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Clackamas Print
Wednesdáy, April 22, 2009
SURVIVORS: students pave futur
Continued from SURVIVORS, Page 1
“We’ve done them in the
past and students don’t regularly
come,” Wolfson commented on
the lack of support groups. “A few
students get interested in and then
there’s nobody else to keep the
group going so we don’t do that.”
Wolfson noted that the counsel
ors do offer one-on-one sessions
for students who want counseling.
Pennell felt differently. “The
counseling, in general, is almost
kind of a joke the way the system
is. It’s the system, not the people
in the system, it’s the system,” he
noted. “They don’t seem to use
empathy.”
•
•
After two terms of difference
and miscommunication, Wolfson
is interested in helping Link’s
dream bloom into a reality.
“This is not a club,” Link firm
ly stated. “This is a support group
that Ellen (Wolfson) is going to be
involved with.”
Now Link is faced with a brand
new wave of challenges: getting
the word out about their first meet
ing, which will be held on the
April 28 from noon to 1 p.m. in
CC127, and getting the students
to come in.
“I don’t want anyone to be
ashamed or afraid or in anyway
inhibited from coming to this
meeting,” Link stressed. “If they
don’t want to be acknowledged
outside of the meeting, I won’t
acknowledge them.
The first meeting is about find
ing out what the community of
CCC wants from this support
group. Such things like what days
and times would work best and
what format should be used.
“Groups are run lots of different
ways,” Wolfson stated. “Groups
run like an AA group where it’s
everyone who has a commonal
ity and they’re just checking in
and then sharing with each other.
Some groups are run where they
want speakers and they want to
read a book together, they want
to assess each other’s situations.
It just depends on how this group
wants to form.”
“This is just an initial... ‘Hey
what do you want from this?’
meeting,” Link said.
“I think it would help,” student
Sarah Cook said. “I think that
even having one person there for
you saying, ‘I know how you
feel.’ That’s someone you can talk
to. Someone who is right there,
looking you in the eyes and say
ing, ‘Talk to me please because
I need help too.’ That’s what it’s
about.”
But, like all good things
there are complications. One of
the problems Wolfson and Link
are facing is whether this sexual
assault support group should be
co-ed.
“The biggest concern ... men
and women?” Link asked. “Are
we okay with the one universal
understanding group?”
“There are groups that are
formed where women feel like
they just want to have women who
have had similar experiences be
there and discuss the issues around
what happened and where the bar
riers are in their life and feel like
having men in the group might be
intimidating or they might feel too
vulnerable,” Wolfson stated. “If
it ends up being mixed we may
never know who would’ve joined
it if it isn’t.”
“That’s one question we want
answered by the community,”
Link said.
“Anyone is welcome, in my
opinion,” Link said. “I; will not
turn away anyone who says ‘this
has affected me and I need help.’
I’m not going to say, ‘Well it
didn’t happen to you.’”
“Everyone gets a chance,” Cook
stated. This means even if you’re
a family member or a friend of
someone who has been assaulted,
they can attend the meetings.
“And don’t believe men can’t be
raped too,” Pennell said. “Men can
be raped just as well as women.”
“You could be a big giant,”
he continued. “(A) muscle-bound
wrestler who knows all the escape
techniques and (rapists will) find
whatever personal thing is wrong
with you and they’ll use it to make
you feel vulnerable, io make you
feel scared and make you feel
like you can’t get out of it. Like
it’s inevitable and once your body
gives, once your mind gives up on
your body, it’s a free for all.”
Nick Kornafel Clachu
Sarah Cook (left) and Elizabeth “Libby” Link (right), both students who are concerned ah
the lack of a sexual assault support group on campus, meet in the community center.
“The longer you don’t deal with
it, the worse it is when you do, and
the more damage you could do to
yourself,” Pennell warned.
“It hurt the entire family,” Cook
said when recalling the time her
sister-like cousin was raped when
she was 15. She explained how her
cousin became heavily addicted to
drugs and would steal from other
family members.
“It was the worst thing,0 Cook
explained, “and I kept saying,
‘Please,’ you know, ‘I want to
spend time with you. I wanna be
your family, but you can’t be on
drugs and be around me because
it’s just not you.’”
Her cousin ended up staying
two-and-a-half years at a women’s
correctional facility in Wilsonville
to deal with her addiction. She’s
married now and has a family of
her own, but it’s still hard for her
to have intimate relations with her
husband.
“And, all because of one night,
10 minutes of her life,” Cook
stated. “So, even once can break
apart an entire family not just
one person. Everyone who loves
them.”
“I’m the go to guy, the therapist
of the group, so I hear everyone’s
everything,” Pennell said.
Because of the role he has in
his group, he is used to answer
ing late night phone calls from his
friends; he relates one of the most
jarring stories he remembers from
five years ago.
“She was scared out of her
mind,” he remembered her saying.
“‘What am I doing? I can’t stop.
It hurts.’”
He was only 18 at the time and
did the only thing he could think
about doing - a three-way call to
911. He apologized to them for
not knowing where she was and
relayed to them what his friend
had told him.
“The operator basically kinda
took over,” he recalled. “I was
there for moral support, especially
when she started going, ‘I don’t
want to talk to you; I want to talk
to Mitch. I don’t want to talk to
you; I want to talk to Mitch.’”
Between him and the.911 oper
ator they got his friend to calm
down, file a report and get her to
the hospital. Since then, Pennell
has acted as the go-to guy/thera-
pist of his group of friends.
think my mom could handle!
“That was absolutely ha
she continued. “I remem«
in great detail. I didn’t real]
was wrong because I was]
taught you can be naked inn
other women. I was only]
about the men when grown
“Third time I was raped]
in my early 20s and it wa
roommate,” Link stated.]
did that for revenge. TM
really bad. (The rapist) was!
roommate, but his fiance]
gested it, she was the masta
And unfortunately, the fem]
former CCC student. That’s
met her.”
But, Link is not formi]
group to feel good about ha
“I’m doing this because!
there are other people wb]
been through what I’ve
through and I know howl
hurt,” she explained. "The]
to be feeling it too; cryi
same tears, having the same
mares, living with the samj
den I live with.”
“It’s all painful, it’s all ha
Elizabeth “Libby” Link
and none of it should haw
Student
pened to any of us,” Link]
ted, “but we all need each]
because there’s victims and]
survivors. I’m a survivor. Il
“Second time I was raped, I was • like to help the victims ■
eight, and it was by a woman,” she survivors, ‘cause I know th]
recalled. “I went to my mom and all can be. They just don't]
said I didn’t like her games, ‘cause how to be.”
It is Link’s dream to bii
she called them games. My moth
er told me ‘Play her games any support group, have it bee]
way, she’s a guest in this house.’ permanent resource for hi
And, I still to this day can’t bring it low students, as well as I
to myself to tell my mom what her students who have not yeti
games really were, ‘cause I don’t at CCC.
“The first time I was raped I
was three, four at the oldest,” Link
began. “I didn’t know what was
going on. I didn’t know what it
was. I didn’t know what sex was.
I didn’t know what he was doing.
All I know is now I can’t handle
facial hair. If my boyfriend kisses
me and his facial hair is too long,
I freak and that’s not fair. He’s
really understanding but I don’t
like that.”
“/ don’t want
anyone to be
ashamed or
afraid or in
anyway inhib
ited from com
ing to this
meeting.”
X
Sexual Assualt
Support Group
First meeting
April 28
Noon - 1 p.m.
CC127