It took me a long time, but I prefer victim to survivor now. I don't want to diminish the gravity of what happened. I don't want to pretend I'm on some triumphant, uplifting journey. I don't want to pretend that everything is okay. I'm living with what happened, moving forward without forgetting, moving forward without pretending I am unscarred.
In her memoir "Hunger," Roxane Gay expresses a deep and complex relationship with her identity as a victim of trauma. She acknowledges the weight of her experiences and chooses to identify with being a victim rather than a survivor, emphasizing the seriousness of her situation. For Gay, this choice reflects a refusal to downplay the severity of what she has endured and a rejection of narratives that overlook the lasting impacts of trauma.
Gay's perspective challenges the notion of a purely uplifting recovery journey. She confronts her past honestly, embracing her scars as part of her reality. Instead of pretending that she has fully healed, she focuses on living with the memories and the effects of her experiences, signaling that moving forward is possible without erasing the truth of her struggle.
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All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important.
Race of Cain, ascend to heaven, And cast God down upon the earth!
