IMMEDIATE IMPACT: HANGING NORTH HAVEN

Missy Fairfield, my advocate from Next Step and good buddy, helped me hang the show on North Haven yesterday. 

A woman who was in the community center venue and lives on North Haven came up to me while we were hanging the show and said “me too”.

On the ferry ride over a man who loads the cars, on finding out why we were going to the island, told

me about his granddaughter who just got a protection from abuse order against her boyfriend— they are both students from the Massachusetts Marine Academy and he tried to strangle her many times.

Then on the taxi ride from the VH boat crossover from NH, the driver told us about her abusive first husband.

A woman who lives on North Haven as we were hanging the show came up to me and whispered "Me too."

The lady who gave us and our bikes and heavy bags a lift from the thoroughfare-landing on Vinalhaven into town spent the 15 minute car ride telling us about her struggles with her abusive first husband.

At breakfast, a dear woman who I know from previous visits to the island revealed that the man her mother married after their father died (the mother said "who else would want a woman with so many kids") for more than a decade, regularly beat the mother up and sexually molested the daughters.

Lordy lord.

Every time I take this project around, and am privy to these heartbreaking confessions, I know that we 21 survivor/participants in Finding Our Voices, as hard as it is to stand up and speak out because of conditioning by the abusers and society to feel embarrassment and shame, are giving out the crucial message to other women that they are not alone.