Guest Blogger: The Survival Gene by Andygirl

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When I think of survivors, I think of the women in my life.

The human imperative is survival, but it seems to me that women posses a extra survival gene, something that makes it harder for us to give up or give in, and keeps us pushing those around us to survive. We love to a fault and we support until it breaks us and yet we still keep going. We are beaten down, raped, and diseased, but we still laugh and love and exude ineffable grace.

My grandmother was a survivor. When her family was near poverty and her abusive husband was drunk and out of work yet again, she’d work several jobs just to feed her four children. She’d just keep going no matter what. She lived that way even after my grandfather died. If one body part would fail, she’d get it replaced and keep on going. She wasn’t the warmest of women, but she did what she needed to do.

My aunt was a survivor. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, they gave her a couple of years to live at the most. She was determined to live until her daughter turned 12 and so she lived another 7 years, all the time working and putting money away so her daughter could go to college. She fought the hardest of any woman I’ve ever known. After a divorce, a mastectomy and chemo and the loss of her hair, she never lost her generous spirit or hope.

My biological mother was a survivor. I imagine her making the decision to give up a baby, deciding between providing for one child and keeping a second. The story goes that, a single woman newly divorced or possibly separated, she’d just gotten a job, finally gone off welfare, and put my 2 year old sister in daycare. She chose to give up her baby so that all three of us could live better lives. I imagine how brave she must have been.

My friend is a survivor. She’ll never know quite how strong she is. Her childhood dominated by her father’s mental illness. Her adolescence dominated by her mother’s physical illness. Her early twenties the loss of her mother and then her brother. She has experienced unspeakable loss even after and she has done it in relative privacy, holding strong and keeping her hurt tucked deep away. She does what she needs to do and still manages to laugh and love.

I am a survivor. I survived my mother. I survived her physical abuses and her endless narcissism, addiction, and emotional cruelty which seeped into my being. I survived sexual assault as a teen, when my boyfriend gave up cajoling and attempted to force me to have sex. I have survived a toxic man who moved into my home without asking, who manipulated a ring onto my finger, and who beat me with his words. Who told me he hated me and convinced me I was the hateful and controlling one. I have survived the suicide of a boyfriend and the deaths of friends and family. I have survived betrayals and personal demons. I have survived hunger. I have survived self-destructive behavior.

I have survived to be become a happy, strong, independent woman.

Andygirl is a writer poet, blogger, photographer, queer, dirty liberal, and crazy cat lady. She’s a California girl turned NorthWesterner and she’s got the valley girl accent and flannel shirts to prove it. When she’s not dominating the Portland karaoke scene, she spends her time reading too many books and making Star Wars references that her roommate doesn’t understand. Read, Tweet, Facestalk.