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.