always flinched at and felt strangely angered by, without really understanding why. In this blog I explore my aversion to the word ‘resilience’ and why employers should exercise caution when requesting ‘resilience’ in job specs and advertising. If we genuinely want neurodiversity in our workforces, maybe it’s time for a new definition.

For years I’d written off ‘resilience’ as a quality that simply does not, and never will, apply to me – a strong and noble quality that I so admired in others, but one that a sensitive creative like me, could seemingly never achieve.

Despite holding down a full time, high-pressure job as a copywriter in a busy agency, then later setting up a social enterprise, the peddling behind the curtain took up a baffling amount of energy.

Then, in my mid-forties, I got a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD/Aspergers). The relief was immense. Finally, I had a reason for why I periodically toppled over at work and seemed so much less ‘resilient’ than my friends and colleagues.

People with Aspergers have a heightened sensitivity – not just to noise, light, sound, smell, and touch – but also to information, change and criticism. Needless to say, this can make life behind the curtain pretty exhausting, and a neuro-typical workplace challenging to say the least.

My wonderful therapist Sarah put it like this.

“Imagine you’re standing on the edge of a cliff. People… well, ‘like you’, are standing HERE (she draws a stick figure on the far right of the page, teetering on the edge of the cliff with a long drop). People who are LOWER on the neurodiversity spectrum for whom the world’s rules are largely designed, are HERE (she draws another stick figure standing to the left of the page, at a safe distance from the cliff edge). That’s not to say people who aren’t neurodiverse DON’T fall over the edge of course. It just usually takes more prods and a longer period of time for them to fall. “

Through the lens of ASD, I was able to recognise how this apparent ‘lack’ in me had always brought with it a sense of shame that no matter how hard I paddled, I would never be able to glide calmly alongside my swan-like colleagues, with their fixed smiles that say “don’t worry, throw as much at me as you want, I can cope.”

But since my diagnosis, I’ve started to play back aspects of my life where I’d given myself a hard time, re-evaluating terms from which I had previously felt excluded.

The dreaded term ‘resilience’ is one of them.

The enemy of authenticity?

The traditional definition of resilience (for the purposes of this article let’s call it ‘waving, even if you’re drowning’), to me, as an Aspie, feels inauthentic. And as many Aspies will tell you, authenticity isn’t just a quality, it’s who we are. It’s simply not in us to pretend to be something we’re not (let’s just say we invented the phrase ‘hashtag no filter’).

Sure, we can mask this to some extent, but it’s yet more secret paddling – and to what end? To an Apsie, faking your resilience at work by cheerfully waving when drowning, strikes the same Shakespearean discord as “to smile and smile and be a villain” – untruthful, misleading, and above all, inauthentic.

The injustice trigger

No matter how much our organisations advocate diversity, wellbeing and mental health, you’re still left with the shame that somehow you’ve failed to achieve a ‘normal’ benchmark of resilience.

“But the more I looked into what it means to have ASD, the more I realised that far from being a quality I would never have, that simply by holding down a demanding job, making it to work on time, and even something as seemingly innocuous as socialising over a pint with more than one pal; I was, in fact, being resolutely resilient every day. The difference was that no-one (me included) recognised all the paddling underneath that it took me to get there.”

And so now, my injustice trigger has been well and truly flipped.

I refuse to be shamed for not being a swan or, indeed, for steadfastly refusing to pretend to be one.

Okay so I may not be a swan but kingfishers are cool too – the occasional flash of brilliance – sporadic, chaotic, and at times, elusive – but usually *ahem* well worth the wait.

So what does this mean for us as employers?

The ‘Thriving at Work’ report by DWP estimated that poor mental health was costing the UK economy £99 billion a year, so there’s no wonder that as employers, we prize the traditional definition of resilience so highly.

Whichever way you look at it, a lack of resilience in the workplace, is an expense that few can ill afford.

The flip side to this however, is that most businesses know that in order to solve society’s biggest problems, and to drive innovation, we also need to recruit (and keep well) our neurodiverse Kingfishers who think differently.

Tech companies in the Silicon Valley were quick to tap into the benefits neurodiversity can bring organisations, and in the UK, organisations such as the BBC with their CAPE project focused on attracting neuro-diverse talent, were quick to follow their lead.

And say what you like about the evil genius who is Dominic Cummings, but his call for more ‘misfits and weirdos’ in the corridors of Whitehall was at least in the right ball park.

So, what’s needed?

As a starter for 10, there has to be a recognition that many people are often beyond what would fit into the confines of a narrow definition of resilience.

It needs to go beyond the swan-like ability to withstand any degree of pressure that is placed upon us. To have a single standard benchmark of resilience is ridiculous, as none of us is aware of the amount of additional paddling going on underneath a ‘hidden’ disability. Everyone’s tolerance is different.

In a future podcast with my friend Julliann Hall, we explore a new, more authentic definition of resilience. A definition that moves away from defining resilience as simply our tolerance for withstanding pressure, to one which is more about admitting our vulnerabilities and holding our space so we can be well.

In the meantime, if we want to both attract and keep benefiting from this creative talent, we need to be mindful about how we use resilience in our advertising and job profiling, so that it’s redefined as a term that embraces rather than shames and excludes.

Of course, swans are a critical part of our workforce, especially since most of us are now doing the work of several people. But just as vital are the kingfishers – the flash of authentic inspiration that cuts through the noise, providing fresh perspectives on some of the world’s most complex problems.

Maybe we should question then, why in our recruitment adverts, we are still only seeking swans, and that perhaps the time has come to redefine and rethink our limiting definition of what it is to be resilient.

Links
What can the Buddha teach us about resilience? Check out my introduction to Buddhism with an aspie lens here.