I grew up in an environment where victimhood was a narrative that was not only recognized but emphasized. I was always told I wasn’t the victim—they were. Those around me wore their pain like badges, their suffering almost serving as proof of their existence, while I was encouraged to suppress mine, to push past it. I was taught that to be a victim was to be weak, to be incomplete. The word ‘survivor’ didn’t come into my world until much later, and when it did, it felt like a foreign label being shoved down my throat. It was politically correct, they said. It was stronger, better, the story you should tell the world—because survival, after all, is something we celebrate. But the word felt almost as constricting as ‘victim,’ as though it demanded a neatness, an end to the struggle. Yet, I was neither of these things—I wasn’t simply a victim of what happened to me, nor was I some perfect survivor whose wounds had been neatly tied up in a bow. The reality was far messier, a place where I had to unlearn the labels I’d been given, and find a language for my journey that felt truer to who I was becoming in the process.
There’s a place between perfect victim and perfect survivor—a grey area where identity is not so easily defined, and healing doesn’t follow a straight line.
You see, the perfect victim is the one whose pain is visible to everyone. The one whose suffering is clear, whose hurt is almost celebrated in its purity, because it fits into a narrative people can understand. It’s a story with a beginning, a middle, and a clear point of trauma—something you can hold, something you can point to and say, “This is where I broke.”
But what happens when you’re not just broken, but fragmented? What happens when the story isn’t that simple? The perfect victim is an image of raw, unhealed pain, and yet, some days, we crave to be seen through that lens—to be recognized in the depth of our wounds. There’s comfort in being understood, in being pitied or given space to grieve. It’s a place where you can simply exist in the aftermath, unburdened by expectation.
Then, there’s the perfect survivor. The one who has transcended, who wears the badge of resilience like armor. They’ve risen from the ashes, carried their scars with pride, and stand tall with an unshakable strength. The perfect survivor is admired, even revered, for their triumph over adversity, their ability to stand firm despite what they’ve been through. But even the survivor’s strength comes with its own kind of pressure. There’s an expectation of unrelenting perseverance, a belief that to survive is to be without fragility, without moments of doubt. But survival, real survival, is not a perfect thing. It is messy, it is uneven, and sometimes it feels like you're fighting against yourself more than the world.
And somewhere between those extremes, there’s the real story—the one that doesn't fit neatly into either box. It's the space where your wounds haven’t fully healed, but they’ve also started to form new contours. You’re still grieving, still healing, still broken, but you’re learning how to move forward with those broken pieces. You’re not the perfect victim, but you’re not yet the perfect survivor either. You’re somewhere in the middle, in the messy, uncomfortable, beautiful space of being both. And maybe, just maybe, that place is where true healing lies. There’s an odd sort of pressure when you exist between those extremes, isn’t there? It’s like being caught in the gravitational pull of two forces that constantly pull you in different directions, and you’re left suspended, not quite fitting into either. The world loves labels—victim and survivor—because they’re easy to digest. You can box someone in, define their entire experience with one word, and move on. But what about the middle ground, the in-between space where you aren’t fully one or the other? This space isn’t often talked about. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and real in a way that both perfect victimhood and perfect survival can’t quite capture. The middle is the raw, untold part of the story—the one where healing doesn’t mean perfection and survival doesn’t mean strength all the time. It's where you’re allowed to falter, allowed to fall apart, allowed to not have all the answers. In this space, you can feel the weight of your past pressing against your future, both pulling you in different directions. The trauma hasn’t entirely faded; it’s still there, like an invisible scar, sometimes deep and sometimes just a faint reminder. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck in it. It just means you’re still living with it, navigating your way through the world with a complicated mix of wisdom and vulnerability. Sometimes you feel strong, other times weak. Sometimes you feel like you've come so far, and other times you feel like you're right back where you started.
There’s a fundamental tension in this space, isn't there? The space between "perfect victim" and "perfect survivor" is where the real conflict lies—the kind that doesn’t just affect how the world sees you, but how you see yourself. It’s where trauma isn’t just a momentary event; it’s something that reconfigures your entire sense of self, your identity. It’s where you carry the weight of everything that’s happened to you, but it’s not just about the trauma—it’s about who you are becoming in the wake of it. In this space, there’s a sense of unfinishedness—not in a bad way, but in a way that says, “I am still in process. I am still discovering the pieces of me I didn't know existed.” It's the place where every story of survival feels like it's only half-told. It’s the quietest paradox of all: you’ve survived, but not without deep scars, and yet, you’re not a perfect survivor because you're still carrying those scars. They're still part of you, and maybe they always will be. The idea that healing is some neat package of triumph over adversity is something the world tells us. But the truth is, healing doesn’t look like anything. It’s messy. It’s intangible. It’s both explosive and quiet. When you're in this in-between space, there’s a profound sense of reclamation that starts to surface. But that reclamation doesn’t necessarily feel like strength at first. It feels like vulnerability, like uncovering layers of yourself you were never ready to see. And that’s where the tension lives. You’re still holding on to a part of the "victim" you once were—the part that needs validation, the part that wants someone to acknowledge how deeply you’ve been hurt. You’re not ready to just let that go, because it’s your history. It’s your truth. And there’s no way to pretend it didn’t happen, no way to shut it down into a neat story of survival.
Because healing isn’t linear. It doesn’t look like a clear path from victimhood to survival—it’s a winding road with setbacks and progress in equal measure. It’s about accepting the complexity of who you are in all your contradictions: the parts of you that are still hurting, the parts of you that are still growing, and the parts of you that are already stronger than you think. Healing doesn’t happen in one great moment. It’s a process, a slow unfolding of layers that you didn’t even know were there. And those layers aren’t all neat or pretty. Some of them are jagged, some of them make you angry, and some of them make you laugh at how absurd life can feel. The journey is nonlinear. Some days you’ll feel like you’re climbing a mountain, only to wake up the next day feeling like you're buried under a pile of rubble. In this space between victim and survivor, you’re allowed to be a contradiction. You’re allowed to be strong and weak in the same breath, to carry both pain and joy without feeling like you have to choose. You don’t have to have it all figured out, and that’s where the magic happens—when you let go of the need to fit perfectly into a box, when you embrace the mess of who you are and who you’re becoming. You are the product of every experience, every moment, and every decision. And none of those moments exist in isolation. They all blend together, shaping you in ways that can’t be boiled down into something simple or neatly packaged.
- Oizys.
