Resilience Is a Gift

Treating wounded veterans has taught psychologist Joel Schmidt the resilience of the human spirit.

Welcome to This I Believe-- an NPR series presenting the personal philosophies of remarkable men and women from all walks of life. From NPR news, this is weekend edition. I’m Lian Handsome.

I believe in mystery

I believe in family.

I believe in being who I am.

I believe in the power of failure.

And I believe normal life is extraordinary.

This I Believe.

On this Veterans Day. Today’s This I Believe essay was sent in by listener Joe Schmidt. Schmidt is a clinical psychologist at the Outpatient Veterans Affairs Mental Health Clinic in Oakland, California. He’s worked in the VA for 13 years. Here’s the series curator, independent producer Jay Alison.

Joe Schmidt says he finds our series to be a good counterpoint of the negative tanner of so much of what he hears in the media. In fact, he hears negative and even heartbreaking stories in his job, pretty much every day. And yet he realizes that from them, he’s derived a positive belief. Here’s Joe Schmidt with his essay for This I Believe.

I listen to people for a living. As a psychologist in the department of veterans affairs, I hear about some of the worst experiences humans have to bear. I have sat face to face with the Bataan Death March survivor, an airman shot down over Germany, a marine who’s at the chosen worst of war, veterans from every regime of Vietnam, medics and infantry soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. I have spoken with people who have been insulted and brutalized by their own comrades and parents who had have to attend their children’s funerals. I have gained the surprising belief from hearing about so much agony . I believe in the power of human resilience. I’m continuing inspired by the ability of the emotionally wounded to pick themselves up and keeping going after endeavoring the most tragic circumstances imaginable.

A veteran described to me the constant hell of unpredictable IED attacks and invisible snipers. By the time they get home, many can’t drive on the freeway or be in the same room with their old friends. One vet described being locked in an emotional cage between numbness and rage. Emerging from this terrible bad job, many vets that have surprised me with their drive to recover and their unpredictable ways of giving back a meaning to their lives. For example, there was a veteran whose most powerful theopneustic experience was helping his grandmother keep her small business running. This course gave him a reason to care. Someone to emotionally connect with. And ultimately, a reason to get up in the morning. this might sound like late optimism when in fact treatment is often long and hard and not every story has a happy ending. Sundays, when I go home, my head hurts. I feel sad or worried or angry or ineffective. On these days I have to peal to my own strategies for self care, pick myself back up and keep going. I went to school to learn how to help people get better. Instead, it is often the every people I have spread my career trying to help that remind me how to care for myself. I keep a catalog of them in my head. And I try to use this list as a role map, an inspiration and a reminder of what human resilience can achieve.

I made an appointed compliment to strand the ingenuity of the people who sit in my office, but the truth is I don’t think many of them realize the death of my aberration. Sitting in the room with these people every day allows me to hope that I might also find the strand to face mutual problems. This solid sense of hope is a gift and it’s my humble desire to share it with the next person who sits with me.

Joe Schmidt with his essay for This I Believe. Schmidt says that it’s part of his job to train interns and this essay was a way of explaining why the job is so important to him. You can find information about submitting your own statement of belief at our website, that’s npr. org/thisibelieve. You will also find all the other essays sent in from around the world. For This I Believe, I’m Jay Alison.

Jay Alison is the co-editor with Dan Gediman, John Gregory and Viki Merrick of the book This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. A week from tomorrow, on NPR’s All Things Considered, an essay from Alice Brock of Alice’s restaurant fan. She believes in improvisation.

Support for This I Believe comes from Prudential Retirement.

This I Believe is produced for NPR by This I Believe Incorporated and Atlantic Public Media. For more essays in the series, please visit npr.org/thisibelieve.

* 如果因您不良评论或重复评论导致评论被删，您将会被扣掉一定数额的金币。
* 您必须遵守《全国人大常委会关于维护互联网安全的决定》及中华人民共和国其他有关法律法规。
* 承担一切因您的行为而直接或间接导致的民事或刑事法律责任。
* 您发表的文章仅代表个人观点，与大耳朵网站无关。
* 大耳朵评论管理人员有权保留或删除其管辖评论中的任意内容。
* 您在大耳朵网评论系统发表的作品，大耳朵网有权在网站内转载或引用。
* 参与本评论即表明您已经阅读并接受上述条款。