Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 22: Victimhood v. Survivorhood

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Disclaimer: This is an educational and opinion piece. This in no way reflects on a person who prefers to be considered a trauma/abuse Victim or a Survivor. This episode is food for thought to help you see both sides to each word, to think on your own preference, and to gain some insight into the lives of people living with trauma if you aren’t in the traumatized person category at all. As always, I am open for comments, questions, or concerns. As a trauma recovery coach — I want to offer you options to sort through so you can find what makes most sense for your journey.

In very recent history, the society has moved away from calling someone an assault victim, a domestic violence victim, a victim of abuse, or trauma victim to this more acceptable term of “survivor”. What does victimhood mean? What does survivorhood mean? Why do both terms have such different connotations?

Before I speak on my personal opinion — here’s some etymology.

The definition of Victimhood is “the state of a being a victim”. The term Victim comes from the Latin word ‘victima’ meaning to slaughter or kill. The dictionary says now that a victim is one who is killed, harmed, or injured, as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. To be a victim means that one is hurt, killed, damaged, or destroyed by (fill in the blank). In simple terms: something or someone did damaging actions, or you were killed or hurt by a destructive event.

Survivorhood as a noun does not exist in the dictionary yet. It comes from the usage of the term “victimhood” but with the survivor/survived/survival concept tailored to the first part of the compound word. The word survivor itself means “a person that survives/lives” and a “person who continues to function and prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks”. So to define a Trauma Survivor — this would be a person who lived through and is prospering post traumatic hardship.

Either way you slice my forthcoming opinions — if you want to be called survivor, it means you were at some point, for some length of time, a victim. Victimhood comes first. You must be someone who is hurt, damaged, or destroyed by something or someone which executed a criminal act, accident, or traumatic event or actions on you. By pure definition, if a victim survives the pain and lives through it — they can be still considered a victim by choice or may prefer to switch to the term Survivor.

I believe the societal shift from victim to survivor has a beautiful purpose. I believe it is used in order to bring power back to the victim by acknowledging their survival. I can also understand that for some victims — they don’t feel like survivors. I hear you. Some victims feel irrevocably damaged, and they don’t feel they are at the place of prospering or even able to move forward. Some victims barely feel they are even alive. Victims sometimes also like this term for their personal story because it reminds people that they were victimized. By terminology, you cannot be victimized if you did not have an offender. This term victim may help you hold accountable the evildoer who damaged you in this traumatic or abusive way. There are some that believe the word “survivor” is for cancer patients, childhood illnesses, car accidents, violent acts of nature, and other traumas that didn’t have a villain to blame. I honor a victim’s feelings and will use that term with someone who prefers it. It’s their story, so I can listen and be moved to use their suitable title.

I can also explain the survivor’s side of the story and why they believe that is the more accurate title for them. A survivor, we saw by definition, is one who survived through any hardship — in this case, trauma. They didn’t just survive but are able to continue on and find prosperity. There is first a stage of victimhood where they must admit they were the victim of a crime or injustice or physical harm by someone who did terrible things to them. This is part of the process. Walking through what happened to you is a huge part of this. From there, one can move through the stages toward “survivorhood” by processing their past trauma, moving into the truth of what happened and how they respond to the trauma, and doing the deep work. Then, on the other side, they can now find glimpses of regaining trust with themselves and others, reconnecting to their authentic self, and reframing their experience to use it for surviving and thriving.

As you can tell from the title of this podcast (“Trauma Survivorhood”) that I personally prefer and associate more with the term Trauma Survivor. Some have argued that victimhood is a phase of survivorhood is a place where victims get stuck and don’t want to or can’t yet move forward or prosper. I wouldn’t be quick to judge someone in that space because the same has been said for someone who is “merely surviving” instead of going all out thriving. They could argue ‘why don’t you call yourself a Trauma Thriver?’. That’s why I can say with confidence — these are just words, terms, monikers, designations. The term itself doesn’t define where you are in this very difficult trauma recovery journey. There is no room, in my opinion, for us to be judging other trauma victims/survivors/thrivers.

Let’s all just continue to plug along winding our way through the trauma recovery labyrinth and encourage each other as we go. If you are in the place in your journey where you’d like to learn more about the trauma recovery process, please reach out to connect with me. I’d love to hear from you to resource you and encourage you.

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 19: Stagnation

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Learning to love yourself is exactly that — a learning process. Accepting yourself as you are in this exact moment, in this exact part of your healing journey, that is the secret sauce. No matter how far you’ve come or how far you think you should have come by now — none of that matters to your true self. Your authentic self only cares about the effort that you put in and the work that you are currently doing. It is proud of who you are right now. You can remember that this whole trauma recovery road is a process. Because of that, there are going to be times where you feel like you are flying through this growth thing and then times that you feel stagnated.

I heard something powerful this week on Glennon Doyle’s podcast from her guest Chanel Miller, a trauma survivor, who was talking about feeling stuck. Glennon asked her “So that’s what you’re saying, you bring it back to yourself? All these things were happening, and you were swept up… Going to that art class, was that your way of insisting that you were still in there?”

