Am I getting enough of my unhappiness?

Friedrich Nietzsche first said this in 1888, in Idol protectionone of his latest works: „what does not kill me makes me stronger.” The motto imbued with positivity What does not kill you only makes you stronger it is now used collectively and can be found on tiles, posters and condolence cards. Kelly Clarkson sang about it, Bruce Willis used it as an album title, and a number of books have been published about it.

Other commonly used affirmations also allow us to focus on the positive. Like ‘after the rain comes the sun’ – a saying written around 1600 by the Flemish author Jan David: „After reghen, one sees again beautiful seguehen, so follower joy, after pains.”

Sanja de Bruin was told ten years ago, when she was diagnosed with MS, by friends and acquaintances as a word of comfort: she would come out stronger. “I thought she was such nonsense,” she says. “At the time I mostly felt anger or went into denial. Nothing strong. And of course: I continued to live my life as best I could, I started eating healthier, I worked out like crazy. Not only was I miserable, I made it a point to be around people, I played pranks, I kept walking unaided for as long as I could. I think that was the only option for me. The fact remains: I receive attacks and with each attack I lose something. My disease is a monster. It doesn’t kill me now, but it doesn’t make me stronger either. I can no longer function the way I want. But I often feel like I’m not allowed to say it out loud. Positive thinking is a great obligation in our society.”

At the same time, there is also growing dissent. “Why is even the loss of a parent seen as something that should pay off: more strength or perseverance?” asks, for example, the journalist Tatjana Almuli in her book published this year I will never see you again which he wrote after his mother’s death. Author Susan Smit wrote in a column in the magazine Happy he thinks he wants to get out of something stronger “a dangerous chase”. “With a less glorious result, I’ll feel like a failure.”

Comments can also be found on social media, in the form of variations on the motto. What doesn’t kill you makes you wish you were dead. What doesn’t kill you, can give you PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome). Babet te Winkel, a humanist therapist and traumatologist in training, came across “also a cute one”: what doesn’t kill you gives you a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a really dark sense of humor. “I had to chuckle at that. Ehh, finally a counterpart.

She decided to embroider it on a tile with her mother’s embroidery materials, who died of cancer when Babet te Winkel was twenty. She also posted the statement on her Instagram account Verlieskunst in which she “wants to make room for mourning.” She received dozens of reactions from people who recognized what she had gone through: “The loss of my mother has given me both dark humor and poor coping mechanisms, weaknesses, but also depth, the ability to put things into perspective.” “.

According to Te Winkel, when misery strikes us, we ask the wrong question. “We think too fast: How can we fix it? We are too targeted. Life exists to be lived, not to be solved. There won’t be a day when you can say: Now I have fixed my pain. We have to ask ourselves: How do I learn to deal with this?

Unease

“Let’s stop seeing trauma as a life lesson, as something we are blessed with,” wrote American psychologist and neurologist Jennifer Wolkin, who specializes in trauma therapy, in a tweet that has been liked hundreds of thousands of times. “Trauma hasn’t made you stronger. It traumatized you, it broke your heart, it affected your nervous system, it gave you PTSD, sleepless nights, trust issues, it almost killed you and stole your will to live.

According to Wolkin’s theory, we call on the positivity of the victims, the bereaved, and the sick to ease our distress. We do it, she says, because our idea that the world is a safe and just place is shattered when we hear about the misery of others.

“It’s an interesting psychological concept,” says Kas Stuyf, a clinical psychologist, trainer, and someone who’s been told he’d come out of a divorce stronger. He started thinking about this: why do people say things like that? “We find it difficult to deal with the total randomness of life. When I was going through a divorce, I saw people around me thinking: this can happen to me too. And then often came that pat on the back that I would learn from this. Truly total bullshit. I think they wanted to believe it themselves. Our divorce was a particularly intense experience. I can list the bad things about that divorce and the good ones. I’d rather say: ‘what doesn’t kill you keeps you alive’”. What he means: It’s not so black and white.

The scientific research was published in 2010 Anything that doesn’t kill us. A psychologist-researcher at the University of Buffalo followed 2,398 participants and saw: People who experienced adversity in their life (loss of a loved one, divorce, traumatic experiences, financial debts) showed greater resilience and flexibility. But this study also showed that too much adversity can have lasting negative effects.

The outcomes of a large-scale US study, published in 1998, confirms this. The study looked at the later life consequences of traumatic childhood experiences in more than 17,000 people. Childhood trauma can later lead to risky health behaviors such as smoking and alcohol and drug abuse, severe obesity, depression, anxiety, and heart disease.

Dare to be weak

“It’s too easy to say that trauma always makes you stronger,” says Greet Vonk. She set the research of the Open University to burnout and found that people can grow from it – ‘growth’ is also the word Vonk likes to use, she doesn’t like to talk about just getting stronger. “Growing up also means daring to be weak, simply allowing the pain, not keeping your back straight but bowing down to sadness, digesting your emotions.” And it’s hard work, “so it’s not something to romanticise. For many people it’s a dull unhappiness, many falls, many falls, and then struggling to get back up”.

According to Vonk, whether people are able to grow out of misery by knowing each other better depends on whether they get the right help, under the right circumstances. He has to time well the use of the word “growth” in conversations with clients at his office Et Emergo, which specializes in post-traumatic growth. “If someone is still in the midst of that pain, usually you can’t talk about growth. This often backfires. He always says look at the story behind someone’s grievances and someone’s strengths. “This can have such a positive effect that someone settles for the new, often wiser version of themselves.”

It takes time, says Sanja de Bruin, and time, and even more time. She has noticed that in recent years after being diagnosed with MS she is able to enjoy the little things more. Sun on your face, a nice conversation with someone asking the manageable question: ‘How was your day?’ “I have changed in this sense. Sometimes I’m still sad, and angry, and sometimes I just want to lay in bed. But on the other hand, the following cliché is also true: you seize the moment more and learn to push your limits. Stuyf also says he’s happy again, and the experience has had something “purifying” for him: He’s more grateful for what’s right, perhaps more empathetic. “You cannot get something like this without unhappiness. If you are happy there is no reason to change. Only when you experience something extreme and feel like you need help do you start working with your unhealthy patterns.

Babet te Winkel is even “a thousand life lessons” richer, perhaps she would not have started her studies as a trauma therapist if she had not lost her mother. And she feels proud: she still dares to enjoy, to love. She does everything beautifully, motherless as she is.

But frankly, he would trade everything if he could have another cup of tea with his mother.