On Being a "Survivor"

While I was swimming this morning - exercise=recovery yada yada - I reflected upon the term "survivor". Before its current vogue in a different context I associated this word, as a child of post-Holocaust Jews - with hobbling out of Dachau alive, or being rescued from some Japanese POW camp with bamboo still growing under my fingernails or, say, beating cancer.

Now, of course, there are new kinds of survivors. You can be a survivor of almost anything. For example, I am a survivor of 25 years of Eastenders ;) The word does have new meanings and associations and they're not all devalued. What caught my handsome reflection, though? I thought: Many survive many things that cause, induce or increase their mental illness. But as far as I know all I have survived is myself. I am at the centre of my psychodrama. Nobody, as far as I know - and Woody Allenesque upbringing notwithstanding - has done much of importance to me...except me.