Violence is an all-too-human phenomenon we very naturally turn our heads away from, averting our own annihilation. More often than not, the similarity of form between a person who is wounded and one’s self holds up a mirror we are willing to shatter regardless of whatever bad karma may follow. In smashing that mirror I think we lose an invaluable reflection of our vulnerability, the unfairness of harm, and what surprising strength is revealed by survival. I would use the word “temper” to say that our metal is forged in the fires of adversity or give some metaphor of the phoenix, but I think these images of hardness and destruction are inadequate. It is tenderness and emotion that are the rare, precious, and invaluable liberties that are most striking in a survivor of violence.
Today was the best sort of workday. The hours at a grey cube in unrelenting fluorescent light were made worthwhile because today I got to facilitate and present at an empowerment class for our clients, also known as domestic violence survivors. But today I got to be with clients. I am a little reluctant to use the term “survivor” outside of work jargon. No one set out to prove themself in becoming a “survivor” and, for me, there is something uncomfortable in speaking about a victim with a language of heroism. In my mind, it lets the perpetrator off and diminishes the irreversible transformation that besets a victim of violence. As a so-called survivor, I do not consider myself only to be a victim. There was nothing all that heroic in telling my abuser to go fuck himself, carefully listing the methods in which his threats of suicide could be mercifully made good without me ever finding out. At nineteen, I dropped off my boyfriend for the last time, tears streaming down his squishy face, “Go ahead, put yourself out of your misery in anonymity because if I find out you killed yourself, I will know it has nothing to do with love and everything to do with hurting and controlling me. Since your life is over anyway, wait a year without being close to anyone, then take your fingerprints off with Drano, leave your identification at home, walk into a field far away from where anyone knows you, and blow off your dental record with a quick shotgun blast. I cannot be in this anymore. I can’t remember who I am.” I carry the tattoos of violence on me like glyphs, without which I would probably have never studied the many disciplines I have to circumspect violence. I do understand the urge to call other women, men, and children survivors. You survive a boat accident. You survive cancer. What is really meant when we invoke the moniker of survivor is that they seem strong—strong because society expects them not to be. It is a rather condescending, patronizing, paternalistic assumption that someone who is traumatized will always remain some shriveled up ball of a person. Some part of us wants to see it that way. Our desire to protect ourselves makes us want to see victims as different than our selves. Even the bleeding hearts of criminal justice end up recasting those who have gone through trauma. But, as these women of my group prove, victims are not shattered. They are vibrant, eager to learn, and tender. They show the indomitable human spirit with its incredible capacity to heal. When things hurt so bad that we think we will break, we stretch. We are bigger than we can ever know. We grow until we end.
The workshop is getting set up. We have bagels and coffee. People pile their plates and sit down. They are feeling the room out like a business meeting. It is community feeling. Some are quiet. Some are gregarious. They are all there to learn something—and they are amazingly appreciative of the opportunity. All of them in showing up have overcome immediate threat. This is a recovery and empowerment group. Granted, we are not talking about people in acute trauma. They are already recovering.
The women’s former counselor is with me so it is all hugs and updates. “I miss you!” is the mantra. Two women talk about how they have moved in together to share costs and support. Another knits through the class; later she explains, with an unrequested courtesy, that knitting relieves the tension. The man who set her apartment on fire has been released after several years. The meek woman whose head is wrapped with a green scarf, perhaps around twenty-five years old, pushes her voice to ask questions. The room is full of transformation—and it is a warm room. They always bring tears to my eyes. Not out of pity, but out of respect. They are tender and appreciative and stunning in a grace few know. “Thank you, Chris” they say as they leave. But I do not feel like I have done anything. These are the people I work for. Not my bosses–not really. Not the red tape. Not the title or the thanks. I work to be even slightly like them.
As witnesses, even as victims, I think it is easy to want to use the word “survivor” to indicate that there is some set of qualities different than others that allow us to protect or regenerate. But there is not much of a choice to survive or not when you look at it. Bad things happen. They happen to good and bad people indiscriminately. They are always unfair. And while we can strengthen resolve and mitigate risk, there is no magic potion or combination of traits that can armor our souls and bodies to injustice. The most healing revelation is the simple truth that “It is not fair. I did nothing that could deserve this.” There is no tolerable violence. At best, as in the case of natural disaster, pain is tragic. At worst, it is consequential. The euphemisms repaint the battered places. All that really gets you through is time. It is not resolution that makes a person survive. One, quite ineloquently as this may be stated, has no choice. At some point, every survivor has thought, “Maybe it wasn’t better I made it.” You worry that not all of you did come through it. But something new comes, growing over the broken places like amber. It captures the memories and becomes clear. It becomes precious in its healing. If we are a wise society, we will look at everyone with the compassion to see our similarities of form and constitution, gaining strength in our numbers. We have to fight against injustices without artificially creating martyrs we are terrified of becoming; we do so by seeing we are already those who must survive and from that place we give compassion.
Pneumatic Devotion 