Thank you for making our Celebrity Gala & Silent Auction a success!

Many thanks to:

Our corporate sponsors:  Day’s Jewelers of Brunswick, 98.9 WCLZ, Bath Savings Institution, Mid Coast Women’s Health Care, Atlantic Regional Federal Credit Union, Martin’s Point Health Care, Wright Express, First Federal Savings, Hammond Lumber, and Flying Point Construction.

Our many Auction donors

Our wonderful celebrities

Emcee Ethan Minton from 98.9 WCLZ and DJ Jon Shannon from the WPOR 101.9 Morning Crew. Please check Jon’s website for more info if you have need of his DJ services. http://www.jonshannondj.com/

and our fabulous guests – we hope to see you next year!

Keep checking back for information about our Eleventh Annual Ladies Golf Open happening Thursday, June 7th, 2012. We will be posting registration information here on our website.

Also, keep checking back for the 2013 Celebrity Gala & Silent Auction date!

Worth It: A Meditation of Hope and Healing

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more happiness you can contain.” -Kahlil Gibran, from “The Prophet”

            So many times I have asked myself, is healing possible after tragedy? What does it feel like? Do you ever stop hurting? Do you get your life back?

            When I was in high school, I was repeatedly raped by a father-figure friend of the family whom I loved and trusted. If you remember how vulnerable and scared age fifteen is, if you recall how fragile are a girl’s dreams, innocence, and trust, you will understand my agony when these precious things were stolen from me.

            Too ashamed to tell my secret and without words to express the horror even if I could have spoken out, I lived through four years of high school in an iron cage of silence, trying to survive. I withdrew into a dream world where I felt safe and protected. Even there, I could not escape the pain that was eating me up inside.

            Just before graduation, I knew I had to tell my parents about the abuse. Instinctively I knew that before I could live, I first had to heal. Healing began with stammering, halting words, as my parents’ love melted the icebergs of silence that had separated us for far too long.

            After graduation, the carefully constructed house of cards that I called my life collapsed. The first tentative words I had spoken were like a dike giving way. I could no longer hold the pain inside. I had to cry. I had to get angry.

            There were times when the pain was so great that I couldn’t draw a deep breath. Times of overwhelming grief for lost childhood, lost girlhood, lost belief in the world, lost relationships, lost chances. Times of quiet heartache.

            Every day I dreamed of what I would do with my life once I got it back. Every night I lit candles to symbolize brighter days ahead. Healing became the laurel crown I coveted as the victorious end of a race I thought I could never finish.

            Like a receding storm tide, the agony gradually began to ebb. A pasture full of lightening bugs on a sultry summer night, the first snowfall of winter, apple blossoms against a spring-time sky, and fallen leaves in autumn all gave me the same old thrill of delight.

            I can truly say that healing is a miracle. Although it isn’t the exuberantly perfect state I told myself it would be on those dark winter nights when I wanted to give up on life, I now have hard-won strength, courage, and hope in my arsenal to face the struggles, heartaches, and doubts. I have faced my memories, smelled their breath, and they can no longer control me. I have been deep into the darkness of pain and now, emerging into the light of joy, I find the colors of life so much brighter.

            For me, healing means drawing deep breaths of thankfulness and feeling alive for the first time in years. It means waking up to a new day with a whole spirit, looking forward to watching a great movie, taking a long hike, or going square-dancing. It means a long day of satisfying hard work and not remembering once that I am an abuse survivor. It means going to college and realizing that out-lived pain has not dulled my love of learning. It means I am learning that it’s safe to trust again, and blossoming from that renewed trust, I now have more friends than I can count. It means that I have been blessed to fall in love with a good man who loves me in spite of, or perhaps because of, my scars. It means a quiet evening of reading with candlelight and harp music, not heartache, for company.

            I’m not sure I’ll ever be completely “over” the abuse. The memories can still come in like a flood and turn me into a terrified, sobbing child. The past still aches at times, like a long-healed broken bone in damp weather. But my life has answered my questions. I have in truth been given beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning. God has indeed turned for me my mourning into dancing.

            No longer just a survivor, I joyously live the best life I can.

