What makes you a survivor?

What makes you a survivor?
A

al

Registrant
Have been thinking about this allot since Muldoons post At what age in your life did you become a survivor? what line did I cross or what changed in me to make me be a survivor? If it was because I couldnt take it anmore then I was 6. If it was at the point I realized what was happening to me was wrong then I was 10. If it was at the point where I realized I did have a choice then I was 13. If it was at the point where I finally walked away from it then I was 18. I dont feel like a survivor. I feel like an dirty old used up punching bag with no stuffing left. Moldy and rotten and stinking up the place. These dont sound like the words of a survivor at least not to me.

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I wonder if some of you could share your experiences about the change that made you a survivor..
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Al, I'm very very sorry to hear you are in such pain. My heart goes out to you.
I became a survivor when I started to address my issues in therapy AND started taking anti depressants (lexapro). When I started therapy and quite smoking pot (self medication does not work...pot is a depressant) I started getting severe anxiety attacks (post traumatic stress syndrome). I was very apprehensive about taking anti depressants, but they have really helped me.
My SA also happened at an early age and continued for quite sometime (into my adolescent years); the consequences have invaded EVERY part of my life. I would not have admitted that 6 months ago! Without therapy and meds......my growth and understanding would not have been possible! I actually like myself now, and am trying to find peace and happiness in EVERY day.
It is time to take back your life, one day at a time. Take good care of yourself and look to the great people here and around you for love and support.
Ed
 
Al.
Moldy and rotten and stinking up the place. These dont sound like the words of a survivor at least not to me.
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You are definitely not that. Ask Marc. Al you want is what we all want. TO HEAL and be WHOLE. As I have said before. IT IS NOT OUR FAULT. We came into life in the wrong situation and/or were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It does not matter what a person's sexual preference is. IT HAPPENED AND IT WAS WRONG.

Get Marc to help you and sit down and write all the good things about you. Off the top of my head I can think of one. YOU WOULD NEVER SUBJECT ANYONE TO WHAT YOU HAVE GONE THROUGH. That says that you have feelings and compassion.

I know it is hard to work on self image and all that other stuff. BUT PLEASE BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. I am trying to live each day to the fullest and am starting to put things into perspective. You know all the stuff I have done and so do I. But I am trying not to let it influence what I have right now, and that is a caring and loving partner; just like you.

Try and look at today as the start of something new and wonderful and remember that you deserve that.

Work hard on the stuff we talked about and you and I both know what that is about. Caus I want to talk to you someday on the phone.

Remember we are all here for you and PULLING FOR YOU. We are IN YOUR CORNER. YOU WILL NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN. AND WE DO NOT JUDGE YOU JUST AS YOU DO NOT JUDGE US. TRY NOT TO JUDGE YOURSELF!!!

AND KEEP IN TOUCH MY YOUNG BROTHER
 
What makes me a survivor ?????

I remained a victim until I was about 45 or 46, the memories remained strong and somehow appealing, I was acting out, confused, frigthened, depressed and had zero self worth and self esteem.

I became a survivor over the next few years, and it's still ongoing, by taking control of my life and cutting the bonds that tied me to my abusers.

I guess it was the day I said "When I was a kid I was sexually abused, I think I need help"

Dave
 
Hi Al,

There was a post here several months ago in which one of the guys talked about the different way a victim acts from a survivor. It was good and I am frustrated that I cannot find it for you.

I think I became a survivor some where around 1988 or 89. That was when I started to talk about being abused and wanting to get help. It was a slow progression for me.
I talked a little, mentioned it to a therapist but she did not want to work with me on it. It wasn't until I met another survivor and I started to talk a lot with him that I began to try to understand the effects of it on my entire life.

I think I started to act like a survivor in 2000. I received a lot of help and understanding from a program I was in. Understanding that I was not alone, knowing that other guys had also been sodomized, (I thought that perhaps only a small number of guys had had that happen to them) that other guys wondered about their sexual orientation, and the sexual thoughts and feelings they had. Then finding out that there was a name for flashbacks, and disassociating, and ready rage etc. All of that helped me. I think I have changed most since I came here in July 2002.
Talking here with other survivors and learning that my experiences were those of men who were surviving SA helped me to accept myself in a new way.

