I Didn’t Choose The Resilient Life, It Chose Me

What happens when it’s just not in your toolkit, to just sit back and let life happen?

Amanda Jayne O'Hare
7 min readApr 23, 2021
Image by Murray Rudd from Pixabay

The more I learn about myself, the more I’m impressed, and quite frankly, blown away with how I’ve been able to survive.

At 15, my mum looked at me, silently hinting for an answer to the question regarding switching my dad’s life support off. He’d been battling alcohol addiction for as long as I can remember. (I remember being in the booster seat, I must have been 2 or 3, and my dad pouring himself a vodka in the passenger seat, on his way to the heliport).

Of course, this would weigh even heavier on my shoulders, given that a few years earlier, when I had tried to leave home, fed up, my dad would say to me “you want me to die, don’t you?”

It wasn’t the beginning of my story, nor was it anywhere close to the end — I’d lose my mum to alcoholism 13 years after my dad’s departure.

Throughout my 20s I experienced narcissistic relationships; actually, more bordering sociopathic in some cases; corporate bullying, sexual assault, and other nasties.

I’d block it out by working relentless hours in the week and blackout drinking at the weekend; passing out and the resulting hangovers being the only time I’d stop and rest.

Despite these things happening due to poor modeled boundaries and a lack of trust in my gut instinct; from years of gaslighting and minimization; society tends to leans towards victim shaming and blaming, rather than questioning what has happened to someone for this to be a living reality.

Better give them a wide berth, they must be trouble.

Despite this, I had fought hard with all I could to make sure that I could to forge out a career I could be proud of; moving from Aberdeen to London to pursue a career I could get the most experience and opportunities from.

I went from arriving, with the defiance; created by the tune of fixed-minded folks telling me it couldn’t be done; to me failing and ending up with only an onion and some olive oil, my possessions and a dingy Hoxton room rental to my name; to digging in and becoming UK PT Ambassador for Fitness First UK, writing for magazines and doing pretty well for myself.

I’d found a passion and an escape in fitness; running initially. When I found how well I could handle the hurts of my life through moving my body, I was desperate to share the news; shelving my newly acquired Degree in Fashion Design for Industry and immediately retraining for my fitness and nutrition qualifications. By the time I’d arrived in London, I’d already been honing my craft for the best part of 5 years.

I lived a double life; busy fitness professional, working to burn out; drinking at the weekend to create a hangover that would be the only way I would take rest. I was lonely and in a lot of emotional pain; but to society, when I was at work, I looked like I was doing really well.

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

Single pregnancy into single motherhood would see me determined to have a different life for my daughter and I, and so my recovery journey was born.

In becoming a mum, I was, in a sense, reborn along with my daughter; taking the opportunity to learn how to live and experience the world all over again from scratch.

I’m 3 years deep into my recovery journey; which began in postpartum depression, where I was sleeping as little as 2 hours a night as a newborn-single-mum; from the emotional pain of abandonment and emotional and financial abuse.

Doctors refused me the help I begged for. At one point, one doctor, backing me out of the doctor's office, while I asked why I wouldn’t be referred to a mother and baby unit despite being, clearly desperately in need.

It was the kind and lifesaving support of the Friends Of The Neonatal Unit in Aberdeen, that would come to my rescue and provide me counseling from the wonderful May.

This, would ultimately be a huge part of saving my life.

It’s only a little over 2 years ago that I learned of complex PTSD, after a lovely follower of my Strongmamamoves Instagram page, in reading my blogging for some time, mentioned that she had cPTSD, and figured it sounded like what I was experiencing.

That was a really powerful lightbulb moment for me.

It unpacked a plethora of avenues to head down, which did mess with my head. It turned out, that the things doctors had been treating me for; depression and anxiety; were but a mere symptom of something much more complex.

But that’s it.

