Well, personally I've always been OK with the term 'survivor' - to me it says that maybe my life isn't perfect (whose is?) but that I'm dealing with it and getting on with what I want to do.
But if I think of anything else I'll let you know.

Yeah, I like "survivor" best of all, but even then it doesn't tell us anything about how WELL you've survived. What do you call a victorious survivor? what's a more powerful word?

I hate both victim and survivor
victim implies helplessness, which I dont need to be reminded of and survivor implies I am over it, and it never goes away, it is always there ready to surface at any given moment. I just try to allow every horrible thing that has happened to me to kill some small part of me inside, it feels better thinking that atleast whatever has been taken from me..when it was done it also killed something so maybe I wont have to remember....does that make any scence??? maybe I am completely nuts?

It makes sense, but I have trouble with the part about allowing "every horrible thing that has happened...to kill some small part of me inside." See, that's EXACTLY what I'm trying to find an alternative to: the idea that we are somehow defeated, killed, broken, empty. I need a term that conveys, "no, I'm NOT partly dead, and no, I WON'T give up myself to this, and yes, I WILL rebuild my strength."

but I am dead, at least many parts of me are, and those will never be alive again.
they cant ever be..

Somewhere I read that we go from victim to survivor to thriver. Not in a steady line necessarily, but as life ebbs and flows, we certainly can have times of thriving. I know I have and would say that I've spent most of my life experience in the thriving category.

Right now I'd say I'm more in the 'survivor' spot, but working my way back to thriver. I have no desire to 'survive'. I want more than that.

At any rate, those three terms really struck a chord with me personally.

The days I've despised the most are the days when I 'feel' like a victim. Flashbacks, nightmares, creepy crawly skin can all contribute to making us feel like victims once again. But it also gives us the spring board to work our way back to survivor and then on to thriver.

Lisa, have you ever been out on a walk and noticed the way dead elder trees seem to support and nurture new saplings that are starting to come to life? I took a sketch of one once because it seemed like a really important message to me.
It might feel right now like some parts of you are dead, but new feelings and ideas will grow in their place; you'll keep discovering what you are capable of - one day you will surprise yourself :)

well the parts that are dead will never come back, and I dont want them to..if they came back I couldnt live..

Okay, not to diverge from the actual topic, but do you mean about the "dead parts?"

emotions, and feelings
I just want to stay numb

Well, they won't. I hate to break it to you, but they're not dead--far from it, and you're probably excruciatingly aware that they are not just alive in you, but powerfully so. And the more you try to deaden them, the further recovery becomes. but I can TOTALLY understand the desire you have to escape the pain.

I don't like the term 'victim' i know part of me was while it was going on, but the little girl found ways to survive through it.....
Survivor, we are survivors, we did survive it, but need to work through issues that still affect us from it.....
my daughter calls me a "plodderonner", she says to me, "keep plodding or trekking mum". I am a 'survivor pursuer' at the moment.
Good post,
i will keep checking back here for the better name.

This is another horribly pretentious one, but I was trying to make a point the other day (about something entirely unrelated to what happened) and the only word I could come up with to illustrate what I meant was 'pyrophyte' - plants which tolerate fire, sometimes even requiring it to thrive in future years. It occurred to me that it's a nice (if pretentious) analogy.

Lisa68 - I get what you mean, but I look at it like pruning a bush (and yes, I'm starting to think I have a slightly horticultural way of seeing the world). There are parts that are diseased or dead, but they can be cut away to leave the healthy tissue.