From Victim to Survivor: Reclaiming the Life That Was Never Theirs to Take
By John S. Collier, MSW, LCSW-S
There is a difference between being a victim and living permanently from the frame of mind of a victim.
If someone abused you, betrayed you, abandoned you, assaulted you, neglected you, manipulated you, or harmed you, you may have truly been a victim.
That is a fact.
Calling yourself a survivor does not change the facts. It does not make what happened smaller. It does not excuse the person who hurt you.
It changes something else.
It changes who gets to write the next chapter.
A victim asks:
“Look what they did to me.”
A survivor eventually learns to ask:
“What am I going to do with my life now?”
That may sound like a small difference.
It isn’t.
It may be one of the most important changes that happens during healing.
First, There Is No Shame in Being a Victim
Before talking about a “victim mindset,” we need to be extraordinarily careful with our words.
A person who has experienced trauma may feel afraid, angry, powerless, suspicious, overwhelmed, or emotionally numb. These responses should not automatically be interpreted as weakness or a character problem.
SAMHSA describes trauma as experiences that can have lasting effects on a person’s mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. It also emphasizes that people respond to traumatic experiences differently. Strong support and resilient qualities can influence how someone responds. Likewise, the American Psychological Association recognizes that trauma can have long-lasting psychological and physical consequences, including PTSD, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, dissociation, and other difficulties. So when someone has been badly hurt, telling them to “stop acting like a victim” can be cruel and clinically misguided.
There are times when surviving is enough.
Getting through the day is enough.
Staying safe is enough.
Getting out of bed is enough.
But there may eventually come a point when survival asks something more of us.
The question changes from:
“What happened to me?”
to:
“What happens next?”
The Victim Frame of Mind
The victim frame of mind is not simply sadness about something painful.
It occurs when the injury becomes the lens through which a person begins interpreting much of life.
Something terrible happened to me.
Therefore:
- I am powerless.
- People cannot be trusted.
- My life will always be this way.
- There is nothing I can do.
- Someone else must change before I can heal.
- My past determines my future.
- What was taken from me can never be rebuilt.
- Because I was hurt, I will always be broken.
These beliefs are understandable after trauma.
But understandable does not necessarily mean helpful forever.
One particularly important example is avoidance. VA National Center for PTSD explains that wanting to avoid reminders of trauma is common, but relying heavily on avoidance can worsen PTSD symptoms and make moving forward more difficult. A coping strategy that once helped you survive can eventually become the wall preventing you from living.
That is one of trauma’s cruel contradictions.
The Survivor Frame of Mind
The survivor does not pretend the wound never happened.
The survivor learns to carry the scar without allowing the scar to become an identity.
The survivor can say:
Yes, that happened.
Yes, it hurt me.
Yes, I have wounds from it.
No, it was not fair.
No, I did not deserve it.
And yes, I still have a life to live.
Research on resilience after trauma examines precisely this question: how people adapt following profoundly difficult experiences and how resilience can be fostered after trauma. Survival is therefore not denial.
It is not saying:
“It didn’t hurt.”
It is saying:
“It hurt, and I am still here.”
Victim Thinking Says, “They Have the Power.”
Survivor thinking says:
“I have choices.”
Perhaps you could not choose what happened.
You can choose what you do today.
You can choose whether to ask for help.
You can choose your boundaries.
You can choose whom you allow close to you.
You can choose whether to continue treatment.
You can choose whether the people who wounded your past are permitted to control your future.
Trauma-informed care itself recognizes the importance of safety, trust, collaboration, empowerment, voice, and choice in recovery. SAMHSA identifies these ideas among the central principles of trauma-informed approaches. That word matters:
Choice.
Trauma frequently involves losing control.
Recovery often involves discovering where control still exists.
“Why Did This Happen to Me?”
Nearly everyone who has suffered deeply has asked some version of this question.
Why me?
Why did they do it?
Why didn’t someone protect me?
Why didn’t I see it?
Why didn’t I leave sooner?
Why didn’t anyone believe me?
Those questions deserve compassion.
But there is another question that can eventually become more useful:
“Given that this happened, who do I want to become now?”
That question cannot rewrite yesterday.
It can begin changing tomorrow.
Survivors Learn the Difference Between Responsibility and Blame
This may be the hardest concept in the entire journey.
You are not necessarily responsible for what happened to you.
But you eventually become responsible for what you do with what happened to you.
