VICTIM

October 8, 2026 | Joshua T. Atkinson | F4F NEWS | Fighting4Freeport

Somewhere along the way, society decided that the word victim was something to be ashamed of. Not the rape. Not the molestation. Not the assault. Not the person who committed the crime. Somehow, we decided the problem was the victim.

Think about how completely screwed up that is.

We've become so uncomfortable with the word that we've practically launched a campaign to replace it. We tell people they're not victims, they're survivors. We celebrate their strength, applaud their resilience, and encourage them to rise above whatever happened to them. We wrap their suffering in inspirational language, congratulate ourselves for being compassionate, and move on feeling like we've accomplished something.

But what exactly have we accomplished? Have we prevented another child from being molested? Have we stopped another woman from being raped? Have we held another predator accountable? Or have we simply found a more comfortable way to talk about horrific crimes without having to confront the people committing them?

Because the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that we've been addressing the wrong problem all along.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a victim. There is something terribly wrong with creating one.

And it's about damn time we remembered the difference.

The Word We Were Never Supposed to Fear

"I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor."

We've all heard it. Some of us have probably said it. And I understand why. When someone has experienced something horrific, the word survivor can be a declaration of strength, endurance, and determination. It can be a way of saying that another person's actions will not dictate the rest of their life.

There is nothing wrong with that. Surviving something terrible is an accomplishment, and nobody should diminish it.

But somewhere along the way, we seem to have decided that acknowledging survival requires us to reject victimhood. That being a survivor is somehow better, stronger, or more respectable than being a victim.

And I want to know why.

A tornado tears through a community, destroying homes and taking lives. Those who make it through are survivors. A hurricane devastates a coastline, leaving families to rebuild their lives. Again, survivors.

But when someone sexually abuses a child, rapes a woman, or deliberately inflicts harm upon another human being, something fundamentally different has occurred.

Someone made a choice. Someone committed an act. Someone bears responsibility.

Tornadoes create survivors. Criminals create victims.

Of course, natural disasters have victims, too, and people who survive crimes are also survivors. The difference I'm talking about isn't whether someone lived through something terrible. It's whether another human being deliberately caused it.

A tornado doesn't decide whose home to destroy. A hurricane doesn't select its victims. But a predator makes choices, and those choices have consequences for real people.

When we talk about victims of crime, that word carries a truth we should never allow to disappear: someone did something wrong to another person.

A child who was sexually abused at seven years old does not stop having been a victim when they turn eighteen. A woman who was raped does not stop having been a victim when she falls in love again. Someone who was assaulted does not erase the crime by attending counseling, finding happiness, or building a successful life.

They may heal. They may accomplish extraordinary things. They may find joy, love, and peace. I sincerely hope they do.

But none of it changes what happened. And why in the hell should it?

The Responsibility I Never Expected

When I started Fighting4Freeport, I never imagined I would find myself writing an editorial like this.

I certainly didn't anticipate becoming someone victims of sexual abuse and their families would turn to. I didn't set out to become an advocate, a confidant, or someone people trusted with experiences they had sometimes struggled for years to talk about.

But somewhere along the way, that's exactly what happened.

People started coming forward. Some were looking for answers. Some wanted accountability. Others simply wanted someone to listen after years of feeling ignored, dismissed, or unheard.

And I began to understand the enormous responsibility that comes with someone trusting you enough to share something they may have spent much of their life trying to forget.

Think about what that means for a moment. Someone carries an experience so painful that speaking about it can feel almost impossible. They may have questioned themselves, feared the consequences of telling the truth, or wondered whether anyone would believe them. Then, for reasons I still sometimes struggle to understand, they decide to trust you.

You don't forget that.

I didn't ask for this responsibility, and I won't pretend I was prepared for everything that came with it. But I accept it with tremendous honor. I cannot undo what happened to these individuals. I cannot promise them justice. And listening to their stories does not mean I can fully understand what they've endured.

What I can do is listen, ask questions, refuse to look away, and demand answers when the circumstances warrant them.

And those experiences have changed the way I look at a great many things, including the word victim.

Because what I've encountered isn't a group of people desperately searching for a more empowering label. I've encountered people searching for answers, accountability, protection, and the reassurance that what happened to them matters.

They don't need society to rewrite their experiences into something more inspirational.

They need society to take those experiences seriously.

Have We Simply Found a Nicer Way to Say "Man Up"?

For generations, society told people to toughen up. Men were told not to cry. Women were encouraged to put painful experiences behind them. Children were expected to respect adults, avoid causing trouble, and be brave even when they were frightened.

