Resilience is ugly.
I utterly despise it when people romanticize me - calling me strong, turning me into some heroic knight in shining armor standing tall against brutal realities. That’s how the "resilience" narrative works: Oh, look how powerful, how inspiring! But no, I’m sorry - resilience is mostly grotesque. Sure, I might be wearing armor, but it’s battered, punctured, and dented from falling. I might have a helmet, but it doesn't shine - because war is mud, blood, and sheer terror, not a movie trailer.
I have no use for "hustle culture" or surface gloss. My resilience isn't a conscious choice; it is forced upon me. Not a single soul would ever voluntarily step into the hellscape where this kind of endurance is forged.
Yet when the world evaluates you on this superhuman scale, you begin projecting impossible standards onto yourself:
— "I'm not being positive enough, even though I made it through a night where dozens of people were killed. I need to work on my attitude!"
— "I have no new achievements to flex while others are growing - after all, the war has been going on for 5 years now, so that's no excuse, right?"
— "I'm just sitting here staring at a blank wall when I could be painting. What is wrong with me? Have I just gotten lazy?!"
...
It is all nonsense. Being resilient doesn't mean you feel no pain or that you're okay just because you're still standing where others have fallen. It simply means that, FOR NOW, you are still standing.
I once reached out to an international acquaintance for help, and he was genuinely bewildered that I could ever need assistance - because I stay silent, because I project an aura of strength and invincibility. Hm... would it be better if everyone saw me broken on the floor, smearing tears across my face like a child after another relentless attack? An attack where I forbade myself from feeling fear, purely because I had to be a fearless, rock-solid mother for my daughter?
What "strength"? I am a shattered woman, aged prematurely by chronic stress, conditioned to never ask for help and to always manage - a woman who stopped managing a long time ago.
Resilience is ugly. It’s waking up to smoke and fires, yet still dressing your child in her favorite clothes because she wants to look pretty at school. It’s the dark circles under your eyes that no patch can erase. It’s the inability to lose weight because your body holds more cortisol than a cucumber holds water. It’s passive suicidal thoughts you would never act on, because you have a small human to raise. It’s the total absence of a past or a future. It’s loans, debt, a financial pit - yet somehow peeling off another layer of yourself just to bring a smile to your child’s face with ice cream or soap bubbles. It’s an exhaustion that broken sleep, therapy sessions, and premium vitamins can no longer heal. It’s the unanswered questions you stop asking because the answers are too terrifying to face. It’s chat threads with unread messages from people who are no longer alive.
Hide the scars, turn on the filters, pose! Look how strong you are! No. Resilience is ugly... but the fact that a person living through hell can still create something beautiful... that is truly profound.
(Digital drawing, 2026)