I watched a video today of a person talking about the feelings he had after years away from an extremely fundamental college and culture.
You can watch the link here.
It's interesting how these things just come at the right time.
I responded:
"I’m completely new to this conversation, but I want you to know that in my struggle to deal with a rape, I had the exact same reaction: I didn’t want to call myself a victim.
Somehow, becoming a victim meant that I couldn’t be me anymore, and I had to re-examine everything about myself that I believed to be true.
I guess I’m sending you hugs. And I hope that we can all work together so that no one ever has their voice taken from them ever again."
I was literally just discussing the implications of calling yourself a victim with my therapist, as I've been working through what I can finally call rape. I really am not comfortable talking about it yet, but I hope to eventually share my story because it needs to be heard.
I want to clarify something, right here and now: No one's trauma, pain, or silence EVER gets to be better or worse than someone else's. It's just different, and everyone's experience is different because everyone's context is different, but that doesn't mean I've got MORE trauma than you because (insert any reason ever). Pain is pain and trauma is trauma and the more we try to quantify who hurts worse or who has survived more is just going to alienate us instead of unifying us. And no one wants to win the "my life sucks the most" award, really.
Rant over.
I guess I want to say that I am a survivor. I feel guilty, like I'm cheating when I say that, like I'm stealing the word from someone on the other side of breast cancer.
Part of that guilt comes from feeling like I haven't survived yet. I can't claim the word "survivor" because I'm not on the other side yet. I'm not past some invisible line where I get to say "I'm not happy about what happened, but I'm going to accept that it happened and keep living."
I guess someday I'll be a survivor, and that will be a huge stroke of victory. Until then, I will keep fighting my way out of this dark corner, wounded, victimized, but not silenced and not marginalized.
I finally re-found my voice.
