Daughter vs. Victim, Survivor, Thrivor

My counselor places allot of meaning on these words Victim vs Survivor and Thriver.  When I named my blog I avoided using any of these words.  If I put the word victim in my title then how would I feel about it when I was a thriver.  But what about the days that all I do is survive?  I think each of these fit me at different times.  When I am awake at night because I can not sleep, because of my fathers abuse, I am definitely a victim.  Not sleeping at night is continued victimization, it sucks the life out of my days and greatly reduces my quality of life.  But when I am putting on a play production for my kids I feel like a thriver.  That is until the day afterwards when I fall down exhausted and am glad to just survive for some time.

Yet putting the word daughter in there somehow takes my fathers perpetration and puts it on me as a title.  As if I identify too much with the fact that my father is a perpetrator.  Sometimes I think it would be easier if everyone knew I was a daughter of a perpetrator.  For one reason it would maybe help people be more suspicious of my father, and hopefully keep people safe from being his victims.  I think one of the worse tortures of being a victim is knowing that the perpetrator got away with perpetrating on you, and wondering if he is getting away with perpetrating on anyone else.

Sometimes my actions don't make sense to others.  Why do I panic over things that other people would not?  Why do I struggle with coming to church, even as I profess loving the church.  Why do I have scars on my arms?  Wow, I am surprised that these are the only questions I can think of.  I often feel like I stand out as a sore thumb.  There goes that lady who is off somehow, but why.  I just want to say, ask my father why.

Either way the facts are that I am a daughter of a perpetrator.  The word father means something totally different to me then it does to most people.  In the LDS culture where ancestors are very important my genealogy of perpetrators passing down their sickness has a totally different perspective to me then other LDS people who do not have that in their genealogy.  Father in heaven is a concept I struggle to understand.  Because the word father and heaven have nothing to do with each other from my perspective.  I struggle having faith in prayer when prayers did not save me from my father.  I struggle believing in the power of God, prayer and repentance when none of these helped me.

Yes I am LDS, yes I am a daughter of an LDS perpetrator and this reality is fraught with contradictions, changed meanings, and mental and emotional challenges.  Is there a day where I will always feel like a thriver? Maybe.  Maybe if I can go to sleep in peace and not find I am over come with anxiety.  Maybe when praying to the Lord to ask him to protect me does not cause me to be overcome with anxiety.  Maybe when so many other side effects of the abuse are gone, maybe then I will be a thriver.  Today the fact remains that my father is a perpetrator.