How I Became a Statistic and Why I Refused the Label
I was 20 years old the first time I said “no” to a guy and was blatantly ignored. I’d been traveling internationally for 48 hours straight, was trying to unpack, was starting a new job early the next morning, and the last thing I wanted was some guy I hardly knew hanging out. He showed up anyway.
At the time, I didn’t wonder how he got into my secured building. It never occurred to me that I didn’t tell him what room I lived in, and I dismissed my uneasy feelings as annoyance and grumpiness.
It didn’t take much time for this not-really-even-a-friendship to become a relationship that was never public, never went on a date, never had a real conversation, and never made me feel safe, loved, secure, or heard.
It was the longest, loneliest, most defeating three months of my entire life. The first month, I tried to put space between us. I tried to stay in public spaces. I used work as an excuse often and frequently. And none of it mattered. He kept showing up. He kept staying over.
The second month, I stopped saying “no.” It hadn’t mattered before, so why would it matter now? Three times, I coaxed him into a public space in order to break things off. Three times, he showed up that night. The third time, I woke up with his hands around my throat. I didn’t try again.
The third month, I went to the staff of my student ministry, asking for help. I was held responsible, blamed, spiritually abused, and removed from leadership. I left in tears, with no resources, no help, and no support.
By the grace of God, a friend cornered me outside the library one day. She wanted to know where I’d been, why I’d been missing class, and what was going on. I dodged as best as I could, but she knew. See, she had been through this, too. She knew.
I wound up in the hospital for reasons unrelated to the abuse shortly after. Ironically, I felt safe in that hospital room, my friend and co-worker sitting with me. But the second she left, he walked in. Call it a miracle, a coincidence, or a trauma response, I became violently sick. Nursing staff were present continually.
And when medication finally had me resting, my dad walked in. If I hadn’t have felt like death, watching the blood drain from my abuser’s face as he hastily made his exit would have been the best sight ever. Being transferred to a different hospital six hours away was a gift.
It was also the hometown of my friend who knew. She spent hours in that hospital room with me that week, and I told her everything. She reminded me what it is to be heard and seen and loved no matter what you have done and what has been done to you.
This girl who did not know Jesus embodied His very presence.
She was the one who took my phone and typed a message. She was the one who waited for me hit send. And she was the one who blocked him from my phone, my social media, and my life. She was the one who helped me make a plan for the remainder of the semester.
In the summer of 2021, I read a book called Joyful Journey: Listening to Immanuel, and I learned the root of trauma is unprocessed pain. See, when we find ourselves in situations where we must self-protect, we enter survival mode. In this state, our nervous system is unable to connect with others, except we need relationships in order to process that pain!
One way we can re-activate the relational circuits in our brain is by looking for Jesus in the midst of what happened to us. I didn’t have this language or knowledge in 2019, though.
I didn’t even realize what was happening at first. The jokes about my family being better off without me, the avoidance of certain places on campus, the insomnia, the fear of the dark, constantly being on edge, hypervigilant about everything…it wasn’t until I had a panic attack while driving that I realized I wasn’t okay.
It took almost crashing my car as I traveled by my abuser’s apartment to realize I needed help.
I knew I could not go to my church or the student ministry I was part of, and I knew my university had a counseling center. The lady on the other end of the phone took down my list of symptoms, asked me if I was experiencing a couple more (I was), placed me on a brief hold, asked me who my local doctor was and if I had been seen by her recently, scheduled me for an immediate counseling intake appointment, and transferred me to the student health center to make an appointment with my doctor.
Her face was unseen by me, but her voice was a balm. I was taken care of. Seen. Heard. Provided for. Once again, a person I can most confidently assume did not know Jesus embodied Him to me.
Between my MD and my PhD-candidate, and with my consent, we enacted a plan that included an antidepressant-antianxiety medication, weekly therapy sessions, and looping in the people that would help me stay safe.
The first time Amy, my therapist, referred to me as a victim, I bristled. “That’s not who I am,” I said. She looked surprised and asked me what I meant.
Victim implies that I am living under what happened to me. That what he did gets to define every part of my life and my identity. Victim is someone who has been destroyed by something or sacrificed to it. I wasn’t content with that. No way.
Amy nodded. “You survived, Ava. You’re a survivor.”
I didn’t like that label either. Surviving is existing. It’s bare minimum functionality. It’s being alive after the event. It’s being stuck in the trauma responses, the survival instincts, and the pain cycle. I wasn’t content with that, either.
“So what would you call yourself, Ava?”
I thought for a minute. I opened my mouth and started talking about Jesus, and for the remainder of the five months I was in therapy, I talked about Jesus. I talked about joy. I raved about peace and goodness and gentleness. I talked about seeing Him in the people that got me to this office.
Amy didn’t know Jesus, and she frequently asked me to “define this joy you keep talking about” or explain “how this peace exists when you are hypervigilant.” She didn’t understand how I could see goodness in the hell I was walking through.
For weeks on end, I sat in a chair, fists full of Kleenex, describing and sharing and exalting the goodness and majesty and might of my God.
In our last session, Amy got really quiet and broke eye contact. I waited on her. She shook her head, and looking almost bashful said, “You have challenged everything I thought I knew. You came into this place in the darkest time of your life, in the darkest place people can go, and there was always a joy in you. Even in our first meeting, there was a light in you. I won’t be able to practice in this field in the same way going forward, and I want to thank you for that.”
The labels we choose to sticker ourselves with matter. They hold great power, and they are the truth we begin to live out in our daily lives.
I am not willing to be defined by what some Godless man did to me, so I will never be a victim. I am not willing to live in an unending cycle of trauma responses and pain, so I will never be a survivor.
I have always been a cherished, beloved, precious daughter of the Most High. I have always been found worthy, blameless, and holy through the name and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I have always been a delight, a joy, a friend of Jesus, a vessel of the Spirit, and an heir to the eternal inheritance.
These are the labels I will accept. These are the identifiers I will choose over my identity and my life and my person. These and only these will define me to the rest of the world.
The labels we choose to call others matter, too. They hold great power, and they are the truth others begin to believe.
Before you label someone – gay, victim, survivor, addict, overcomer – take a moment and ask. Choose to embrace the hard story of the person in front of you, and ask, “Hey, how do you choose to view this event in your life?”
Be humble when someone corrects you – “I actually don’t use that label. I prefer…”
Be curious. Understand that words may hold different meanings for different people.
My choice to refuse these labels is just that – my choice. There are many women and men who feel seen and validated and understood through these titles. They can be the root of community for many that have been violated and assaulted and abused.
No matter how we choose to identify and label ourselves, this truth remains – we are more than a statistic, and our stories cannot be limited by what others do to us.
Amen? Amen.
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