When Your “Resilience” Becomes Your Worst Enemy.

Lore has it Gen Z is fragile as fuck. They have no follow-through. They're weak. They're quitters. But what if Millennials are..."toxically" resilient?

So many of us are struggling with finding the thin, barely-there line between working hard and working yourself to the point of burnout; having capacity and empathy for your partner and friends without pouring so much out of you, you’ve dried up your own reserves; and creating goalposts for your life and career that feel bold and ambitious, but also, wholly yours. 

This morning, I came face-to-face with another thin line. 

After walking to drop off Shrimp at the groomer, I watched a little girl fall of a swing set and hit the ground.

“I fell,” she whined to her mom, on the brink of tears.

“I know, honey,” the mom responded casually, “I saw. But you’re okay.”

“Yeah” said the girl, dusting herself off and returning to her feet. “I’m okay.”

The girl got back on the swing and started pumping her legs to go higher and higher as her mom watched attentively, but un-obsessively, sipping coffee from her to-go cup.

This interaction immediately reminded me of a podcast episode I plowed through back in 2022, called “Humans are more resilient than you think.” In it, Bari Weiss interviews clinical psychologist George Bonanno as they unpack the nature of human resilience, the notion of “Gen Z fragility,” and how that generation labels experiences or events as “traumatic” or “triggering” with a seriousness and frequency that feels so foreign to older generations, they tend to make fun of it to avoid understanding it.

I recall feeling very vindicated by the podcast. I say this knowing it’s semi-c*nty, and I’m semi-sorry, but at the time, I had already independently decided that Gen Z was insanely fragile, thin-skinned, and completely ill-equipped for the realities of work and adulthood. By 2022, I had enough experiences with Gen Z in personal and professional settings (and actually spoke to The New York Times about it, for better or for worse) to make the call with conviction. I wore my own resilience like a badge of honor. I had paid my dues, as so many millennials had. Back in 2013, I graduated a few years into the recession and moved to New York with no money and loads of debt, worked a shitty 30K/year media job while babysitting for chump-change every weekend, shared a bedroom with a literal 7-year-old for half the year to save on rent, and grinned gratefully through the entire thing. I would NEVER have DARED to call out of work because I was in a low mood, or had cramps, or needed a mental health day, like so many of my former Gen Z retail employees had done -  like it was normal, like it was nothing. I wondered where the fuck their resilience had gone, or if they ever had any in the first place. I thought about their parents, and whether their moms told them they were just fine, and to get back up on the swing. Or if they were a hyper-coddled generation that never learned how to deal with a light fall, or a sprinkle of hardship, or a minor inconvenience. 

I would NEVER have DARED to call out of work because I was in a low mood, or had cramps, or needed a mental health day, like so many of my former Gen Z retail employees had done.

I remember listening to that podcast episode and thinking: I knew it! I knew it. I’m formed “correctly.” I’m resilient, I’m strong, I’m a survivor, I’m a MACHINE!!! Nothing can stop me. Nothing can derail me. I uphold my obligations, I see things through, I get to the finish line - and thats the right way to live. 

And Gen Z? Those fragile little fuckers? They have it all wrong. They are formed incorrectly. They are quitters. They are weak! They are broken!!! They get derailed so easily. They relinquish their responsibility so casually. They don’t give a shit about what they owe, or who they owe. They don’t feel pressure to see things through. They don’t care about reaching the finish line. And that’s the wrong way to live. Many academics and researchers have written extensively about this perspective. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at NYU, co-authored a book about the phenomenon of Gen Z fragility, explaining that overprotective and overbearing Gen X parents, the anxiety wrought by social media, and a culture that over-emphasizes victimhood and black-and-white thinking alllll mushed together to erode Gen Z’s collective fortitude. I read that book, too, and felt reassured by my forever-thick skin and resilient spirit. 

But as I’ve gotten older, and as I’ve spoken ad nauseam to other millennials who, like me, grinned-and-beared-it through their twenties, I’m less sure I had it right. In fact, I know I didn’t.

There is a fine line between healthy resilience and what psychologists call maladaptive or “toxic” resilience, much like there’s a line between being overly fragile and properly boundaried. I think a lot of millennials - and ambitious people in general - struggle to navigate when it’s time to be or stay resilient, and when it’s okay to take a break, or call it quits. 

I used to resent Gen Z so much not because they were fragile as fuck, but because they got away with shit I never allowed myself to even try. Back in the “old days” when we were all working in open-floor-plan offices and commuting to and from work and hustling as hard as we could to prove we were worthy, to fit in, to find status, I’d chug DayQuil and push through the day, even if I was sick with a fever. 

After one of my closest high school friends died in 2014, I AGONIZED over whether or not to call my boss and take leave for the rest of the week, and wandered around Williamsburg feeling so anxious and guilty that I constantly checked my email to make sure I wasn’t missing anything or dropping any balls. 