Chanel replies: “Insisting that I’m still there and that things are still changing. Because when you are in your past, you feel like you are stuck. And you have to look at the small changes. It’s even helpful to go on a walk. If you walk the same loop of your neighborhood every day, I would challenge you to look for the certain factors that are different each time that you walk. You have to know that life is in motion and that it’s impossible to get stuck even if you feel that you are… Art is what forces me to pay attention to these smaller changes. Art also helps me because when I create these creatures or people, I create really whimsical, odd landscapes and beings. I think about how if I am to put my pencil down and mute myself and not do anything at all, if I am to give up on myself, I would also be giving up on all of them…Protecting the things that I make is non-negotiable. That helps me respect myself and my work.”

Glennon’s wife, Abby, answers “My gosh … the beautiful metaphor here is that all of us have an interior world, some of us don’t know how to draw or create beings, but we have an internalized space that if we don’t get it out of ourselves, then we are only actually living in our past, and not able to create a day or create something that could save us or heal us — that is so f*****g amazing.”

So sometimes as survivors, we feel stuck in our world … but the beauty is that the world is always in motion. Time is going to continue to tick. If you take a moment to notice, nothing is stagnant. No matter how slowly something is moving, it’s still moving. A rock may be planted down heavily into the soil, but the earth itself is rotating, so therefore the rock is technically rotating as well. The same air that is around the rock this second is now a different bubble of air around it the next second. Like Chanel said, “it’s impossible to be stuck even if it feels like you are.” The work that you have inside of you — whether it’s focusing on your trauma recovery, advocating for other survivors, creating anything from art to writing a book, sharing your story with a stranger, becoming a more present parent, learning self-compassion — that’s your work. And if you want to choose (yes, because it is a choice) to not show up, not participate in your calling, not pick up your pencil and create whimsical characters — then you are choosing to not actively participate in the movement and growth of the world around you. It doesn’t mean that the world stops spinning or that time quits ticking along. It just means that you are left living in your past. What’s beautiful is that at any moment, the opportunity to rise out of it and participate in your healing and growth is available to you, and you can rejoin the already set-in-motion reality of the present moment.

This is just food for thought for you today. I am still chewing on this myself, but I think it’s a great opportunity to discuss how we heal, how we grow, and how the work never ends even when we don’t want to keep showing up. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this, so please reach out with comments or questions. As a trauma recovery coach, I think it’s important to share impactful things with curiosity and then see how it lands for my clients. I guess, for today’s episode, I’m kind of seeing how it lands with the entire interweb community of survivors.

So on a final note: Accept yourself wherever you are in your journey; respect your progress. Share your insights. Keep going, even when you feel stuck. Keep going even if you do something really small — even if it’s just a moment to celebrate something small that you have done. Love yourself no matter how slow the growth. Keep the momentum going. You aren’t stuck; nothing is stagnant. Practice makes progress. You are doing amazingly well.

Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 16: Processes

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I want to chat about the word process in all senses of the definition today. Trauma recovery starts with a lot of processing — in the sense of “sorting through” the trauma you’ve endured whether that means thinking on it, talking about it, facing your emotions about it, finding professional help to cope through what you uncover, etc. This fire-starter of processing can be a lengthy ordeal. It takes patience with yourself as you move through the truth of your abuse or trauma, but eventually you will be at a place of some sort of acceptance where real healing can begin. You can also process through your trauma — as in “refine or rectify” — not as easily as you can distill water or decontaminate hazardous areas though. In the sifting and sorting that you are already experiencing, you can find some purification. Some may call this purging — maybe a cleansing of things that remind you of your abuser, going no contact with a toxic family member, moving out of a house where your tragedy happened, or anything you need to find solace.

From there, the process — as in “a fixed series of actions leading to a result” definition — is now the trauma recovery. You are looking for a combination of events or activities that start improving and healing the aftereffects of your trauma. This is a good time for coaching to begin — when you feel in more of a growth mindset and are at the place where you are examining the traumatic disturbances and looking to find relief. The groundwork that you do here is like setting into motion a path toward recovery. You can continue to sift through the side effects that you are suffering from — not just the trauma but the coping skills you adapted to survive your trauma. This is the pivot point we talked about weeks ago where now you are ready to begin thinking about helpful resources, therapeutic interventions, support groups, and getting your mind, body, spirit realigned and reconnected.

This is where a good routine becomes the blueprint for your healing. This may mean trying medications for the psychological struggles — which can be a difficult road to travel to find the right one and the right dose. This takes time, patience, and cooperation with your medical care team. This may mean trying bodywork or energy work to destress your nervous system, or meditation to begin to slow your mind and allow a new adaptation of mindfulness to emerge. This may mean a dedication to your therapist or coach — which also can take some hit or miss chances before settling into the right one. Once there, building a bonded relationship will be paramount to explore safety in yourself and others, and to grow in trust and intimate conversation. This is also a time in the process of strategizing to find creative outlets and long-lost passions to move you from trauma identity back to your authentic self.

After you’ve developed the system, you are in the process — as in “forward movement” — which is the progression phase. This is where the headway you made begins to reap benefits of healthy life functioning, a solid mind, body, spirit connection, peace, good relationships, improved sleep and physical health, replacing trauma lies with beautiful new affirmations, and supplanting harmful coping mechanisms with new, safe ones.

This of course is all under the umbrella of one, big, years-long process. The healing work is the healing, remember. The recovery road is the recovery. You may never find an end to it, to be honest. Some professionals say there is no truly “healed” trauma survivor, but along the way, the journey becomes more sustainable, more productive, more healthy, and more enjoyable as you grow and do the work. Remember that it’s not a linear road, and sometimes the process has detours and cul-de-sacs. Keep your head forward though, so you can also be proceeding onward.