What If I'm Tired of Being Resilient?

A question came in recently through Dear Rust Wellness:

"I know I'm supposed to be resilient, but I'm exhausted."

This question stayed with me because it captures something I hear often in my work with individuals navigating chronic illness, grief, and trauma. I have the privilege of sitting alongside people as they adapt to circumstances they never expected, and I hear the weight behind questions like this.

Because resilience can be exhausting. The constant adjusting. The continued problem-solving. The effort it takes to keep moving through difficult seasons. The very thing we are praised for, our ability to keep going, can also be the thing that leaves us feeling deeply depleted.

The Problem With How We Talk About Resilience

In popular American culture, resilience is synonymous with strength, grit, and relentless forward motion. We celebrate the people who keep going, who push through, who inspire everyone watching. There's real value in perseverance, but this version of resilience has a harmful subtext: that struggling is failure, that needing rest is weakness, that asking for help means you aren't coping well enough. Our culture seems to see this toxic positivity version of resilience being an anecdote for suffering.  There is absolutely room for inspiring stories of people accomplishing remarkable things despite tremendous hardship. But resilience in everyday life is less polished and less visible.

What the Research Actually Says

Psychologist George Bonanno has spent decades studying how people respond to trauma and loss, and his work consistently finds that resilience doesn't mean being unaffected by hardship. Resilient people still grieve. They still feel sad, overwhelmed, and tired. Resilience isn't invulnerability, it's adaptation, the ongoing ability to keep engaging with life while hardship is present. Notice what's missing from that definition: constant positivity, endless productivity, emotional suppression, never needing support. Resilience isn't the absence of suffering. It's what we do while suffering is still there.

Developmental psychologist Ann Masten offers a description of resilience I find especially grounding, one she calls "ordinary magic." Her decades of research suggest that resilience isn't a rare trait belonging to a few extraordinary people; it's built from ordinary, everyday systems, the small routines and relationships that  hold us up when things get hard. I love that reframing , because it means resilience doesn't have to look dramatic to be real. Waking up on a difficult day and choosing to get out of bed. Brushing your teeth when your body feels heavy. Taking a shower when your energy is limited. Sitting in the waiting room for an appointment you never wanted to need. Showing up for someone you love while carrying pain of your own.

These moments may seem ordinary, but they are not insignificant. They are not lesser versions of "real" resilience. From a clinical perspective, these moments are often where resilience is most visible. They are the ordinary magic Masten describes: the small, everyday systems of care, connection, and adaptation.

The Cost of Adaptation

For people living with chronic conditions, there is another important piece of the resilience conversation that deserves attention: adaptation requires energy.

Psychologists and health researchers use the term allostatic load to describe the cumulative wear and tear that can happen when the mind and body are repeatedly asked to respond to stress over time. Our bodies are designed to adapt, but adaptation is not without a cost.

When you are managing chronic pain, grief, disability, trauma symptoms, caregiving responsibilities, or persistent mental health challenges, adaptation is not something you complete and move beyond. It is an ongoing process.

You are continually adjusting to changing symptoms, changing needs, changing limitations, and changing versions of what your day may require from you.

That kind of adaptation takes energy.

So if you find yourself feeling exhausted, it does not mean you are failing at resilience. It does not mean you are not trying hard enough. It reflects the incredible amount of energy your mind and body have spent adapting, coping, and continuing forward.

Performative Resilience vs. Authentic Resilience

One distinction I come back to often with clients is the difference between performative resilience and authentic resilience. Performative resilience asks, "How can I look okay?" Authentic resilience asks, "What do I actually need?" Performative resilience tends to prize productivity, positivity, and independence above all else. Authentic resilience makes room for grief, for limitations, for vulnerability and honesty, and it recognizes that human beings aren't machines. We're allowed to have needs. We're allowed to have limits. We're allowed to be exhausted, and still be resilient.

This is also where resilience and toxic positivity begin to separate. They are confused because both can be framed as "staying strong," but they are fundamentally different.

You Do Not Owe Anyone an Inspiring Version of Your Suffering 

Therapist Whitney Goodman, in her book Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy, writes about how well-intentioned phrases like "everything happens for a reason" or "just stay positive" can unintentionally create shame around difficult emotions. Instead of helping people process pain, these messages can communicate that sadness, anger, fear, or exhaustion make others feel uncomfortable and they are undesirable states of being.

Resilience is not about creating a more comfortable version of your suffering for other people to witness. It is not about minimizing your pain so others do not feel uncomfortable. It is not about maintaining a positive attitude when what you truly need is support, rest, or honesty.

Authentic resilience allows you to acknowledge that something is hard while still building a meaningful life alongside it. It may look like asking for help. It may look like adjusting your expectations for the day. It may look like resting without viewing that rest as a failure.

A resilient life does not require you to hide your struggles or make your pain easier for others to accept. It requires you to listen to yourself with compassion and respond to what you actually need. The goal cannot be to become someone who can endure anything for all time.

One of the most painful expectations people carry is the belief that hardship should always produce something meaningful: growth, wisdom, strength, or an inspiring story for others to witness.

And while growth and meaning can emerge from difficult experiences, they do not have to happen immediately. They cannot be forced, and they do not need to be the measure of whether an experience mattered.

Not every struggle needs to be transformed into something inspirational before it deserves compassion or  adoration.

Resilience Is Found in the Everyday

If you are feeling tired, I invite you to reflect on this: the science of resilience is not the science of invulnerability. It is the science of adaptation. And adaptation requires energy. It demands significant power from  your body, your mind, and your life.

Feeling exhausted does not mean you are less resilient. It may be a reflection of how much you have been adapting, adjusting, and continuing through circumstances you never expected to face. Resilience is not measured by how well you hide your struggles or how little support you need. It is reflected in the ways you continue caring for yourself while life is difficult.

The days you get up and complete the tasks that keep your life moving are resilience. The appointments you attend, the medications you remember, the conversations you have, the boundaries you set, the moments you choose rest instead of pushing beyond your limits. These things may feel ordinary, but they are the structures that hold your life together. They are the load-bearing parts of resilience. I hope we can learn to recognize these moments not as evidence that we are "barely getting by," but as evidence of the incredible work we are doing to care for ourselves. And this is where support matters.

Therapy, relationships, and meaningful connection give us places where we do not have to carry everything alone. Being truly seen by another person, having your experiences understood, and having someone reflect back the strength and effort you may not recognize in yourself can be a powerful part of healing.