Recovery Stories - Karen Evans
Feed my Sheep
by Karen Evans
"Feed my Sheep ." The voice spoke to Karen in
a direct and compelling manner. She was used to paying attention
to voices. She had heard her first voice at the age of seventeen.
That voice had commanded her to cover her body with lighter
fluid and put a match to it. The scars that cover her body from
that incident are minor compared to the scars she carries inside.
Karen Evans has been labeled with schizophrenia, thought doesn’t
agree with the use of labeling. While she believes that some
of her mental health issues may be inherited, she has no doubt
that her environment is equally responsible. By the time she
graduated from high school, she had attended 27 different schools.
Her father was in the army, and often gone for long periods
of time. Her mother, sick with depression over a younger child
she had felt forced to put up for adoption, could no longer
care for Karen or her twin sister. There was never any bonding,
and often, there was desertion and abandonment. Karen spent
her youth shuffling between relatives’ homes, foster homes
and orphanages. The abuse, physical, sexual, and mental, that
each new placement brought, never ended. In her late teens,
when the voices began, she was placed in a number of state mental
institutions.
"The horrors that then accompanied placement in state
mental institutions were real. Patients were beaten, molested,
and never told what had happened to the people who often
just disappeared overnight. I was terrified of these places,
and took to escaping whenever I had a chance."
Karen’s last escape was from the Maine Insane Hospital
(today’s Augusta Mental Health Institute). She took the
only job she thought she could do without getting caught, and
entered the world’s oldest profession. Falling in love
with one of her customers led to a marriage with a man who constantly
beat her. Fortunately, her love for her three children fathered
by this man kept her from killing herself. One day, she simply
picked them up, and deposited her family on a bench in Lincoln
Park in Portland, not far from City Hall, hoping someone would
heed her cries for help.
This final act of desperation became the catalyst for change.
First, the women’s crisis center that took her in offered
her a position helping other women in situations like hers.
There, she was encouraged to go back to school and obtain a
degree. A chance encounter with a local church led to a growing
connection with a spiritual side of herself that had never been
nurtured. For the first time, Karen began to hear voices that
were not destructive.
When the voice that kept saying "Feed my Sheep" would
give her no rest, Karen opened the Wayside Evening Soup Kitchen
in Portland. Serving the city’s homeless and poor put
Karen in touch with other unmet needs of these forgotten citizens.
In 1987 she established "Tent City" in front of
city Hall, and camped out for three weeks with other homeless
people. As a result, officials finally realized the need to
establish a shelter system in Portland.
Today, Karen is considered one of the most respected advocates
for the needs of those with mental health issues and the poor
in our state. She continues to receive services and support
for her own illness, and has gone from being a client to a Peer
Specialist for Catholic Charities Maine Support & Recovery
Services. Her work involves speaking in the community, developing
services, and working with mental health clients to fully integrate
them into the community. She sits on the Quality Improvement
Council of AMHI, a place she had escaped from years before.
Most recently, she has become involved with the Maine Cemetery
Project, a way to honor the lives of those who died and were
buried nameless at Maine’s mental institution.
"I am passionate about issues I have experienced – abuse,
poverty, hunger, mental illness and homelessness. I know that
if I work for change, others won’t have to live the life
I did. Most importantly, I know the power of forgiveness. By
forgiving, I have been able to become my brother’s
keeper."