I also still have good therapy. Next week I am going to begin EMDR so it will be interesting to see what that does. I have also found a malesurvivor therapy group in my home town and I have attended two meetings of that. Lots of things seem to be coming together to help me live in the here and now instead of in the past. And I take a lot of credit for making my here and now GOOD! I am doing that, with help, yes, but if I did not do what I have to do it wouldn't happen--and it is very much happening.

Bob
 
Al I don't think I became a survivor until May of 2002. I frist broke the silence in Jan 2002 with a co worker who had made a rude statement about some victims in Boston.
Paul P. had a realy good heart inside but he just didn,t want to beleive that there could be evil in his church. "You don,t know what your talking about, priest do abuse kids" I said as I started to cry and walk away.
Paul came back to my work area about 10 min later to say he was sorry. He now knew that I was a victim and I felt safe telling him about what Father Ryan had done to me. So at 2am in the back of the warehouse I ended my silence. Paul was deeply moved by my words which he knew to be true.
I found this web site a few days later and came here every day reading every thing I could. In May of 2002 I made a apointment to tell the diocese about my abuse. I had never told my wife a thing about the abuse in 20 years of marriage. So 3 days before my meeting with the church I told her about the CSA. That is when I started to become a survivor. Telling your love ones is an important part of becoming a survivor. Al we all begin our healing in different way and times in our life. Best of luck as you continue with your healing. Muldoon
 
People in Alcoholics Anonymous often introduce themselves saying, "I am a recovering alcoholic". They say they are alcoholic to always remind themselves that they are addicted to alcohol and even if they're not drinking, the addiction lives on within them just waiting for the chance to take that first drink. This is also true for me regarding the abuse I experienced, it'll always be there, waiting to drag me down into all sorts of unhealthy thinking and self-pity and distorted thinking.

They say recovering to describe many things, among them: they aren't drinking today, they are working the 12 steps, that they are healing from the consequences of their drinking, and taking personal responsibility for their past and current behaviors.

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I think of the term "Survivor" a little differently than most people (figures... cuz I'm a weird person). We are all survivors in one important respect - we've survived to this point in our lives, be it with few or many successes, or just barely making it. Nonetheless, we're here now; and we're alive! Somewhere, somehow our inner child has managed to survive all the traumas of the SA and living past the abuse (in hiding or not).

I lump the term "victim" in with survivor terminology. Others talk about switching from victim role to survivor role, a change in how they think about themselves and allow people to treat them. To me this certainly is an important step, perhaps the first of many first steps, toward healing. Whether one is in the victim role or not, I still consider them a survivor. So, having made it this far in my life makes me a survivor. For all of us, having made it this far are accomplishments of no small matter, in fact it's something to be truly proud of - the inner child's spark of life and hope still lives!!!

I can never let myself forget that the wounds of my trauma run so deep throughout who I am and the consequences of it to me: the shame, the guilt, the painful emotional and physical memories, the fear, the abandonment, the damage to my emotional and social growth. When I think of being a survivor, I think of both being a victim and having made it this far.

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I now can sometimes think of myself as a "recovering survivor". My lifelong journey of recovery has begun. It has had many starts: maybe at 5 yrs old when I knew it was yucky and really scary, at 15-16 yrs old when I said enough (!!!) and manage to end the active abuse (in complete silence sadly). So many other beginnings of healing when I sought out guidance and counseling, only I ended up getting incompetent treatment. Ive also taken stops along the way. All through my 20s I didnt seek out help even though I knew I wasnt happy. I just buried it all and got lost in my work, turning that into my identity.

My truest start to recovery began in July 2001, age 41, when I almost died due to my alcoholism. It took a monumental crisis of facing my truth, continue the drinking and die, or start dealing with the core issues - which always seem to come back to the sa and dysfunctional family rearing and passive neglect.

