Written on Sep 7, 2020

In my early 20s, I would regularly drink enough vodka to cause my liver to swell. I’d be unable to stand completely upright because the swelling would cause my abdomen to cave in on the left side of my body. This process is painful, and there were periods where I wasn’t able to get out of bed unless I drank enough to push past that pain. I had regular nosebleeds because if I went one day without drinking, my body would go into withdrawal and my blood pressure would start to spike. I was also smoking a pack of cigarettes a day which made my sinuses pretty raw. One of my most vivid memories during my drinking days is me laying down sobbing and rubbing the blood from my nose against the wall, just waiting and hoping to bleed out. Of course, you don’t lose nearly enough blood during a nosebleed to die. If you are, however, hungover and in active withdrawal, you will certainly wish you did when you have to clean up the blood the next day.  If you ask me about my past during one of my dishonest moods, I’ll offer up my time spent in an alcoholic stupor as proof of how tough I am and how stoic.  I’ll tell you that I come from a long line of impoverished, blue-collar addicts. I’ll say, “Honey, I am the modern manifestation of a centuries-old bloodline full of the poor, the oppressed, and the stolen. It didn’t kill them, and I’m still standing.”

When my family fought when I was a kid, I would run into things, slam my hands in doors or cabinets, or hurt myself in some other way. I used to think I did these things because I wanted the violence to end, or that I wanted everyone to focus on something else, so that the yelling and screaming would finally stop. I internalized this about myself for a while: that I was a peacemaker, that I sought to resolve conflict even up until to the point where it was physically painful for me. My identity has always been wrapped inside of this victimhood. For years, I had no idea who I was separate from this martyr complex that I had clung to for my entire young adult life. I hung on to horrible, toxic people because I felt that I could endure whatever they threw my way. I stayed with abusive partners because the more they took their anger and hatred out on me, the better they felt which made me feel light. I sought out experiences that would further reinforce the misguided idea that I was absorbing pain so that others could heal. But – to make a depressing story short, few things snap you out of being toxic for toxic’s sake faster than thousands of dollars of medical debt incurred from trying to “heal” other people’s demons one too many times. Thankfully, when I stopped drinking, I decided I would only destroy myself for myself.

I think people who have been abused always see themselves as a victim, in some way, which isn’t to say that abuse victims aren’t, well, victims. It’s not bad that I can openly admit that I have been a victim of emotional and physical abuse or that who I am as a person will always be influenced by these experiences. I can’t positive-think my way out of being a victim of an injustice, despite what a lot of well-meaning people will tell me. I can’t manifest a different past with daily journaling, you know. I am who I am, etc. But who I am is a person who revels in victimhood in order to hide behind it. I wasn’t seeking awful situations to endure pain for someone else. I wasn’t a six-year-old who slammed her hand in the drawer so that mommy would stop screaming. I did things and still do because I didn’t know how not to do them. I got older, and I created these mythologies around things I did in crisis because it was better than facing an uncomfortable truth about myself: I was hurt, and I wasn’t in control. In my healing years, I have to give myself permission to acknowledge that I have endured a lion’s share of physical and emotional punishment, and that I am not any more resilient or stronger than anyone else nor am I lesser than. I’m going to reference a scene from a TV show here, and this is a clunky introduction, but bear with me. In an episode of The Magicians, Julia, who is a rape-victim is being undressed by someone for a ritual. The man undressing her is incredibly gentle and apologetic even though they had both seen each other naked before this scene. Julia, frustrated, says: “You know I’m not broken, right? I’m not some flower or some delicate piece of glass. I’m a person, and people heal.” I reference this scene because I think that victimhood robs you of your personhood. Being a person is hard, so we tend to seek out situations that keep us victims. But I think I’m finally starting to be human again.

I am surviving.