Experienced, Suffered From, Or Survivor

Experienced, Suffered From, Or Survivor
J

John Oarc

Registrant
I would like to know what your thoughts are in regards to this.

I recently communicated with a male site editor and he was rather concerned about the use of the term Survivor, he mentioned that experienced, or suffered from, is more appropriate.

I tried putting experienced, suffered from, or am suffering from in my head to see if it takes the stigma off or releases me in any way from the abuse and I have to say it does something. I'm just not sure what.

I am not sure what I feel, that is why I am asking you guys.
 
It is only my pedantic opinion BUT

What ever you call the sauce the meat remains the same, CSA is CSA whatever you call it.

Its traumatic, it hurts(in every sense, not just thje physical) and it f&%#s with your head, so I feel survivor is a very apt label for me.

Next they will be saying we were "exposed" to it, like it was our choice.

We survived. Sometimes by the skin of our teeth, so leave us with our label please.

I would be interested to learn if he was subject to CSA or just a concerned do-gooder.
 
Hmmmm ...

Gotta admit that my first, intense reaction is anger at feeling discounted by that editor, but I'm gonna try to be rational, though some anger may bleed through.

First, it really depends on what kind of site the guy is the editor of. SA stuff is real, intense, raw and frightening to the masses, so maybe whatever you wrote, that he reviewed, is just not appropriate for the site's audience.

With that said ...

I'm the son of an English teacher, an occasional poet and according to some folk, a pretty gifted writer at times, so I know that words have power. The have the power to affirm, acknowledge or deny; encourage, dismiss or crush; convey reality, paint a false picture or outright lie. And as men who've lived through what we have, I think we have the right to choose our own words when we talk or write about our lives.

To me, "experienced" is a wishy-washy word, so polite, so "proper", I experienced a pleasant time with the ladies over tea at the church auxilliary this afternoon. It's also too coldy clinical : the patient experienced severe trauma to his [fill in part of anatomy] when [fill in some violent act of SA] - sounds like a doctor giving professional testimony at a trial. But it *is* a fact that we *did* experience what we experienced, so in the right context, the word might work.

Again to me, "suffered from" is also "polite", but at least the phrase conveys some sense of pain, of anguish, of despair. But in my mind, not enough for the harsh reality of SA.
I tried putting experienced, suffered from, or am suffering from in my head to see if it takes the stigma off or releases me in any way from the abuse and I have to say it does something.
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"Trying out" words is a terrific way to see how different ones can shift our preception of the past, present and future - to repeat, words have power - but it seems to me that you don't yet know *what* those shifts are when you substitute "experienced", "suffered from" or "am suffering from" for "survivor", and that's not a good place to be in when writing for publication (even if in cyber form).

Also, unless your abuse is current, "am suffering from" can only accurately apply to the effects, not the SA itself.

Now, setting aside all those fancy words I just wrote about still other fancy words, here's my gut reaction : I AM A SURVIVOR ! To me, no other single word conveys the horror that happened, the courage it took to break through and still takes to keep on healing, or the reality of my life today. Despite my own denial, and the denial and complicity of my family, my community and my church, God damn it, I survived !
 
I survived chronic addiction, five years in mental health units/rehabs and Electro Convulsive Therapy plus three suicide attempts ergo I am a survivor.

Kirk
"Lets grab this bull by the horns and swing it about a bit"
 
If I had been blown up on the battle field and survived, I would not call myself a victim of battle, as that would imply something else.

Yes I am a Survivor. Like those injured in battle, I still live with some of the consquences. I am here - I am a Survivor!

Best wishes ...Rik
 
How do you get through trauma?
You survive it by finding the right tools to eke your way through all the crap in your head.

It is a search word I put in to find myself here. So guess survivor was the same term we saw ourselves as.

Survivor is just that, we survived something that should never have been part of any childs life,

ste
 
"Experienced" makes me thing of "Are You Experienced?" by Jimi Hendrix, and it is definitely not an association I want to make with CSA.

We need a good word for this. I think Survivor sounds a little too solitary and it's also a bit too kumbayah. I think "survivor" and I picture this Robinson Crusoe guy eating ants and trying to build a giant HELP! sign out of sticks on the beach. "Veteran" has closer associations with how I feel, and it also carries with it a sense of honour that "survivor" doesn't. However, veteran has already been taken.

I love the strong identity of the US Marines, with their life-long membership, code, and motto. Maybe that's where we start; instead of "Semper Fidelis" we should come up with a motto of our own and build from there?

Or maybe we don't give ourselves any title and simply call ourselves "humans."
 
See below.
 
