The Evolution of Resilience: A New Story for Survivors of Childhood Abuse

What if resilience isn’t just about bouncing back? What if it’s something that evolves into a slow reconnection with the parts of ourselves that were buried in survival, changing over time?

For many people who grew up with abuse, neglect, or emotional abandonment, resilience wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity. A default setting. A quiet strength that helped them get through. Especially for those who experienced developmental trauma or multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Resilience often starts in silence. In watchfulness. In learning to care for others instead of themselves.

In that way, resilience wasn’t about empowerment; it was about preservation. Losing oneself to survive. And so when clients tell me the concept of resilience feels uncomfortable, it's not surprising. Resilience once meant losing yourself to:

• Being the caregiver in your family when you were only a child

• Taking on adult responsibilities far too young

• Striving for perfection

• Shrinking yourself to avoid being noticed

• Helping smooth things over to keep the peace

• Not telling or not complaining

• Keeping the peace

• Holding everything together, even while you felt like you were falling apart

• Getting up each day, pretending everything was okay.

These were signs of resilience. Not because they were healthy ways to live, but because they worked. They kept you safe. They helped you show up. Every. Single. Day.

Survival Strategies Are Strength

For survivors, what appears to be “coping” is often just adaptation, and what is called avoidance might be wisdom, at first. When children grow up without consistent care or emotional safety, they adapt. People-pleasing. Emotional numbing. Over-functioning. These are not character flaws. They are intelligent responses to unmet needs and unstable environments.

We also know these patterns are not just psychological; they’re physiological. The nervous system adjusts to threat. It learns to shut down, appease, or over-function to keep the body safe. That’s resilience, too.

But here’s the thing: what once kept us alive can start to keep us stuck. And that’s where something new begins to unfold.

Resilience Changes As You Heal

Over time, something shifts. Perhaps a relationship offers a little more security. Maybe therapy opens a door. Possibly you become tired of holding everything in. Whatever the catalyst, you begin to notice that your survival strategies no longer fit quite the same way. You start to sense there might be something more, and you are ready to evolve.

I call this the evolution of resilience.

It’s a framework I’ve seen unfold in my clients’ lives, as well as in my own, that shows up as a gradual transition from surviving to self-awareness, and eventually, toward thriving.

• Survival - where resilience shows up as control, perfectionism, emotional numbing, or hyper-responsibility

  
  

• Self-awareness - where insight, boundaries, emotional literacy, and self-compassion begin to emerge

  
  

• Thriving - where your story integrates, your nervous system softens, and your sense of self expands.

Resilience Is Not Just Personal, It’s Relational & Systemic

Resilience is not created in isolation; it is a multisystemic phenomenon, emerging through access to supportive relationships, cultural belonging, stable housing, safety, and opportunities. Resilience and healing must be understood in the context of systems that either support or inhibit them.

Therefore, resilience evolves when our social environment is supportive, barriers are removed, and people are given the chance to be more than what happened to them. It’s not just about grit, it's about access to meaningful, sustainable, and practical social support.

You've Always Been Resilient

If you grew up with abuse or neglect, your resilience may have gone unnoticed, but it was profoundly there; you did what you needed to do to get through. You might have survived by becoming what others needed, staying small, being perfect, and taking care of everyone else.

Perhaps something different is unfolding now.

You’re reconnecting with the parts of yourself that were hidden; parts that never had the safety or support to grow more fully. You are becoming more whole, more integrated, more you, and when confronted by adversity, you rebound with greater awareness, strength and purpose. Resilience evolves. It becomes intentional. Grounded and rooted in healing and self-knowledge. It stops being about bouncing back to who you had to be to survive, and starts being about rising into who you’re meant to become.

Resilience, at its most potent, is no longer about surviving what happened to you. It’s about thriving anyway.

An Invitation to Reflect

What did resilience look like for me as a child?

What does it look like now?

What might it become if I no longer had to protect myself the same way?

About the Author: Sherry Slejska is a registered social worker and psychotherapist in Ontario, specializing in complex trauma recovery. She supports adults navigating the long-term effects of childhood abuse and neglect, helping them move from survival toward self-awareness, connection, and thriving.

References

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