I still feel like I've just begun. I have so much to do within me - dealing with the unconscious battles between inner child and parent, letting the pain out, emoting the hurt, finding my anger, making connections between the memories and truly acknowledging the horrors - how could my father do this to me - how could my mother abandon my emotional needs.

Pardon my 'french' - it's a mutha f(*&ing trip I wish I wasn't on. But... but... I want to live a better life. Hope comes (for brief moments) and hope goes (seems like most of the time it's gone) that I'll ever recover to the point of feeling like a self-actualizing man, able to strive toward my dreams and able to achieve some of them. My hope and despair walk hand in hand, but I'm strong enough to say ok, that's the way it is but I'm getting better.

What makes me a survivor? The same courage and strength we all have to want a better life. At least now I have a choice, to work on recovery or not. That my inner child always chooses to want to live and get better makes me a survivor.

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al - the moldy and rotten feeling parts aren't all that's left of you, it only feels that way. My experience is different from yours, but I can relate to that feeling/thought - believe me I know what you mean. It's not all that's left of who you are. There's a whole lot of good inside you still able to see and grow and find the strength to carry on with your life and healing.

jer

Btw: TheDean-Bob, way to go with your therapy, group and I hope the EMDR begins to work for you.
 
OK....moment of clarity just as the sun was coming up

The point at which one chooses to live FOR the future rather than IN the past.

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Hi al,

I found a copy of John's thoughts on victim/survivor. If I do this correctly is should show up now.........


When i am being a victim i see my world as out of control, me with no choices, just kind of getting bounced around by the winds.

When i am a survivor, i see myself actively making choices, choosing what i would like to do in each circumstance.

As a victim, i dont even see that i have choices, i get depressed and feel like crap.

As a survivor i am an active participant in my life and feel empowered by the choices i am making.

As a victim, i feel left out and like i dont belong, insecure and weak.

As a survivor i feel part of things and a driving force in my life.

When i am a victim, i need to be in control, i dont trust and accordingly have to set things up so i can call the shots to some degree.

When i am a survivor, i am open to just going with the flow and letting others make some of the decisions,, trusting that i will be ok and that i can choose to change where i am at any time.

If i could figure out how to stay in that survivor place all the time, i would be feeling a lot better i am sure, its a tricky one.

I really believe that the tool box i got from my parents and abusers did not include any tools for seeing the choices and the power i have, most of the tools are forged in fear and anxiety, they are about protecting me from hurts, the tools i would like to have are the ones that help keep me focused on my strengths and allow me to trust others and be more accepting of the things life has to offer me.

Its been a long strange trip to get this far, and the farther i get the more i recognize how little i know, cant wait to see how this movie ends.

John

The fact we are alive today means that we are survivors--maybe we here are becoming "thrivers."

Bob
 
Hi Al,
my answer is pretty blunt. I became a survivor the day I became alone. I knew I was alone when my grandfather had sex with me when I wasn't even 4 years old. My grandmother washed my underwear and admonished me to not worry. "little boys sometimes have accidents." I knew then that what had happened wasn't right, it didn't feel right, and I was alone. I was frightened of my mother, she hit me too hard and was a brittle, uncompromising woman. So I would keep quiet. I would survive. Somewhere inside me I knew that I had to be strong. In later years, when I was truant from, and afraid of primary school, and the victim of a school teacher's perversions,
I knew I was a survivor. A solitary survivor in a world that was big, scary and very wrong. I survived by taking off to the orchards, away from people and civilization. The trees, butterflies and grasshoppers would never hurt me, and I could stay hidden for a long time, until my wounded body and soul could brace for another onslaught. It wasn't easy Al. I became a survivor very young. I made the conscious decision to live. I knew one day I'd be bigger and stronger.

I really like your definition:
The point at which one chooses to live for the future rather than in the past
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Peace, Andrew
 
I lump the term "victim" in with survivor terminology. Others talk about switching from victim role to survivor role, a change in how they think about themselves and allow people to treat them.
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This is an interesting point that Jer,( Guy43 ) raises.

We're survivors from the day our abuse started in many ways, possibly from the days we became vulnerable due to the way we were raised.
We survived our trauma's and lived on the only way we could until we got help.
That's generally the 'victim' stage, but we did survive.

