Head Trouble

Today, I read an article by a famous Hollywood actress who suffered a brain aneurysm a few months after becoming famous for her role in an iconic TV show. A few years later, she suffered a second even more severe aneurysm. The article details her struggle, the excruciating pain, the fear of losing crucial mental faculties, the fear that death was just around the corner, all when her life dreams had started to come true. She came through and is perfectly healthy today.

Her story resonated with me, not because I have been through a serious illness or cheated death but because I am a bit of a hypochondriac when it comes to my health. I must confess that there have been times when I thought death was imminent, which feels embarrassing after reading this actor's story and her far more serious physical symptoms. But, the point of this post is not to beat myself up for having an anxious personality and overactive imagination. And symptoms like light-headedness and chest pain could be unnerving for many people.

The point of this blog post is to reflect on the connection between trauma and fortitude. The other day, I told my mother that a few people are emotionally resilient by nature and predisposed towards happiness, while most others have to work harder. Often, those of us in the second group undergo trauma, and it is in overcoming these circumstances that we develop strength and fortitude. Trauma is, so to speak, the furnace in which our spirits are tempered. After going through the furnace, the lesser problems in life,the forest fires if you will, seem much less daunting. 

I now wonder how much of this is true. Can one become strong and emotionally resilient even if one is of an anxious and sensitive disposition and hasn't experienced severe trauma, like cancer, or another debilitating mental or physical illness or death of a loved one? After all, don't strength and resilience in ordinary times manifest as kindness, empathy and contentment? What more can one do? Tragedies will come or not, whether we want them to or not and we may recover from them or not. One cannot change the past or will the future, so why not just make the best of the present?