Those are completely different statements.
If someone injured you, responsibility for that action belongs to that person.
Healing belongs to you.
That may feel terribly unfair.
It often is.
Sometimes another person creates the wound while you are left doing the work of repairing it.
But refusing to heal until the person who hurt you makes everything right can leave your future tied to the very person who harmed your past.
Your healing does not need their permission.
Your recovery does not require their understanding.
Your future does not require their apology.
Accountability matters. Justice matters. Acknowledgment matters. In fact, the American Psychological Association recognizes the potential importance of acknowledgment, apology, redress, and restitution in trauma recovery. But your life cannot always remain suspended while waiting for those things.
How Do You Become the Survivor?
There is no switch that suddenly changes someone from victim to survivor.
Healing tends to be a process.
Some days you may feel strong.
The next day, something may trigger an old wound and make you feel as though you have gone backward.
You haven’t necessarily failed.
Here are several places to begin.
1. Tell the Truth About What Happened
Survivorship doesn’t begin by minimizing the past.
It begins with truth.
It happened.
It hurt.
It affected me.
You do not have to defend the person who hurt you.
You do not have to rewrite history to make other people comfortable.
Healing requires honesty.
And sometimes that honesty needs to happen with a qualified mental health professional rather than alone.
2. Stop Making the Wound Your Identity
Notice the enormous difference between these statements:
“I experienced abuse.”
and
“I am damaged.”
Or:
“Someone betrayed me.”
and
“I am unlovable.”
An event is not an identity.
Trauma can influence identity development, and researchers continue to study the relationship between trauma exposure and identity. What happened may always be part of your story.
It does not have to become your entire definition.
You are more than the worst thing someone ever did to you.
3. Identify What You Still Control
Take a sheet of paper and make two columns.
I Cannot Control
- What happened yesterday
- What another person thinks
- Whether someone admits wrongdoing
- Whether someone apologizes
- Whether everyone understands my story
- Another person’s choices
I Can Influence or Control
- What I do today
- Whether I ask for help
- My boundaries
- Many of my daily choices
- Whose advice I seek
- Whether I participate in treatment
- How I respond when old patterns appear
- What kind of person I am trying to become
Spend less energy fighting the first list.
Invest more energy in the second.
That is where your power lives.
4. Recognize Avoidance
Avoidance can feel like safety.
Sometimes it is appropriate to avoid genuine danger. But avoiding every thought, emotion, place, relationship, or reminder associated with what happened is different.
The VA National Center for PTSD notes that emotional and behavioral avoidance can interfere with recovery and that effective PTSD treatments can help people learn to cope with trauma-related thoughts and feelings. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has similarly developed recovery materials specifically focused on identifying problematic avoidance behaviors and gradually changing behaviors that keep people stuck in trauma recovery. Courage does not mean never being afraid.
Sometimes courage is simply deciding:
“Fear is present, but fear is no longer making every decision.”
5. Build Boundaries Instead of Walls
Trauma may teach:
Never trust anybody again.
Healing teaches something more sophisticated:
Learn who has earned your trust.
A wall keeps everyone outside.
A boundary has a gate.
A survivor learns when to open it, when to close it, and who receives a key.
6. Allow Yourself to Receive Help
Being a survivor does not mean doing everything alone.
Actually, refusing every form of help can sometimes keep people isolated.
SAMHSA emphasizes safety, peer support, trust, collaboration, and empowerment as important elements within trauma-informed approaches. Help may include professional counseling, trusted friends and family, support groups, medical care, community resources, or spiritual support according to your beliefs and circumstances.
Strength isn’t proving that you need nobody.
Sometimes strength is finally admitting:
“I don’t have to carry all of this by myself.”
7. Give Yourself Permission to Have a Future
Trauma keeps pulling the mind backward.
Healing gradually teaches it to look forward again.
Make plans.
Set a goal.
Learn something.
Build something.
Reconnect carefully.
Create new routines.
Find something meaningful enough that tomorrow becomes more than another day spent thinking about yesterday.
This does not dishonor what happened.
It demonstrates that what happened did not win.
Forgiveness Is Not the Price of Admission
People are sometimes told that they cannot heal unless they forgive the person who hurt them.
I would be careful with that message.
Forgiveness may be deeply meaningful for some people, especially within their spiritual beliefs. But forgiveness should not be confused with denying harm, restoring an unsafe relationship, abandoning boundaries, or removing accountability.
