Victim vs Survivor: My 2 cents (which won't buy you jack today)

Several years back the term "survivor" in regards to assaults of varying types came to replace "victim" as a way of saying "I'm no longer a victim/I AM more than a victim", or "I'm more than what the attacker did to me." It's really a great sentiment, and a great way of reclaiming our power. And I also think it's okay to use the word victim (stay with me!). During the heyday of support groups we were admonished for offering someone a tissue when they were crying because we were telling them that we were uncomfortable with their tears and they needed to stop crying (for our comfort). Let me just take a second to say to a certain degree I think that's bullshit...c'mon, y'all know if you've got snot dripping down your face you want your posse to hand you a snot rag, not so you can stop crying but so you can wipe away the 6" snot-string hanging off your face while you ugly cry to your hearts content. We can hand someone a tissue and tell them to get it all out, OR to get over it. Just like our offered tissue can be the white flag to say "I'm uncomfortable with tears, please stop, I need for you to be okay cuz I don't know how to make it okay," correcting people to always refer to themselves as survivors rather than victim when they are emotionally/mentally/spiritually bleeding out could be construed as saying the same thing as that tissue. Are we telling the victim/survivor, "okay, I'm uncomfortable with your pain/your trauma/your experience; I need you to be okay now because I don't know how to hold space/don't know how to make it okay/am uncomfortable with your pain/am uncomfortable with this topic/etc"?

If there were such a thing as a specific threshold over which we cross from victimhood to survivorhood, what the hell would that threshold be? When the assault ends? (And what if it's a repeated assault- in the in-between-assault times is that person expected to wear the mantle of "survivor" or are they still a victim)?  Is it when we are finally "safe", ah but that's the tricky part about trauma...do we ever really feel safe? For anyone I've talked to or read about who has gone through a sexual assault court case they have always spoken of being "re-victimized" by the process, so is it after the court case is over that we get to strap on our badge that says "SURVIVOR" (If we are lucky enough to see our perp be convicted...which may or may not result in jail)? Is is when we can see that type of jacket, or that color of hair, or smell that smell without having a panic attack? Who gets to define what the magic threshold is? Is it really a set place, or a moving target?

I vote that it is a moving target because healing isn't linear. Healing isn't a one-time deal. There is no singular threshold. There is no steady progress. It's ups and downs/3 steps forward 2 steps back. It's going in circles, and it's moments of being mired. It's thinking you're all good and then a smell, or a news story, or a mention of a name, or an anniversary knocks you on your ass and you are back in that moment of terror and horror, the present faded into nothingness. The journey of healing is messy, and ugly, and wonderful, and magical, and often unpredictable...and always personal. There's no "getting over it," it is as much a part of us as our birth date, or how baby hippo videos make us laugh, but we learn to live with the memories and ramifications of the assault(s), we learn to live with this altered-self. We learn to live. The person we have become creates its strict routines and boundaries that keep the worst of the flashbacks and triggers from popping up during the mundane, day to day things that are a part of living as normal as possible...our rituals give us a little control over some of the upsets that can knock us off balance or embarrass us at work. As we grow and heal those upsets hopefully become fewer, less intense, more manageable through our modifications...until they're not. And sometimes the things that once would completely destroy us are defused from hours and hours of therapy/reflection/self-care/self-soothing/creating safety.

Moral of the story; if someone uses the word "victim" to refer to themselves it isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it isn't necessarily helpful to correct them. Yes, sometimes it can be helpful to help someone re-frame their narrative in order to remind them that they did indeed SURVIVE. And if someone never wants to hear the word "victim" associated with them, then fuck yeah, nix that word! It's up to the individual what they want to call themselves, how they want to reclaim their power, and to determine where they are in their journey. If you take a look below either word is appropriate.  When looking at the definition of survive/survivor: "to remain alive after the death of", although it infers literal death of another, in the case of trauma, the survivor survives, continues to live on in spite of the death of a part of themselves...and there is always a death of some aspect of our old selves after a trauma (sense of safety, connection to our body, love of a certain activity or place, etc). We indeed survive, but we were also victims, and those two things can exist together.  And maybe if we give ourselves room to acknowledge that we have been been injured, and adversely affected; that it wasn't just those 5 minutes/months/years of The Event(s), but that we are affected for a lifetime, that we live with the aftermath of The Event(s) daily (even the days we manage not to think about it, because we are forever changed) we can give ourselves room to grieve, to heal, and to not shame ourselves when we are so not okay. And without shame, or guilt of thoughts of "I should be over it" we can allow ourselves to be in pain, devastated, lost, and torn to bits...and how much brighter the sun shines when compared to the moments of the darkness of our deepest sorrows.

Per our friend Merriam-Webster:

Definition of survive

intransitive verb

1: to remain alive or in existence : live on

2: to continue to function or prosper

transitive verb

1: to remain alive after the death ofhe is survived by his wife

2: to continue to exist or live aftersurvived the earthquake

3: to continue to function or prosper despite : WITHSTANDthey survived many hardships

Definition of victim

1: one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agentthe schools are victims of the social system: such as

a(1): one that is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any of various conditionsa victim of cancera victim of the auto crasha murder victim

(2): one that is subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment

If you would like to read about a journey of being broken down and building one's self back up check out Chanel Miller's memoir, Know My Name. http://www.chanel-miller.com/