We have spent years recognizing how damaging those expectations can be. Yet I cannot help wondering whether we've simply repackaged the same message in language that sounds more compassionate.

Don't be a victim. Be a survivor. Be strong. Be resilient. Don't let what happened define you.

It certainly sounds nicer than telling someone to “man up”, doesn't it?

But when encouragement becomes an expectation, how different is it really?

What happens when someone doesn't feel strong? What happens when a victim doesn't want to forgive, isn't ready to move forward, or continues struggling with something that happened decades ago? What happens when their life doesn't resemble the inspirational recovery story the rest of us would prefer to hear?

Have they somehow failed?

Of course not.

Yet I wonder whether we have become more comfortable celebrating people who overcome their trauma than acknowledging those who continue living with its consequences.

We admire the person who finds forgiveness. We celebrate the person who rebuilds their life. We share stories about remarkable people who transformed unimaginable pain into something positive.

But the victim who is still angry? Still frightened? Still demanding answers twenty years later?

Too often, that person is told it's time to move on.

A victim does not owe society a happy ending.

They don't owe us forgiveness, an inspirational speech, a triumphant recovery, or proof that they've overcome what happened. They don't even owe us the comfort of pretending they're okay.

Being victimized is not a failure of character. Struggling afterward isn't either.

And perhaps instead of asking victims to demonstrate how well they've recovered, we should be asking why so many were forced to recover from crimes that never should have happened.

We Have Made the Victim Responsible for Everything Except the Crime

Consider what we ask of someone who reports sexual abuse.

We may ask them to describe humiliating, intimate, and traumatic experiences to complete strangers. We may expect them to recall details from years earlier, answer difficult questions, and endure challenges to their credibility. They may risk relationships, reputations, and whatever sense of security they have managed to rebuild.

And after all of that, we tell them to heal.

Get counseling. Find closure. Rebuild your confidence. Learn to trust again. Take back your power. Don't let the past control your future.

Those things can be important. Victims deserve access to counseling, support, and every resource that can help them recover.

But why does it sometimes feel as though the victim is the only person expected to do any work?

Where is that same relentless pressure on perpetrators to answer for their actions? Where is the pressure on institutions to explain what they knew, when they knew it, and what they did about it? Where is the demand that people entrusted with protecting children actually protect them?

I've watched how quickly conversations about abuse can become conversations about the victim's recovery rather than the perpetrator's responsibility. And I find that deeply troubling.

A victim can spend twenty years in counseling while the person who harmed them spends those same twenty years avoiding accountability. A victim can forgive their abuser without the abuse becoming any less real. A victim can rebuild an extraordinary life while the person responsible remains capable of hurting someone else.

Healing is not justice. Forgiveness is not accountability. And survival is not proof that society did its job.

We should celebrate every person who finds peace after experiencing something terrible. But we should never confuse their ability to rebuild their life with our responsibility to confront the wrongdoing that shattered it.

Because when the victim's recovery becomes the end of the conversation, the perpetrator may be the only person who truly gets to move on.

Children Shouldn't Have to Be Survivors

Perhaps nowhere is this backwards thinking more disturbing than when we talk about children who have been sexually abused.

We hear their stories and immediately reach for the familiar words. Brave. Strong. Resilient. Survivor.

And I understand the instinct. We want children to know that what happened doesn't diminish their worth or destroy their futures. We want them to believe that happiness is still possible.

But sometimes I wish we would stop talking about how strong these children are and start asking why the hell they needed to be so strong in the first place.

A seven-year-old should be worried about what they're getting for Christmas, not whether an adult is going to violate them again. A twelve-year-old should be navigating friendships and homework, not deciding whether telling the truth will tear their family apart. A teenager should be looking forward to the future, not carrying the weight of a crime committed by someone they were supposed to be able to trust.

Children are supposed to be protected, not congratulated for surviving what adults failed to prevent.

I don't want us to become so inspired by a child's courage that we forget to be outraged by the circumstances that made that courage necessary.

I don't want us applauding a child's resilience while overlooking the adults who ignored warning signs, dismissed disclosures, protected reputations, or refused to act.

And I certainly don't want a child growing up believing that being a victim is something they must eventually outgrow to be considered whole.

That child was never the problem. The person who harmed them was.

Their childhood wasn't damaged because they weren't strong enough. It was damaged because someone chose to hurt them.

That is where the shame belongs. That is where the responsibility belongs. And that is where our attention should remain.

Who Benefits When Victim Becomes an Insult?

Think about how casually we throw the word around today.

"Stop playing the victim." "Quit acting like a victim." "Everybody wants to be a victim."