The point we seek help, or admit we need help in whatever form it might take is I think a definite change in our lives, but I don't really know what to call myself, how about 'MAN'?

Dave
 
Really good points here made by all the posters (postee's?).

Al, I really like your moment of clarity. For me, I would modify your statement and summerize/rephrase this thread like this.

Q: When did you start your recovery?
A: When I chose to live in the HERE and NOW rather than IN the past.

jer
 
An INTERESTING Thread Al...

I see Surviving as having two parts.

The first being, simply being alive without being abused. I was a "living survivor".
The emotional trauma, and other manifestations of the abuse, (fear, intimination, etc) continued.

Part two of surviving being, a time when I started to actively try to repair the damage that was done. Perhaps call it "healing survivor".

For me, the time between the last time HE abused me, to the moment I made my first counseling appointment, I was a, Living Survivor.

Now I am a, Healing Survivor. The healing is slow & there are setbacks, but at least I am trying.

Blacken
 
I love Andrew's description:

A solitary survivor in a world that was big, scary and very wrong. I survived by taking off to the orchards, away from people and civilization. The trees, butterflies and grasshoppers would never hurt me, and I could stay hidden for a long time, until my wounded body and soul could brace for another onslaught.
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That is how I got through grammar school. I got out of the house by going to boarding school for high school. I guess then I was a living survivor.

I live in Manhattan and 9/11 turned me into a healing survivor. I couldn't deny any longer what happened to me a long time ago as my city changed around me.

Green
 
Al,

For me I am not sure weather or not I am still a victim or a survivor. It is a fine line when we start to heal. I have no good answers to put forth on this thread. For my self I only started dealing with my abuse because of medical reasons. If dealing with your sa makes you a survivor then I guess I am one. I think that a survivor is someone who makes a choice in their life to not let their past dictate their future.

lots of love, Nathan
 
Al,

I like Dave's follow up to Jer's post. For myself, survivor doesn't connote the effort to recover, just the ability to "get by."

I'm really nervous right now, because my wife is leaving her government job next week. We've used the health benefits, and had her income when things got slow for me in the past, but that cushion goes away next week. The next time I'm without a client, we're without an income. And we have to find health insurance right away.

The psychologist (should that be abbreviated "P" in here?) yesterday asked how I felt about that and I said, "I'll do what I have to." She said something about "survivor instincts" or "survivor abilities." I laughed, but I saw her point. And it was a nervous laugh. :)

I'm not sure what word describes someone actively working to reclaim life and love after sexual abuse, or even if there's a single word capable. I call myself "survivor" in some contexts, with the assumption that people understand I'm trying to do that work, but when I really think about the word, I don't feel it has emotional impact to me. "Man" would be ideal, but I think it overlooks the abuse and abuse recovery experiences which are part and parcel of who and what I am.

I like the term "recovering survivor" except that my earliest encounters with "recovery" were in AA, and "recovering alcoholics" are recovering from the effects of the disease. I'm not trying to recover from the effects of survival, as I see myself, and if anyone can get hung up on choice of words, it's me.

Maybe English doesn't have the term. "Man working towards thriving" is clumsy. "Recovering victim of sexual abuse" might be clinically correct, but it has no appeal to my ear.

Maybe I need to redefine "survivor" for myself to include the recovery work.

Wow, I'm getting on a roll here. :)

What makes me a person who's recovering from the abuse and its effects? A choice. When I did not recognize the effects, I was not aware how much control they had on my life, and how much unhappiness I generated through them. When I stopped denying what really happened, when I began to learn about how this kind of abuse affects men, and when I accepted that the "coincidental similarities" to my own life were not coincidences, I made a choice. I chose to change, to break the power of the abuse over me, then to learn and practice healthy ways of living the time I have left.

Thanks,

Joe
 
It is interesting, that bringing back an old thread, shows how we may have changed or have had some new insights.

Survivor is one who made it through. So, on the reality shows it is the one who did not get kicked off the island or whatever.

