This has been a really interesting thread for me, because like several others, I see both sides of the coin.
On the one hand, I agree that the media elevates and degrades selectively. What appears to be working for this young man is very individual to him, and to praise him for it puts pressure both on him and those reading it to emulate and continue that unique set of coping behaviors.
On the other hand, I have been described by a friend who is a licensed psychologist as “freakishly resilient”. I was putting too much pressure on my kids to perform and cope with things that I found easy to deal with, and that they, as more typical (not better or worse, just more typical) people were finding terribly stressful. Same with my husband-there is stuff that gives him high blood pressure that I don’t bat an eyelash at (like work and traffic).
The flip side of that coin for me in particular is that while I can deal with train crashes and abject poverty and checked-out parents competently, I can get my feelings hurt ridiculously easily. My mother in law derides me all the time for being “too sensitive”. I can’t kill chipmunks who are destroying my yard-I have to move them and rehome them. I sob uncontrollably at movies with children or dogs in peril. I can tell when someone is upset just by looking at them and seeing their face and body language, and I hurt for them.
It’s all part and parcel of being human-and also learning to be respectful and supportive of people who grieve and process differently than you do, but also not elevating one way of doing it above another. I’m working hard to get my husband to an early retirement so the stuff that stresses him out so badly isn’t there for him anymore, rather than mock him for being upset by 20 minutes of traffic each day.