You can heal while still saying:
“What you did was wrong.”
You can move forward without pretending it never happened.
You can have compassion and boundaries at the same time.
Survival Is Not Becoming Who You Were Before
Perhaps this is where we sometimes misunderstand recovery.
After something profound happens, you may never become exactly the person you were before.
That doesn’t automatically mean something has been lost forever.
Perhaps the goal isn’t to go backward.
Perhaps it is to move forward.
Wiser.
More discerning.
More compassionate.
Better acquainted with your boundaries.
More aware of your strength.
More intentional about the life you build.
Resilience research has increasingly examined not merely whether people endure trauma, but how resilience may be fostered following it. The goal isn’t to become untouched.
It is to become unowned by what touched you.
The Day You Become a Survivor
There may never be a ceremony.
Nobody hands you a certificate.
You probably won’t wake up one morning completely free from every painful memory.
Instead, the transformation may happen quietly.
One day you realize you haven’t thought about it for several hours.
Then perhaps an entire day.
You recognize a trigger and choose a different response.
You establish a boundary you once believed you couldn’t establish.
You stop explaining yourself to somebody committed to misunderstanding you.
You ask for help.
You laugh again without feeling guilty.
You make plans.
You love again.
You hope again.
And somewhere along the way, your vocabulary changes.
You stop saying:
“This is who I am because of what they did.”
And begin saying:
“This is who I am becoming despite what happened.”
That is the difference.
The victim’s story is centered around what was done.
The survivor’s story acknowledges what was done but slowly turns toward what comes next.
Conclusion: Take Back the Pen
You cannot erase pages that have already been written.
Some pages may contain things you wish had never happened.
Some contain loss.
Others contain betrayal, fear, grief, humiliation, abandonment, or pain.
There is no wisdom in pretending those pages aren’t there.
Read them when you need to.
Grieve them.
Talk about them.
Learn from them.
Get professional help working through them when necessary.
But eventually, remember something extraordinarily important:
There are blank pages after them.
And those pages still belong to you.
Being a survivor does not mean saying, “It didn’t hurt me.”
It means being able to say:
“It hurt me. It changed me. There were days when I didn’t know whether I could carry it anymore. But I am still here, and what happened to me will not be given the authority to decide everything that happens next.”
You didn’t choose every chapter.
But you can still take back the pen.
About the Author
John S. Collier, MSW, LCSW-S
John S. Collier is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker Supervisor and the Executive Director of Southeast Kentucky Behavioral Health, LLC. His career in social work and behavioral health has included years of work with individuals and families experiencing mental health concerns, trauma, behavioral challenges, relationship difficulties, developmental disabilities, and complicated life transitions.
He earned his bachelor’s degree and became a Certified Social Worker in 2004 before continuing his education and professional development in clinical social work. He became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in 2010 and later earned the credential of Licensed Clinical Social Worker Supervisor.
As Executive Director of Southeast Kentucky Behavioral Health, Collier works in behavioral health leadership, clinical services, organizational development, community-based behavioral supports, and advocacy for individuals and families throughout southeastern Kentucky.
He is also the author of The Mind’s Trestle Board, where he writes about mental health, relationships, masculinity, family, morality, personal responsibility, faith, emotional growth, and the difficult process of becoming a better version of ourselves. His writing often draws from the intersection of clinical experience, human behavior, personal reflection, and the belief that people should never be reduced to the worst moment of their lives.
References
American Psychological Association. (2024). Individual, collective, and intergenerational trauma recovery: Considering the restorative roles of restitution and reparations.
American Psychological Association. Nugent, N. R., Sumner, J. A., & Amstadter, A. B. (2014). Resilience after trauma: From surviving to thriving. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5.
PubMed Central. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2026). Trauma and violence: What is trauma and its effects? SAMHSA.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2023). Practical guide for implementing a trauma-informed approach. SAMHSA.
Truskauskaite-Kuneviciene, I., Brailovskaia, J., Kamite, Y., Petrauskaite, G., Margraf, J., & Kazlauskas, E. (2020). Does trauma shape identity? Exploring the links between lifetime trauma exposure and identity status in emerging adulthood. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 570644.
PubMed Central. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. (2026). Avoidance. National Center for PTSD. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, South Central MIRECC. (2022). An active approach to recovering from trauma: Breaking the cycle of safety aids and avoidance. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
