Are you a survivor? 

No, I really mean that question. Are you a survivor?

If you answered no, is it because:

A) what you experienced is something that most experience and it was just part of life.

B) what you experienced is nothing like what so many others have experienced.

C) you can’t be a survivor, by saying that you are one you’re admitting that something atrociously life altering happened to you. Nope, not a survivor.

D) you haven’t experienced anything life altering up to this point in time.

I ask as I ponder this very question quietly in the dead of night as sleep evades my overly tired brain. Rise Up by Andra Day is playing quietly, her words soothing the said tired brain.

If you answered B, I’d have to agree with you only in the sense that, yes, so many people have experienced worse things than you and I. It is however all relative, is it not? A version of sonder, if you will. 

Sonder? Ah now that is one of my all-time favorite words. It is the profound realization that every random stranger is living a life as vivid, complex, and deeply personal as your own. For example, you’re sitting on a crowded bus and you feel a wave of sonder knowing every passenger is carrying their own secret griefs, intense joys, and complex family histories.

I digress…

If you answered C, I’m with you. I think you and I have been surviving for so long that perhaps that word doesn’t even count? Or perhaps, if we are honest, you and I hear that word and think that honestly… we are still trying to survive so how on earth can we possibly be called something that means we are fully whole once more and have come through to the other side of trauma.

Well, that is how I see the word survivor.

For me, a survivor is someone that survives a massive earthquake, a tsunami, falling down a mountain, a plane crash… In my mind those are the true survivors.

Controversial thought I know, but when have I ever followed convention? Yup, never.

So what would you call someone if not a survivor?

To me the word for people who have survived physical, emotional, sexual, psychological abuse, or a combination of all or even just one, should be Warrior.

They are warriors because the truth is that once they have gone through something that strips their concept of who they are, their worth, their very essence, and they are still able to rise and greet a new day… They are a warrior.

Some days are good, some days are bad, and some days are just blah. They are constantly working on themselves to heal those parts stolen from them, constantly trying to be better versions of themselves. They are a warrior.

Some days they force feed themselves, force themselves out of the house to walk, force themselves to smile, to talk to others even when they’d much rather just stay in bed hidden from the world… they force themselves because the alternative is far far worse than all of their suffering. If they succumbed to their intense need to hide from the world at large it would mean that the monsters from their past will win. They are a warrior.

They are warriors who, against all odds, fight for another day, fight for a semblance of normality, fight to be whole. 

Every. Single. Day.

That is the very definition of a warrior.

So, if you answered A, B or C to my first question then yes, YOU my friend, are a true warrior.

You are a WARRIOR 

Keep on RISING!