Some folks call a person a survivor if they seem to come out of difficult times apparently unscathed. The guy who can always get a job, or has made himself so needed that he is kept when dozens of others are laid off or fired.

Survivor, today, means several things. I am still alive after not only the sa and other abuse, but all the depression and anxiety and times I wanted to end it all myself.

Survivor also means, that I have learned skills, that help me be safe, and to keep moving on. I learned to survive by keeping my mouth shut and telling not soul. I learned that if I had a chance to live I had to go along with everything, and certainly not fight him or whine. I learned to lie a lot and come up with believeable stories in a heart beat. I learned to fake it so that my life seemed to be normal. I learned to look around to see if I could find evidence that someone else might also be being sa'ed. I learned to try to stay close to the other scouts so that he would have to come up with a reason to take me away.

I have learned to protect myself. I don't go to anyplace where I would be in danger of a sexual assault from a perp.
(not much of a danger these days, since I am old, and bent and grossly overweight).

I have learned that there are things I cannot do, or I might not be able to keep from acting out. That is surviving, in my opinion.

I have learned that having MS makes me feel less alone and less freaky. My emotional life needed that, really badly. I don't let someone's snotty remarks sink in because I see them as they are, snotty remarks.

( I don't hear that word "snot" much anymore--maybe it shows how old I am--as a kid we used it alot and had really gross jokes using it.)

I think being open to fun and jokes, and just being silly, whether alone or with others has been a survivor mode for me.

Writting and talking about SA has made me be more of a survivor and given something good out of the horror of SA.

For sure, surviving means for me, being very alert, trying to be in control of my surroundings, checking to be near a door in a room of people, and, probably unfortunately, building a wall around my feelings, so that I don't get caught feeling safe with everey person I am around.

Some negative and some positive ideas about surviving as I see it. Survivor seem like a good word for me, even though the unreality TV shows have cheapened it some.

Bob
 
Joe
we both seem to agree that the point of importance is the instant we decide to seek change, it was for me I know.

And as I read your post here I picked up the remote for the stereo and hit 'play' without thinking what was on the CD deck.
And it was my all time favourite album, LA Woman by the Doors, and this burst through the speakers.....

The Changeling. The Doors.

Uh!
Uha!
Gedu!

I live uptown
I live downtown
I live all around

I had money, and I had none
I had money, and I had none
But I never been so broke
That I couldn't leave town

I'm a Changeling
See me change
I'm a Changelin'
See me change

I'm the air you breath
Food you eat
Friends your greet
In the sullen street, wow

See me change
See me change, you

I live uptown
I live downtown
I live all around

I had money, yeah, and I had none
I had money, yeah, and I had none
But I never been so broke
That I couldn't leave town

Well, I'm the air you breath
Food you eat
Friends your greet
In the sullen street, wow

Ew ma!
Uh, ah!

You gotta see me change
See me change
Yeah, I'm leavin' town
On a midnight train
Gotta see me change
Change, change, change
Change, change, change
Change, change, change
Change, change, change
Woa, change, change, change


Even though it's late, I just had hit the volume button as well.

"I'm a Changeling
See me change
I'm a Changelin'
See me change"

Dave

:D
 
It seems to me most everyone in this thread relates being a survivor to the decision to live, to have or make every effort to have a good and productive life.

My personal slogan for several months now has been "I want a Life, not an existance"

For me, relating, well starting to relate, to the world around me as a survivor instead of a victim had everything to do with deciding, choosing, whatever the word is, to have a life, or at least, at the very least, get satisfaction from the attempt.

It really hit home with me when my Dr. lectured me about smoking, and I told him with all honesty, that if I quit I would probobly live too long. I am almost 40, isn't that about enough.

Saying out loud what I felt somehow started things rolling, I realized that the existance I had settled for was letting my perps win. I can't do anything to change what happenen to me but I don't have to let them win.

I still smoke, but for the first time ever, want to quit. I want to live, and love and be happy. I want to see my grandkids grow up and go to my perps funural and pee in their coffin.

That is when I think I entered the "survivor" catagory.
 
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