Book: Surviving Survival by Laurence Gonzales

The Art and Science of Resilience

The dust jacket is a photo of a tree bent by severe winds, leaning almost 90 degrees from the vertical...

The chapters in this book are tales of people who have endured and survived horrendous catastrophic events: the death of a child, life in the concentration camps, encounters with bears, crocodiles and sharks; one chapter is about Aron Ralston, the hiker who cut off his arm to survive in a Utah canyon; there are stories of surviving war, of surviving domestic violence, of dealing with metastatic breast cancer.

These are nonfictional accounts. The author tells their stories and he writes of the neuroscience associated with severe trauma and of the different ways people cope and find grace and reasons to live again.

The last chapter is The Rules of Life, not only for survivors but for all of us, since none of us will be exempt from trouble in our lives. Our striving for a life without stress and stressors will never be totally successful so how we choose to live determines our measure of psychic comfort. And most of us can make choices: we can choose to travel (even if only around the block), to stay physically healthy (eat right, exercise and not abuse substances), to learn something new, to help others; we can learn patience and acceptance; we can stay organized; we can refuse to isolate ourselves; we can be grateful, and we can laugh. None of this is new nor is it easy, but while reading of those who survive nearly unimaginable ordeals and who subsequently find a path through the morass of memories and disabilities, perhaps we can be instructed, inspired and even humbled by them.

There are many paragraphs like these:
"What we know is that in study after study, activities with characteristics such as these (physical, repetitive, organized, directed toward a goal) have proved therapeutic for people suffering from trauma or grief."

"The brain and body are possessed of a great many push-pull systems. The sympathetic nervous system excites us, while the parasympathetic nervous system calms us down. One hormone pumps steroids up another brings them down. The amygdala excites an emotional reaction while the thinking brain inhibits it. The brain itself is a push-pull system balancing reason and emotions under normal circumstances."

"A circle with a curlicue in the center makes many people think of a pig. You have a lot more detailed information in your brain about pigs, but those marks are enough to call up a generalized pig. The hippocampus is doing this all the time with everything you perceive through the the senses and through whatever rises up out of memory."

Leon Weliczker survived the Holocaust and his story is truly one of such horror that reading it provoked a visceral reaction. Yet, he had resilience and continued his interrupted life. The author writes: "Leon went on to live a rich life. He taught mathematics at New York University and did research for the Office of naval Research. His work in optics eventually led to the development of the first video-cassette recorders. He carried out one of the primary tasks of the survivor: He made himself useful."