I have always struggled with the term survivor. It has never traveled off my tongue easily. In the past year I have become more comfortable with it.

One of the things my last therapist showed me was that the word victim was not a horrible term. He had me look at myself at the age of my assault and kept asking me if a young man knew everything as I seemed to expect him to. He taught me that before I could really accept being a survivor I needed to look at myself as a victim. And then things began to fall into place to accept the survivor title.

Today I look at myself as a victim/survivor. I was a victim of that night and always will be. It is part of my letting go of all the blame I heaped on myeslf. If I forget that I am apt to take the blame back on myself. I am also a survivor in every day attempting to build my life into the one I want. In going beyond what was done to me that night. I will acknowledge I was a victim and hope to live like a survivor.

I think I can be both.


Daryl

Daryl,

I don’t know if you remember but back, not long after my coming here, you pushed me on the “victim” title. I pushed back stating I was NOT a victim. You pushed equally back helping me to see the fallacy in my thinking. That it would be impossible for me to stop judging myself and heaping tons of guilt on myself as long as I kept thinking “I could of” or “should have”, therefore my fault. Once you got that through my thick skull the guilt portion of healing began. I owe you so much for that and other things you, as an ASA have helped me to process. Thank you.

I am so glad to hear that. Yes, I do remember! Thought you were going to throttle me.

It has been a similar journey for me. I fought my therapist on it so much. But I took what he showed me and then adapted it to fit in with a system that worked for me. I am a word guy who sees words in his head as other images. It worked for me. And it took the edge off of my self hatred and attacks.

You have helped me too. In many ways. You allowed me to just be angry and that was a great gift.


Daryl

I wrote many poems based on your anger. You touched a deep part of my inner world sharing those raw emotions with me. You gave me a gift and I tried to return that gift in the form of poetry. You've been a good friend and traveling partner on the journey through these meadows filled with butterflies and mosquitoes that we are wondering through.

I am truly honored that you took something so monstrous, at least to me, and turned it into art and beauty.

I remember when I first started to emotionally address the pain my abuse caused me, I went to confession with a priest. He slid a business card for a therapist under the screen, told me it wasn't my fault and that I was a victim of sexual assault. I remember saying, "Please don't say that I'm a victim." I'd always associated that word with a lot of negativity.

My wife talks a lot about the vocabulary used in therapy and how it hurts to hear people use too much recovery slang. Saying stuff like "playing the victim," "acting out," "trigger," "victim mentality" and "perp" make her feel incredibly uncomfortable. It's been a challenge to me because I've made the decision to seek therapy and try talking about my issues with a community that uses a lot of these words, and I want to talk about my recovery in a way that isn't going to bring about bad feelings.

I think you guys are all so much more complex than a bunch of buzzwords. Use words that make sense to you, because this place is about telling YOUR story and not trying to put it into someone else's box. Labels are helpful because they tell us a bit about what's inside, but they aren't everything.

I liked what you said, Crux. And I like the idea of utilizing what works instead of the whole bag of tricks. I think you can do it.

I too was adversive to the pat slang. I still feel that way about certain terms. And I do not feel the need to embrace them.

Buzzwords put me off - I don't blame your wife.

Thanks for the kind words. Labels are just that - outer indicators that cannot measure the depth of what is present underneath. Just like a label on a folder that cannot reveal the in depth documents inside.

I agree - "they aren't everything".