Written by a Blessed Survivor

A sad, frightened
little girl,
whimpered at the
anger that stared
back at her.

No mirror quite
the same.
No escape from
the darkness,
following her.

When she looked,
she was disgusted,
when she turned away,
she feared the evil
lurking in each room.

Flashbacks,
tormenting her,
clinging to her
very soul.

35 years later with
overwhelming strength,
the child broke free.
Stepping through the glass,
Surviving.

In tears, she peered
into the mirror,
seeing herself smile
for the very first time,
at the little girl,
starting back at her.

-Chris

Something you hear about,
Statistics are displayed.
None of it can happen to me though.
I can’t believe this happened to me.

They say I am wrong,
They are blaming it on me.
I try to trust my friends, believe it was not my fault.
I can’t believe this happened to me.

Three assholes from hell came into my life.
Just to ruin my thinking, to make my world imperfect.
Nobody deserves the hell that they made.
I can’t believe this happened to me.

The degrading words you said to me.
No girl should be “showcased”, our bodies are a temple.
Our lives mean more than that.
I can’t believe this happened to me.

These breasts, these “nips”, these words from hell.
My back? What about me?
Why can’t my personality ever mean anything?
I can’t believe this happened to me.

Why do the worst things happen to the sweetest girls?
Two people have asked me that.
I often wonder the same thing.
I can’t believe this happened to me.

The dreams are terrible,
I dream of others being raped.
I am afraid of sleep; yet I don’t want to do anything but sleep.
I can’t believe this happened to me.

You said I was tight,
Well I wonder why, I ain’t a whore.
I don’t give myself away to just anyone.
I can’t believe you did this to me.

A girl in a carhart jacket,
I always wear a tee shirt and jeans,
What was so different about me on that awful night?
I can’t believe you did this to me.

I don’t want to be at school anymore,
I don’t want to go to class anymore.
I quit my quartet and trio, I can’t do it
I can’t believe you did this to me.

You need to realize what you have done,
My family’s pain and friend’s pain.
Most of all, my pain.
Why did you do this to me?

Now you say it was consensual,
Now you say I wasn’t even drunk.
You know you were wrong.
And yet you did this to me.

My emotions are completely unexplainable,
I get scared at the most random times.
I want you to realize what you have ruined.
Because you did this to me.

You are lucky the results came back negative,
You are lucky you only made me bleed.
The consequences would be worse.
I can’t believe you did this to me.

Why would I have random sex,
With three devils I just met?
I am not a whore; I am from a good family.
And still, you did this to me.

This life you forced on me is killing me.
But I’m not going to stop because you need to pay.
I hope you get your taste of hell and think of me,
It’s what you deserve for doing this to me.

-Anonymous

I feel hot-that awful feeling that just envelops my body. It is stuffy and I can’t breathe. No fresh air. Just that awful sense of everything closing in on me. I want to run away from that room but there is no way out. The door is there but I can’t get to it. I pray for help but the room closes in on me. It is yellow and I am in bed. It is summer but the windows are not open. Stuffy. Hot. Trapped. I lay there immobilized in fear. So still. If I stay still maybe I’ll be safe. Don’t move. My muscles are tense wanting to run. But there is no way out. He blocks the door and I am there. Sick feeling. Stale air. The shadows loom closer-blocking space. I feel alone, forgotten, trapped. Please, no. God, please no. The shape takes form and looms over me. I look in disbelief, pain. He touches my forehead. I’ve known you were there but do not let him know. Then he touches my face as if it is special. The heat becomes intense and I know what will happen next. The covers are lowered. I lay motionless. One by one the buttons are undone and the top is folded back. Rough hands fondle my breasts. Blue and white pajamas. Seersucker-cool. But now, I feel hot again. Sex is hot. No escape. Sick feeling. Not again. Not again. The hands move lower. Underwear. Inside my underwear. Rubbing. He lays beside me as he does this. No, daddy, please don’t. Warm sticky. I feel his hairy chest-such little hands. My body is smooth and flat. He moves my hand over his penis, guiding it over places he wants me to touch. I feel the sticky stuff. He rolls on top of me. It comes. I am crushed by weight. I cannot breathe. It seems to last forever-my mouth covered by his chest. How long will it last? At last, the weight lifts. I can breathe. He wipes my chest clean, buttons up my top, pulls up my pajamas. The covers are returned and he pats my forehead. He smiles as if he is pleased and I wonder why. I hate you Daddy.