There just doesn't seem to an appropriate term. For me ... I'm a survivor living the difficult journey of recovery. Perhaps an acronym (sp?) is apropriate to develop in this case ... I don't know like S.T.A.R. Survivor in Therapy And Recovering. This is my first stab at it so excuse the perhaps lameness of using star ... but you get the picture of what where I'm going with coming up with a new term ... maybe some day we'll come up with the appropriate term.

Courage-Wisdom-Spirituality
 
I looked back over the body of the email he sent me and he used words like hyperbole and propaganda. I have no idea what he is getting at except he did say he was not trying to trivialize childhood sexual abuse, he just didn't like the term survived. To tell you the truth I wish I didn't have to be labled as anything more than a human, but while writing it is hard to describe sexual abuse as part of the human existence or experiences one has in life, even though it is for some of us, i.e. my fellow humans who have experienced sexual abuse, it just doesnt work. Victims leans to helplessness, survivor leans to overcoming, thriver is a term I have seen on some website. From survivor to thriver is the verbage used. I am not sure but Thriver sounds pretty good to me. What do you guys think.

Thanks for all of your post.
 
I've dug out my Mother's old dictionary again (printed in 1938).

A word that I can live with as a description of myself is:

Resilience: The act of resiling; the act of rebounding; the quantity of work given out by a body, such as a spring, that is compressed and then allowed to resume it's former shape.

Resile: I leap or spring back.

Best wishes ...Rik

The spring may be rusty, but it still has metal!
 
John,

While I'd like to think that we're all on our way to living a thriving life, I'd point out that, for the majority of us, we're not there yet. That goes for the general population as well. We survivors were given an additional burden through no fault of our own and through our resilience and a lot of hard, hard work we're making our way.

I liked your comment about wishing to be labeled as nothing more than a human. I guess that's what it all comes down to.

Thanks for posting. It seems to me that your site editor has some issues of his own.

Regards,

Zipser
 
I have always liked the term "survivor". That carries the idea of something terrible happening, and the victim has somehow won through and is trying to find his way back and recover. So it has a positive implication that helps me.

Apart from that, I think what ShyBear says is especially important:

I'm the son of an English teacher, an occasional poet and according to some folk, a pretty gifted writer at times, so I know that words have power. The have the power to affirm, acknowledge or deny; encourage, dismiss or crush; convey reality, paint a false picture or outright lie. And as men who've lived through what we have, I think we have the right to choose our own words when we talk or write about our lives.
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He's so right. Words don't just describe things, they determine and define them. They suggest the deeper meaning that something has. As the term, whatever it is, describes us, isn't it appropriate that WE decide what term best conveys what the impact of abuse is and how we feel about it?

Much love, and surviving,
Larry
 
Hi guys,

I'm gonna have to align myself with Shybear and Larry on this one. Survivor it is. It didn't kill me, after all, although there have been times when I thought it might have. It happened, it was nightmarish in it's impact on my life, but I survived. That site editor needs to get a grip on reality instead of wallowing in some cesspit of PC idiocy, IMHO.

Just my thoughts on the matter and not intended to negate anyone else's.

Lots of love,

John
 
survivor is a hell of a lot better than victim! right? shadow.
 
Hi John

Just a thought. You say the e-mail from the editor doesn't make any sense, but that he does say he isn't trying to trivialize csa.

If you change "not trying to trivialize" to "am trying to trivialize" then does the e-mail suddenly make sense?

Tom
 
Yep, damn good eyes Tom.

I have emailed him one last time and he has not responded so I guess we are done.

I tried putting his terms in my head and at first I thought maybe he is on to something with experienced and suffered but...

I can't forget the sexual abuse but I have forgoten some experiences in my life.

I cant forget what happened to me, I have forgoten some of my sufferings though.

Survived is the term I think serves me best.

Your responses have been great,

Thanks guys,
 
Heres a left field thought on this one.

Why is this guy so concerned with the word that is used for children who were sexually abused? Shouldnt he be more concerned with helping past CSAs, seeking justice, educating the world about it and actually helping individuals rather than knit-picking their use of vocabulary?

Tell him to go crazy somewhere else (or use whatever other word he deems more appropriate!).

No anger at you John, just this dropkick editor!
 
Hi John, editor's are always looking for words that will stick out and catch the eye! I think his real concern is people will land on the page, take a quick look and go somewhere else. I don't think he knows much about the web, and search engines. I know when I do searches on the net, I put in words like male, rape, victim, survivor. other people may put in sexual abuse. I haven't read your book, but if you had a sentence like. Male rape victim: how I went from being a victim, to being a survivor! that would most likely get a lot of hits.

I don't like the ideal of being a victim, but being a survivor, that I can handle.

Take care,
Clifford
 
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