what survival really means
1402 Words
People think survival is dramatic.
They picture ambulances with lights flashing through the dark. Hospital beds. Machines beeping. CPR. Blood. Screaming mothers. Doctors yelling down hallways. Near-death experiences that sound like scenes from movies.
And yeah… sometimes survival is that.
Sometimes survival is waking up in a hospital bed after your body already gave up on you.
Sometimes survival is hearing people say, “She almost didn’t make it.”
Sometimes survival is scars, broken bones, tubes in your arms, wheelchairs, surgeries, seizures, withdrawals, and monitors tracking whether your heart decides to keep beating another night.
I know those kinds of survival well.
I’ve died more than once in my life. I’ve overdosed. I’ve stopped breathing. I’ve watched my parents cry while standing over me, wondering if this would finally be the moment they lost their daughter forever. I’ve laid in hospital beds staring at ceilings at three in the morning wondering why I was still here when so many times I probably shouldn’t have been.
But that’s not what survival really is.
Not entirely.
The truth is, survival is usually much quieter than people think.
Survival is waking up the next morning when your heart is heavy and your mind is darker than midnight, and choosing to keep going anyway.
It’s dragging yourself through another day when regret follows you like a shadow that never leaves.
It’s learning how to live after you’ve spent years trying to destroy yourself.
That’s the kind of survival nobody claps for.
Nobody sees the battles that happen in silence.
Nobody sees the nights where you sit awake replaying every mistake you’ve ever made until your stomach hurts from guilt.
Nobody sees the moments where you stare at a bottle, or remember a drug, or miss the numbness that once swallowed your pain whole.
Nobody sees how hard it is to rebuild yourself after spending years tearing yourself apart piece by piece.
People think getting clean is the finish line.
It isn’t.
Getting clean is the beginning.
Then comes the real fight.
The fight to face yourself sober.
The fight to remember everything.
The fight to feel emotions you buried for years under smoke, needles, liquor, and chaos.
The fight to look your parents in the eyes after disappointing them a thousand times.
The fight to forgive yourself for becoming someone you once swore you’d never be.
That’s survival.
I used to think survival meant toughness.
Being fearless.
Acting like nothing hurt me.
But the older I get, the more I realize survival actually looks a lot like vulnerability.
It looks like crying when nobody’s around.
It looks like admitting you need help.
It looks like saying, “I’m not okay today,” instead of pretending you’re invincible.
After my accident, survival changed again.
Before the wheelchair, I thought I understood pain.
I didn’t.
Not really.
I knew addiction pain.
Mental pain.
Emotional pain.
But physical pain that changes your entire existence?
That’s different.
One second you’re flying through life thinking you’re untouchable. The next second you’re waking up unable to walk, unable to move properly, unable to live the way you once did.
Everything changes.
Your independence changes.
Your confidence changes.
Your future changes.
Even the way people look at you changes.
That part hurt more than I expected.
Some people stopped seeing me. They only saw the wheelchair.
Like the accident erased who I was.
Like because I needed help sometimes, I suddenly became weak.
But if anything, becoming disabled showed me how strong I actually was.
Because surviving when life is easy is one thing.
Surviving after losing almost everything is another.
There were days I hated my life.
Days I hated my body.
Days I looked at old photos and cried because I missed the girl who could run, jump, stunt ride, dance, and move without thinking about it.
I mourned myself while still being alive.
Nobody talks about that kind of grief enough.
The grief of becoming a different person overnight.
The grief of realizing your old life is never coming back.
That grief sits in your chest like a stone.
Heavy.
Permanent.
But eventually, I started understanding something important.
I was still here.
And as long as I was still here, my story wasn’t over.
That became everything to me.
Not perfection.
Not pretending I was always happy.
Not acting fearless.
Just continuing.
That’s survival.
Continuing after funerals nearly had your name attached to them.
Continuing after addiction rewired your brain.
Continuing after heartbreak.
Continuing after abuse.
Continuing after waking up in a wheelchair.
Continuing after regret eats at your chest at night.
Continuing after life humbles you over and over again.
That’s real strength.
People see survival as a single moment.
But survival is actually thousands of tiny decisions.
Getting out of bed.
Taking your medication.
Going to appointments.
Staying sober another day.
Answering your child when they call for you even when you’re exhausted.
Looking in the mirror and trying not to hate yourself.
Trying again after failing.
And again.
And again.
And again.
That’s survival.
The hardest part is that survival changes you.
You stop seeing life the same way.
Little things suddenly matter more.
A quiet car ride.
A sunset.
Your child laughing in the other room.
Coffee in the morning.
Your cat curling up beside you in bed.
Being able to breathe without pain that day.
Simple things become massive blessings after almost losing everything.
I think people like me become grateful in strange ways.
When you’ve truly faced death, you stop worshipping perfection.
You start worshipping peace.
I don’t need a perfect life anymore.
I just want a meaningful one.
A real one.
A sober one.
A present one.
One where my son remembers me as someone who fought to stay alive for him.
Because Elijah changed survival for me too.
Before him, I didn’t care enough about myself to stop.
That’s the truth.
Pain didn’t stop me.
Overdoses didn’t stop me.
Fear didn’t stop me.
But two pink lines on a pregnancy test did.
Because suddenly it wasn’t just my life anymore.
Suddenly someone innocent depended on me surviving.
Not barely surviving either.
Actually living.
That terrified me.
But it also saved me.
People say children need their parents.
But sometimes parents need their children too.
Elijah gave me purpose when I had none left.
He gave me a reason to endure withdrawals.
A reason to stay sober.
A reason to survive hospital stays.
A reason to keep fighting after the accident.
A reason to keep breathing during nights where my mind gets heavy and memories creep back in.
He doesn’t even fully understand it yet.
But he saved my life long before I ever saved his.
And maybe survival is that too.
Not just staying alive for yourself.
But for the people who love you.
For the people waiting at home.
For the people who would shatter if you disappeared.
I used to think I was cursed because of everything I survived.
Now I think maybe I survived because my story wasn’t finished yet.
Maybe every overdose, every mistake, every scar, every surgery, every broken piece of my life was shaping me into someone stronger than I ever imagined possible.
Not stronger physically.
But deeper.
Wiser.
Softer in some ways.
Harder in others.
More grateful.
More aware of how fragile life actually is.
I’m not fearless now.
That’s another misconception.
Survivors aren’t fearless people.
We’re terrified people who keep going anyway.
I still get scared.
Scared of hospitals.
Scared of getting sick again.
Scared of losing people I love.
Scared of failure.
Scared of becoming the person I used to be.
But courage isn’t the absence of fear.
It’s movement despite it.
And every day I wake up and choose life again, that’s courage.
Every day I stay sober, that’s courage.
Every day I parent my son while carrying the weight of my past, that’s courage.
Every day I wheel myself forward instead of giving up, that’s courage.
What survival really means is this:
It means becoming someone who refuses to disappear.
No matter how many times life tries to bury you.
No matter how many mistakes you’ve made.
No matter how broken you feel.
No matter how tired you are.
You keep going.
You keep loving.
You keep learning.
You keep surviving.
And eventually, one day, you realize something beautiful.
You are no longer just surviving anymore.
You are finally living.
- Writer