I didn’t even go to his funeral.

And what will serve as my most personal confession of all: when I was 18 and caught my dad cheating on my mom, which led to their sudden and bitter divorce and my family’s financial ruin, I trudged through the rest of college wholly convinced, and shocked, that I felt “totally fine.” I never saw a therapist. I never carved out time to reflect or process. I woke up every day, most days, and sternly told myself that I was okay. That I was excellent, in fact. That I wouldn’t let it derail me. That I’d push harder. That I’d smile wider. That I’d take on yet another job to make end’s meet. That I’d add classes and extracurriculars to my already-full plate. 

That I’d be resilient.

For so many years, I took pride in being go-go-go. In showing up. In chugging along. In forcing my way through. In stifling any degree of fragility or vulnerability that would take me off-course.

I was so petrified of getting “off-course.” I didn’t even know what my destination was, but wherever it was, I wanted to get there first, fists shaking, guns blazing. Leaving those weaker than me hobbling in the dust.

When does resilience become so all-consuming, it convinces you that your needs, your health, your recovery, doesn’t matter? 

At what point does it kill your softest spots? Your tenderness?

And when does resilience become so toxic, it drowns out the trauma and triggers you should actually, definitely deal with? A death. A divorce. A financial collapse. 

All of it.

I’m not fixed, and I don’t have all the answers, but since burning out, breaking down, and re-building from scratch, I’ve opened an ongoing dialogue with myself and my resilience. Instead of telling myself I’m okay every morning, I ask myself how I’m doing. Instead of forcing myself to work if I’m sick, I communicate where I’m at, and what I need, and give myself the grace to get better. Instead of burying trauma or denying triggers or shoving painful events or memories under the bed, I write about them. I talk about them. I sit with them. All the while knowing that accepting, believing, and processing your trauma is not synonymous with that trauma “derailing you,” or it endangering your momentum. 

Accepting, believing, and processing your trauma is not synonymous with that trauma “derailing you,” or it endangering your momentum. 

Maybe Gen Z is a bit too fragile, after all. Maybe they center themselves, and their experiences, in a way that may harm the corporations and businesses they work for. Maybe we could never imagine calling out of work for a mental health day, or because our cramps are so unbearable. Maybe we’d just grin and bear it. Maybe we’d pop a Midol and push through. I don’t know.

But maybe, Millennials are too resilient, too. Maybe we’ve martyred ourselves, and de-centered our experiences, in a way that benefits our bosses and our businesses, but wears on our souls. And maybe, like me, our collective disdain for Gen Z is actually a tinge of jealousy in disguise. Maybe we feel bitter, like we eagerly paid dues the generation below us never even tallied. Maybe we feel stupid, like we subscribed to a workaholic mindset they rejected from the jump. 

And maybe, even if some believe Gen Z has it all wrong, and they are too sensitive, and too boundaried, their potent point of view exists not to make weaklings of all of us, but rather to dilute the toxic resilience of our culture just a little bit, so that all of us feel safer, and stronger, saying “I’m actually not okay, and I need some time.”

Recovery Resources

Humans Are More Resilient Than You Think, Bari Weiss and George Bonnano - Bonnano uses research and anecdotes to prove that “when people are exposed to violent or life-threatening events, those events are only ‘potentially traumatic’ and that ‘a good part of the rest of it is up to us.’” IE, life is what you make of it. If you’re the opposite of me, and you’re struggling to cultivate resilience, versus temper it, this is a great listen and offers a reframe on how to process traumatic events without letting them define you. 

Set Boundaries, Find Peace, by Nedra Tawwab - Licensed therapist and NYT bestselling author Nedra Tawwab brilliantly explores how asking for what you needed, setting boundaries and speaking up all starts with self-compassion. As I tried to navigate the line between practicing self-compassion (I lost a close friend, it’s totally normal and healthy for me to need a week off from work) and victimhood (I lost a close friend, how dare my boss expect me to go back to worth after one week. I’m a mess and I’ll never recover), I found this book helpful, unapologetic and refreshing.

Composition Notebooks - As cheesy as it sounds, I journal in the same notebooks I used during elementary and middle school because it helps me remember that all of my tendencies and flaws, my triggers and traumas, have been accumulating and shaping me for many years. And that for most of those years, I wasn’t old enough or self aware enough to heal properly, or start the right conversations with myself. Sometimes when I’m scared or ashamed to pause, or take a break, or face my fragility, I think of how badly that sense of resilience fucked over Younger Me, the girl who used to write in this same exact type of composition notebook - ignoring that her dad left, that her friend died, that she felt sick. Pushing it all down, so I could push myself forward. And that connection to Younger Me forces Older Me to do better this time around.

Have a beautiful week, ya’ll. And talk soon.

Ali🧘🏼‍♀️