Perspective

Kids ARE very resilient. That's the problem. Therapists know this despite the joke.
As a kid you're so resilient you'll accept anything as "that's the way it is" and so a child will shape their themselves around that world view. Then they grow up with a twisted view of how things are and it requires therapy to unlearn that.
It's like scar tissue on a wound. You healed but you're not quite the same. That wound is now less sensitive to feeling in it's environment and can even be more susceptible to further wounding.
- As I got older I thought "Thankfully I grew up in a very normal household and turned out to be a very normal person without any psychological trauma."
  And then I got a little older still and realized that wasn't true at all.
- Is it resilience to succumb to trauma and push the bad feelings all the way down? I’m glad they got through it, of course, but if we’re talking about definitions then I’m not 100% sold. Resilience, to me, is defined by resisting being wounded in the first place but I will concede that many perspectives will see a few scars as a good trade for whatever else could have happened.
  Kids are smarter than we like to believe, and personally I believe in treating them better than the attitude of “because I said so” does(but still also understand that things like trying them as minors and having a relatively high age of consent are good, of course). They are, however, also way more fragile and malleable.
- At the same time, they are also incredibly fragile. The wrong words at the wrong time can have an affect on them for a lifetime.
  
  *effect
- Yup. Like having to re-break and reset a bone that didn’t set correctly. Technically it healed, but it healed in the warped way it was left, and to bring it back to normal you basically have to walk it through its trauma again and let it heal the correct way.

There's more shit that fucked with my head since I became an adult than ever did while I was a kid, and I had plenty of shit fuck with my head as a kid.
I'm resilient as hell, but only because I promised my wife I wouldn't arrange an early exit. As much as I regret making that promise, I'm stuck. Gotta just wait for natural causes to kick in.
- You better or I'll make some promises to your wife. /jk
  Honestly tho please keep that promise.
- I hope you keep that promise for the rest of your life.
  
  Yes.
- To have such resilience in the face of the storm is proof of strength within you. I truly believe you are more capable than you may realize, especially if you channeled a fraction of that strength into something that builds you up instead of tearing you down.
  If you're going to sit through the rain you may as well plant some flowers.

The tools to survive are different than those to thrive

Not all adults need therapy
- Not all adults need a traditional doctor, but checkups mean catching things before they become a problem in either case.
- Ehhhhhhhhhh…….
  
  I feel like if there was a way to set it up everyone could at the very least use a yearly mental checkup with no strings attached. No one will know and you can be completely honest about any thoughts that you have had in the past year with no fears of being hospitalized.
- Juat cos you havent finished growing up yet!
  (Possibly my most childish comment - in proud of the irony)
  
  Im turning 35 this year, the height of puberty no doubt
- Also, choosing to go to therapy literally demonstrates resilience.

I would believe she looked into the middle distance for a bit, but I am inclined to think it's more likely she was trying to figure out how to phrase her reply so it didn't sound exasperated.
- If she gets exasperated by that statement alone, she'd be in the wrong business.
  
  Depends on how insufferable the patient is. Then again, I felt like I was wasting my therapist's time for the first month of our therapy, so I'm probably not a good judge of such things.
- yeah it's a pretty complicated thing to respond to. it's definitely an insightful comment

Because they're not kids who at that age haven't quite learned to internalise their world view yet.
I know what the post is saying, but I also know what the therapist meant. It's not a gotcha.

Because they're not kids anymore?
- I too would love to clarify what the basis is everyone is commenting from. Like theres no way to identify whats the core situation for this person here or am I wrong