Happy-go-lucky 15-year-old Chrissy Harris had everything she could ever want. A charming, cute, funny and athletic high school student swept her off her feet in study hall and he became her boyfriend. Everything was great until three months later.
He began to tell her who she could and couldn’t be friends with, who she was allowed to talk to and what he wanted her to wear. He checked on her in class and checked her phone, breaking it if he saw her texting another guy – or sometimes just other girls.
Harris said she didn’t realize the danger she was in until March 2006, when her boyfriend hit her in the eye with a softball for talking to another guy at a softball game her father umpired for.
“I remember holding my face and crying,” Harris said to a crowd of around 400 people at USI’s annual “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” Tuesday night, a walk to raise awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence. Men and women donned high heels to figuratively “walk a mile in her shoes.”
“I just wish I would have realized then that the sentence ‘I won’t do it again’ was just a lie,” Harris said. “The days grew longer and the abuse got worse. I hid everything. I covered up visible bruises with makeup and long-sleeved shirts. When someone would notice a bruise, I would always have a story to tell.”
She said she would pray every day for the abuse to stop. On Jan. 25, 2007, she was finally free.
“Free from looking over my shoulder. Free from secluding myself. Free from black eyes and blue arms, but most importantly, I was free to become the woman I am today,” Harris said. “I thank God every day for giving me the strength to walk away and stay away from the person I thought loved me. Because I was able to, I am proud to call myself a survivor, not a victim.”
“USI and the Albion Fellows Bacon Center organizes ‘Walk a Mile in Her Shoes’ every year to raise awareness about sexual assault, rape and gender violence,” said Christine Johnston, student wellness assistant program director and one of the organizers for the event.
“Rape, sexual assault and gender violence are very unreported crimes,” Johnston said. “We know that (they affect) a lot of people, and we really want to make students aware of what is going on in their community as well as provide them services if they or their friends need it.”
Several community leaders, including Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff, participated in the walk.
Christina Wicks, the senior support victim specialist for the Albion Bacon Fellows Center, said the purpose of the event is to raise awareness and teach men to be good bystanders.
“If they see a friend or someone else do something bad, they’re going to step in and say, ‘Hey, that’s not right,’” Wicks said. “Unfortunately, the reason we kind of do put the focus on men is because mostly men are perpetrators. They’re the ones that can stop this from happening. Not the victim.”
Wicks said the Albion Bacon Fellow Center offers free counseling for victims of sexual assault or violence.
