I feel that if you feel like a victim, a T should meet you where you are currently. Trauma work is very hard, and it seems to me a ED therapist should be trained in trauma work because they go hand in hand with each other. But your T worries me on the things she has told you.

This whole "survivor title" business irritates me because ANY other crime that is done, you are considered a victim, not a survivor. I think the grassroots origin of this has helped some people, but has done a great disservice to many, especially to women.

As a "victim" of some serious traumas (and yes I will always use the word VICTIM) took me forever to admit and face that what was done to me actually DID happen, than I had to accept it wasn't my fault. So many people want you to put a band aide over a huge painful gaping hole way too soon, I think to make them feel better. It is like a giant guilt trip being placed over you because those around you don't want to think about what happened and just want you to move on. As a victim of abuse, I can't will myself to move on before I am ready to deal with what happened, before my body can "physically" heal itself. Those with PTSD know what I am talking about.

To me calling yourself a "survivor" of a trauma/crime (yes CRIME) makes it easier for others around you to get past what may have happened to you and it also has a way of making the perpetrator of the CRIME to not look as guilty or to take ownership of CRIME. It also has a way to dismiss your feelings that you really need to go through in order to truly heal. There are so many so called "survivors" walking around unhealed because they were forced to be made to feel they had to suppress those feelings. We all know how well that works...well it doesn't...you can't put on a pretty name of being a survivor and feel healed if you are not.

So now comes along the current term "thriver" because "survivor" surely wasn't working well enough for many.
So yes, I may have survived the crime, because well I could have been killed. So what should I do, THANK the perpetrator for letting me live? There is a quote from someone ( I can't remember who right now) that says being alive doesn't mean you are truly living.

I have been through a lot of trauma work and finally with a great T, who has helped me heal so much of my past, who met me where I was when I first started therapy with her. I am THRIVING well, and I did SURVIVE, but I am also a VICTIM of many crimes that were done to me. YES A VICTIM. It took many years of hard gruesome work to get to this place and if I put on the "fairy tale" title of "survivor" I probably would not have come as far as I have now. Plus I feel calling my self a "survivor" and not a victim does other victims a huge disservice, because what was done to me and to them was a CRIME. I don't like Dr. Phil much but I do like his quote of "you can't change, what you don't acknowledge."

Now, let's do something about those PERPETRATORS of crime, or I guess to some, they would call them "granters of survival" Naw, let perpetrators be held responsible for their crimes, not just slap their wrists. Let those victims of those crimes heal, and let's stop dismissing their pain so we can look the other way easier.