I remember you, I was nine you were four;
when we held hands and danced we felt
safe and secure.

I remember you, I was ten you were seven;
when we danced around the moon, we felt
God’s hand touching us from heaven.

I remember you, I was eleven you were three;
when we all danced together we were children
our hearts were free.

We would only meet at night, well we thought so
in our minds; we would dance and play around
the moon, it seemed like 50 times.

We all would hold each other tight as we danced
the night and played; never letting go for a moment
while our childhood slipped away.

There were no tears on the moon, we were happy
and alive; when we would wake from our journey
we just tried to stay alive.

I remember you, you were beaten and bruised;
you were used like a rag doll and sexually abused.

I am so thankful I met you all, when I was young and
so weak; I have struggled many times to stand on
my own two feet.

Sometimes as an adult, I want to go back to that
place so far away; on the moon where we danced
and we hugged and we played.

Some of us made it and some of us died, some just
couldn’t hold on and some of us barely survived.

So at night now I look as an adult, at the moon up above;
and pray that it’s empty, no dances, just love.

-Chris

A victim impact statement is a written or oral statement made by a crime victim to be read at a sentencing hearing to explain to the court the effects of the crime. The following victim impact statement was written by a survivor during court proceedings of a sexual assault trial in Midcoast Maine. The statement was never read because the man accused was found ?not guilty? by a jury of his peers. The survivor agreed to share her statement in this newsletter in hopes of educating others about the effects of sexual violence. She updated her statement to include her feelings after he was found “not guilty” by a jury.
=============================================================================

I would like to thank you for letting me read this to you.

My life fell apart on that morning. That morning changed my life. My life spun out of control and I stopped caring about living my life.

I had no trust– not only in men but in everyone. I felt so alone and blamed myself for being so stupid. I blamed myself for going and drinking when I knew that I have a seizure disorder and that I am underage. I guess that I trusted him. I trusted him to be a good person.

I have tried to make sense of it and I can’t. I question why someone that I thought I knew could hurt me deeper than I ever thought was possible. I have to ask myself that everyday. I only wish that I could go back and change it. I only wish that he would see what he did was wrong. I don’t know if he has remorse for what he did. I wish I knew, but it still would not change what happened that morning.

I look back on the past year and I don’t know who I became after that night. It was a blur and all I felt was pain inside. I turned into someone that I am ashamed of. I was hiding behind the only thing that would dull the pain and take it away for a little while. Alcohol dulled the pain even if it was just for a while. I felt it was my fault. I thought that it would just go away, but it is there everyday.

I was not going to go on with the trial, but I did. I could not let another girl have this happen to her. After the verdict came back ?not guilty,? I still feel that I would do it again. I have grown stronger since July 27, 2003. I refused to let him win. I also wanted him to know that it is not ok to rape, and he can’t just get off with a slap on the wrist.

I hope that his upcoming trial will do that and show him that it is wrong. He will be shown that rape is wrong and that he can?t get away with it. I feel better now, knowing that I did all that I could to prevent all those girls out there from being his next victims. I hope that it showed him that I will not be silenced by fear.

Thank you.

C.N.

A world so cold,
let her go.
Let her feel
the warmth.

Darkness lifting,
images clear.
I?ve come?
home.

A strong woman,
steps from
the shadows.
A survivor,
set free.

Chris

Penetrating her unclad body.
Forcefully pushing and groping in a web
of hatred. Intoxicated by his psychotic
desires to conquer his prey.

?Do not scream? as she?s quieted by the hand
of authority that mutes her very being.
Intimidating her mind as he molests
her soul.

Impure acts of perversion as he breathes
into the ear of this child.
Stealing her spirit with each thrust
of immorality.

Forbidden secrets linger,
erupting in adulthood.
Traumatizing again to the insanities
of her Father?s afflictions.

-Chris

-Keisha Hallie Woods