Stop Overusing The Word "Survivor"

I recently caught an interview with a woman on TV who managed to go from being a broke divorcee to being a self-made millionaire. It was impressive, to say the least, that she accumulated such wealth and success in the first place, but also because she did so while fast approaching fifty years old. The person doing the interview praised this woman's success and called her a "survivor".

Survivor of what? Divorce, I guess. You know, that rare disease that claims the life of untold millions every year for which there is no known cure.

On an episode of "Oprah" last year, a woman was interviewed about her newfound independence after going through a particularly nasty divorce. Oprah screamed to the audience that the woman was "A Survivor!" The audience, of course, erupted into applause and cheers.

No less than twenty-seven times in the past year have I heard someone on TV or in the media refer to a person coming out of a bad relationship with this proud "Survivor" moniker. As if awful splits are somehow rare and something a random few people get through without succumbing to the Grim Reaper. Suddenly, going through a bad break-up has become synonymous with PTSD and treatment for ALS.

The truth of the matter is something no one wants to hear: You aren't special because you made it through a bad break-up. In today's society, we want to convince everyone that their experiences are unique and rare; no one could possibly understand the hardships that came with the demise of their relationship. In reality, most break-ups are difficult, most divorces can get nasty, and about 99% of all people involved in either (or both) manage to live through them. The harshest reality is that most break-ups aren't nearly as bitter and nasty as people want to think they are, and most people aren't actually as strong-willed as they think they are for getting through them.

Over half of all marriages end in divorce and a majority of all relationships end. The odds of that relationship ending badly are higher than you think. After all, these things end for a reason. Often, that reason is because the situation has become difficult and the relationship is no longer one that is happy or even cooperative. If you have a bad relationship that ends badly, you aren't actually much different than the majority of other people going through a break-up. As much as you might have felt as if you were going to die, the reality is that you were probably nowhere near it, despite your belief that being entitled to a lifetime of wedded bliss was shattered along the way. Back patting yourself for getting through is just a slap in the face to those who actually deal with far worse.

You and the husband argued a lot and screamed at each other? That doesn't make you the victim of domestic violence. That makes you likely a bad fit with your chosen mate. You lost a lot of money in the divorce? That doesn't mean you were inches away from death's door. It actually makes you pretty much just like most people who go through a painful split. They were no closer to dying than you were, despite your feelings of complete destitution.

The problem here is not people's feelings of self-importance so much as it is the de-valuing of certain words in our society. Pre-9/11, we called a good football player a "hero". Seeing actual heros respond to a national tragedy changed that about us...at least for a little while. Calling someone who had a bad break-up a "survivor" is a similar kind of insult. It belittles those who actually persevere and overcome true, life-threatening obstacles simply to give credence to other people's sense of self-worth. Imagine telling the rugby players who made it through the crash in the Andes Mountains in '72 by resorting to cannibalism that you're on a similar level because you married a passive-agressive douchebag.

Somewhere out there, there are actual "survivors" of awful break-ups. Victims of abuse, marital rape, con-artist spouses, and those who can claim to have lost more than their pride and condo along the way are a few examples. These are the people who deserve to use the term "survivor", not the twenty-eight year-old girl who wound up surprised she had a bad relationship with the guy with the hot car that lived in his parents' basement and never learned to wash his own clothes. You weren't on the verge of death because you chose an awful boyfriend, dear; you just have bad taste in men. Let's not pretend that not getting what you wanted out of your marriage is the same thing as four rounds of chemotherapy. It's not.

If you come through your break-up with your limbs attached, your skin unbruised, your body unviolated, and your future ahead of you, don't consider yourself a "survivor". Consider yourself pretty normal and just like a majority of people out there. Then consider yourself lucky that you don't actually deserve that moniker we so glibly throw around these days. In order to wear it, you'd have to have suffered through something far worse than a jerk who didn't appreciate you and thought your ass looked big in those pants.