Women Shining Magazine Women Shining Spring 2018 | Page 21

I applied and they were silly enough to hire me (chuckling)I - I walked in the door and sat down and felt like I was home. I have had zero regrets. Interviewer: You mentioned something that grabbed my attention - you stated that helping the women ‘rewrite their story’ can you explain a little more about that? Charlene: You know, sexual violence is one of those things that I think in our culture we kind of give people (I am going to speak sociologically) this idea of a master status. For example, once a victim always a victim, or once a survivor always a survivor. Once broken always broken. We see people walk in the doors, we get those phone calls through SART. It is trauma. It is hard not to become that. What we see here and the role we play I think is just giving people a glimpse of how they can reshape and rewrite their story. We do not do the hard work - they do. Sometimes women come to the door numerous times before they walk through the door. Heads down, usually pretty ashamed to be here. Over time you see them walking with confidence, like it is ok that they are here. They walk in with their shoulders higher - things start to change for them. You can see when they leave they have gone from that of victim to that of survivor. They get to define what survivor means. For some that means - that is part of my past. For others, survivor means that happened to me and you are damn right I am a survivor and I am going to be an advocate - or I am going to use my own voice. We really do see people rewrite their story and how they view themselves within that trauma. To me that is the reason we are here. That is the reason I am here. If you ask the counselors they will tell you that is the reason they are here. We have counselors who have been here 20+ years. 19