We've transformed a word that describes someone who has suffered harm into an accusation of weakness, manipulation, or self-pity.

And I believe that has consequences.

When we make people ashamed of being victims, we risk making it harder for them to acknowledge what happened without feeling they must immediately prove they've overcome it. When we treat continued pain as a failure to move forward, we risk making people feel guilty for the lasting consequences of someone else's actions.

And when society grows tired of hearing victims speak about what happened, who benefits from that silence?

Not the victim. Not the next child who may be harmed. Not the family still searching for answers.

The people responsible for the wrongdoing benefit. So may the institutions that would rather the subject disappear.

I am not suggesting that the word survivor was invented as some grand conspiracy to protect predators. Many people who experienced abuse helped popularize that language as a way of reclaiming power, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But I am questioning whether society has taken something intended to empower victims and turned it into another way of making their suffering more comfortable for everyone else.

Because there is a world of difference between telling someone they can survive what happened and telling them they should stop being a victim.

One offers hope.

The other can sound an awful lot like an instruction to get over it.

And I have to wonder how many of the people telling victims to move on are doing so because they would rather see the victim remain silent than see the person responsible held accountable.

Take Back the Word

If there is one thing I want every person who has ever been victimized to take away from this article, it is this: You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

Not because you're strong. Not because you're brave. Not because you've survived. And not because you've managed to rebuild your life into something beautiful.

You have nothing to be ashamed of because you were not the one who committed the wrong.

It really is that simple.

If someone sexually abused you, the shame belongs to the abuser. If someone assaulted you, the shame belongs to the attacker. If someone exploited your trust, manipulated your innocence, or deliberately caused you harm, the responsibility for that wrongdoing belongs to the person who did it.

You do not inherit their disgrace simply because you suffered the consequences of their actions.

There is no expiration date on the truth. No birthday that erases a childhood crime. No amount of counseling that retroactively makes an assault acceptable. No successful marriage, career, or happy family that somehow cancels the responsibility of the person who caused the harm.

You can survive. You can heal. You can flourish. You can become everything you ever dreamed of becoming.

And you can still acknowledge that you are a victim.

Those truths do not compete with one another.

I want women to stop feeling they must reject the word to demonstrate their strength. I want men to understand that being victimized does not make them less of a man. I want children who have experienced abuse to grow up knowing that they have nothing to prove and nothing to apologize for.

And I want every person who has ever told a victim to stop being a victim to consider what they're actually asking.

Because victims didn't create this problem. The people who harmed them did.

Victims aren't responsible for the shame surrounding their experiences. The people who victimized them are.

And victims should not be expected to carry the additional burden of making their stories sound more uplifting so the rest of us can feel better about hearing them.

The Shame Belongs Somewhere Else

I have listened to enough painful stories to know that no article, no matter how passionate, is going to erase what happened to the people who trusted me with them.

I can't give them back the childhood they deserved. I can't undo the fear, the betrayal, or the years they may have spent believing nobody would listen. I can't promise that every person responsible will face justice.

But I can refuse to participate in a culture that makes victims feel ashamed of being victims. And I can challenge others to do the same.

Maybe it's time we stopped asking victims to find a more empowering word and started demanding a more accountable society. Maybe it's time we stopped measuring success solely by how well someone recovers and started measuring it by how seriously we respond when someone is harmed.

Maybe it's time we stopped telling victims to be stronger and started insisting that the institutions entrusted with protecting them do better.

Because I don't believe our greatest failure is that too many people still acknowledge being victims. I believe our failure is that too many people have been victimized, too many have been silenced, and too many have watched the people responsible escape accountability while society encouraged them to move on.

And I refuse to believe the solution is to make the word victim disappear.

So to every person who has ever been made to feel small, weak, broken, or ashamed because someone else harmed them, I hope you stand a little taller today. Not because you survived. Not because you overcame. But because you never deserved what happened to you, and you never owed anyone an apology for being the person it happened to.

You are not responsible for another person's crime. You never were.

Being a victim was never shameful. The shame belongs to the person who made you one.

And if we're going to teach future generations to be ashamed of anything, let's make damn sure we're teaching them to be ashamed of the right thing.

Tornadoes create survivors. Criminals create victims. And while surviving a crime is something to celebrate, the crime itself is something we must never excuse, minimize, or forget.

The problem was never that we had too many victims willing to admit they were victims. The problem is that we've had too many criminals who never had to admit they were criminals.

Joshua T. Atkinson is the founder of Fighting4Freeport. This featured editorial reflects his personal perspective and experiences listening to victims and families affected by abuse.