In The Community

The Stories Make All the Difference

Everytime one or several of us at Up With Women go into a shelter to talk about survival and coming out of homelessness, I am reminded of one of the key things that makes this work fundamentally important and effective: Our stories. Stories inform us of the realities of life, they provide tools and examples on how to live the life that we want to live, and they remind us that we're not alone.

I was in one shelter where I sat and spoke with probably 20 women and their children. I wanted to make this interactive, so that we could all share, so I just gave a quick introduction about myself and then asked if anyone wanted to share a bit of who they are.

Dead silence.

So I started telling them our stories. I talked about the suffering and the trauma, describing Patti Catalano Dillon speeding through the streets of Boston, trying to escape her abusive husband who wouldn't let her leave him. I talked about how she never slept a full night in the two months she lived in her car; she was terrified. I talked about Krissy, my sheltermate, who ran away from home at 14 because she was being molested by her father, and how she ran away from one trauma, only to walk into another.

Silence.

I talked about success, sharing how Cheri DiNovo, a successful politician, can stand by the windows of the legislature and look out to the park she once slept in. I told the story of Rose Handy starting up her own business while she was still living in the shelter.

Still, silence.

It was only after I was there for over an hour and had told probably 10 stories of women going from personal challenge to personal success that the women finally spoke up. And the floodgates opened. Over the next hour the women shared their stories. Many were deep in the process of working out what had happened to them. There were lots of tears.

They told me stories that would break your heart. They needed to hear, from one more person, that it wasn't their fault. They needed to hear, from someone who "got out and made it", that there is an end to the suffering, that they can live the life that they want to live, and that their children will be ok, despite what they've witnessed. They just needed a little hope.

Bit by bit, the stories opened the women up. Some had never spoken before, since entering the shelter; they were still in shock and frightened. Eventually, one story, or maybe the collection of stories, resonated with them, and made them feel like they weren't alone; eventually, they started to see that it was possible to rebuild.