When I write an article, I tend to read it a multitude of times before I turn it in, and even more, after the article has been posted. After rereading my most recent article, What It's Like To Find Support For Your Sexual Assault In A Friend Who Has Also Been Assaulted, I realized something important. Instead of using the word, survivor, I had been using the word, victim. Now, let me clarify as to why I am bothered by this.

I have been reading countless articles about sexual assault in the months following my article on my own assault. Things like articles on the Me Too Movement, Time's Up, Harvey Weinstein, and Aziz Ansari. In almost all of the articles, the women and men that had to deal with sexual assault were rarely ever called "victims". These people were called survivors. When I saw this and compared it to my own article, it made me wonder why their word choice had been different than mine.

A victim, according to Google, is "a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of an event or action". Usually, when you think of victims you think of people who need or receive pity. They appear helpless in nature, powerless, even. A survivor, according to Google, is "a person who survives, especially a person remaining alive after an event or a person who copes well with difficulties in their life". Reading these definitions I understood the wording of the articles I had been so quickly reading.

The individuals were in every sense of the word, survivors. I am a survivor, my friend is a survivor, anyone in these situations are considered survivors. Survivors of sexual assault are not falling victim to their circumstances. They are growing, learning, moving on. They are bettering themselves because that's what they need to do. They do not want pity or to appear helpless.

The men and women with the courage to speak out are doing so to prove that they survived something meant to degrade them and they are using the experience to make a difference. To spread awareness and make sure that other people know they are not victims. They have their own power.

What I went through, what my best friend went through, they were no easy experiences. There are daily struggles and reminders of what happened and how it will affect us. However, this does not mean that we have fallen victim. I am using my platform to spread awareness and positive statements. I am being honest and open about the beautiful and the not-so-beautiful parts of recovery. I am not letting what happened to me turn me into a mindless mummy searching for pity, sympathy, and personal strength.

My friend is going to therapy and bettering herself. She is refusing to let the effects of her assault keep her down and ruin her life when she knows she was meant to move farther and prosper. In her own ways, she's making remarks and moves in the world of recovery to get pieces of her story out there.

Enough for people to understand that sometimes things in life are hard but you can't let them ruin you. In realizing these things, I realize that I was wrong in calling either one of us victims. I should have been thinking of us as survivors and using that word all along.

Not only did I realize this in my writing, I realized that I do this in conversation as well. I found myself calling myself a victim when I in no way felt like one. Saying the word victim out loud in reference to what happened made me cringe. Sure, for a short amount of time, I had been powerless. However, I regained my power and strength in my recovery.

I was no one's victim and I sure as hell didn't feel like I had the worst end of things. There were people that had gone through so much worse than I had that called themselves "survivors" and "warriors". Maybe it was time that I identified as one myself and started identifying others the same way.

My point in all of this is not to once again throw awareness of all of this in your face. Trust me, I know this is my third article on the subject. But it is an important subject. It is to make a statement that while we as a society tend to think of people who have gone through these things as victims, they identify as survivors and rightfully so.

When more people take the time to consider this the way I did, maybe they will change how they think of survivors of assault. We need to start referencing the people in these situations as survivors and acknowledging that these survivors have their power back from the people who tried to take it.

United States Olympian Aly Raisman said it best when she said this, "All these brave women have power, and we will use our voices to make sure you get what you deserve: A life of suffering spent replaying the words delivered by this powerful army of survivors."