Complex PTSD isn’t in the DSM-5, so unless you’re attending a trauma-informed private therapist, you’re most certainly not going to be diagnosed with it; maybe instead, leaving with a diagnosis of BPD, which many trauma therapists believe to be misdiagnosis in many cases and the pathologizing of childhood trauma. (Conjecture and claim here, don’t quote me *nervous laugh* though you can find reference to this claim in Bessel Van Der Kolks book The Body Keeps Score).

Much of what I’ll share in my blog will be conjecture; it’s taken me long enough to get back to blogging as it is, so I don’t want to scare myself off of actually showing up.

However, as a newly budding Social Psychology student, I’ll do my best to link up my references and most certainly don’t want to take credit for ideas that aren’t originally mine — so I’ll be as diligent as I can to make sure I send you to the right folky folks.

Ultimately, where social media can get a pretty bad wrap for being a part of the increase in mental health struggles; I have to say, in my personal experience, it has been an absolutely invaluable tool for being able to find out what I’ve needed to know; and needed to find out long ago.

I’ve been able to forge my recovery where I haven’t been able to always access the right support through the health services. I was able to follow the work of self-healers, therapists and counselors; who, in sharing nuggets of information and recommendations to books, papers, podcasts, and other resources, made figuring out what help I’d need to look out, much easier.

That being said, it’s hard not to be hyper-aware of how stretched the health service is, so, how powerful is it to make moves to take some aspects of healing into our own hands?… Now, major disclaimer here, it’s HARD work, it gets dark; really dark. There have been points I’ve dropped so low, I’ve not known how I was going to get out. Having access to counseling services while I’ve worked through my healing has been absolutely invaluable, where possible, a personal support network can really help too. So, if you are going to embark on the heavy work of self-healing, I highly advise getting the right support network in place, professional or otherwise, to make sure you can do it in a safe way.

Like I mentioned before, the beast I’ve been wrangling with is complex PTSD, so not made up of one major trauma, but a complex network of interlinked traumas. It’s with that, I’ve realized that it’s going to take time, consistency and trying and failing; and trying again; to make progress.

It has all been worth it, in the name of breaking the chain of intergenerational trauma, so that I can give my little Ruby Roo a different story. It’s been far from plain sailing, but the progress I’ve made, the changes; the choices and different outcomes; the realization that everything I thought was absolute for me is up for dispute. It has been worth every fall.

I couldn’t be farther from the woman I was 3 years ago and I couldn’t be prouder. My passion for fitness, nutrition and human performance that began before my career started 12 years ago, has taken a fundamental shift into how looking after my wellbeing saved my life. For me, it’s been a key part of the recovery from the really tough stuff; for navigating mental health battles and using it to shape warrior behavior.

Most recently, as my little girl received her formal Autism diagnosis; I await my very own assessment for autism, ADHD and OCD. I’ll go into that in a whole other blog of it’s own. As someone who has been diligently picking apart her life, behaviors and mental health, it was really powerful and validating to receive some answers; even if it opens up the door to a whole new journey of discovery, when I’d quite like to sit down and take a well earned metaphorical nap.

I love neuroplasticity; am fascinated by how behaviors are shaped and formed; and how society and things like consumerism, societal construct, and social media have an influence on the shaping of people’s identities; perceived and real — and how that impacts on health and life satisfaction.

It’s safe to say that my work is pretty deep; but I do the deep stuff so my clients can have a slightly easier ride of the journey than me; sheerly through stripping out the guesswork. This is a little introduction into my world and my why’s before I start shelling out the fun stuff.

I hope you enjoy sharing the journey with me.

Amanda is a wellbeing strategy writer, coach and podcaster with 12 years of experience within the fitness industry; formerly UK PT Ambassador for Fitness First UK; she has contributed to magazines such as Fit & Well, InStyle Online and The Daily Mail. She’s a neurodiverse single mummy from pregnancy to Ruby and is currently studying a BSc in Social Psychology.

--

--

Amanda Jayne O'Hare

Personal Growth, Grief and Trauma; Health, Fitness and Relationships | hello@amandajaynethrives.com | Exploring life's vast depths and epic peaks.