Oedipus and my Big Question

My Big Question simply states: "How do people recover when faced with adversity?"  After reading Oedipus, I realized that my question does not necessarily fit with the reading, seeing as Oedipus does not necessarily recover once he is faced with difficulty, but instead I came up with a new question to apply to Oedipus Rex.  How does Oedipus respond to the challenges that he faces and what does this say about him?

Oedipus wants to avenge the king's death, but he does not know who killed the king because he did not live in the kingdom when the king was killed. Oedipus goes on this journey to find the killer, when really he is the killer the whole time, he is just unaware of the fact. When Oedipus finds out that he is the one who murdered the king, he also learns that the oracle that was told about his life did in fact come true.  Oedipus is faced with a situation where he feels uncomfortable and does not know what to do.  He wants to avenge the king's death, but he does want to take his own life.  He is faced with a trial and he does not know how to overcome and recover from it.  Instead of looking at things in a logical manner, Oedipus decides that he should not be allowed to see, because he deserves to be punished for the wrongful things he did.  Instead of choosing to overcome his hardships, Oedipus succumbs to the idea of losing his eyesight because he believes he will never be able to learn from what he has done wrong, and must therefore be reminded by it constantly.  Oedipus chooses to do the opposite of what my question and thinking imply.  He does not want to move on from what he has done wrong, but instead wants to wallow in his punishment.  Essentially, he chooses to be unhappy for the rest of his life because that is the only way he knows how to let go of his problems.  Through this difficulty and hardship, Oedipus becomes a man of little determination, who only wants to gauge out his eyes in order to pay for the crimes he has already committed, rather than to try to overcome his challenges.  He took the easy, less complicated way of getting rid of the pain, instead of pushing himself to become a better version of himself.  Oedipus chose to go against my Big Question and not to persevere when the hard things get in the way, making his life easier in the long run, but more painful down the road.