Victim? Survivor? What's in a word?

Thank you to all who responded..... I would like to add this: I am a SURVIVOR of sexual abuse. Those who have experienced the same and are alive, are also 'survivors,' in my view. 

This statement I have made is not about being a "professional victim" as some may like to claim - such is the nature of Freedom of Speech. It's about refusing to remain labelled as one.

Having said that, being a survivor doesn't automatically mean one has to be chirpy and upbeat all the time. Gee, sometimes I am such pissed off at things as a woman, a person, a mother, an employee.... not everything I do or feel should be constrained by the label people seem to want to impose on me - a victim. 

This stand (or whatever people want to call it) is about the experience I have endured with ACC AND is not an isolated case. It wouldn't have created such a polarisation within NZ society if it were. 

It's about bullying - someone telling you to shut up, know your place, don't argue - or else!

There are a lot of incredibly courageous women and men who have written to me over the last week detailing their own "inefficient" experiences with the legal system, ACC, justice in general. They're the real soldiers in all this. 

And it's time.... time to STOP making child sexual abuse the safest crime to commit, the hardest to convict, the least likely to be punished, and the hardest to gain support or counselling for....

It's time.