Blog and photo
 by:
 Katherine Lily Mae HarrisÂ
I joke and say that I came out of the womb in stilettos, singing & dancing.
By the age of 2, I was taking ballet and tap classes.
By the age of 8 I was really into dancing. Later adding jazz and then hip hop with classes in river dance and going onto pointe for ballet. I was able to attend a workshop that I loved by the age of 12 and was an ‘assistant’ dance teacher at 11. I LOVED to dance.
I was taken out of dance at 12 and then returned at 14 to be taken out again. It is not cheap to dance.
At school we had a cheerleading squad I became a part of.
It wasn’t dancing but it was fun.
I was a flyer initially; however by second year I didn’t want to be seen like that. So I became a base instead.
Through experiencing trauma in youth-from what I wrote about last week, to physical abuse ongoing, being harmed sexually at the rollerskating rink; I LOVED winning the limbo contests and loved rollerblading, not after that though-I could hardly even skate after that, it was so traumatizing.
Trauma after trauma. Telling no one. Autism. Select mutism. Delayed processing. Easy target.
By 14 I was going dancing at a club called Champions in Waterville. It was really fun initially and could have stayed that way.
We would go, at 14 I got in without ID (it was an 18 plus club) I loved to dance and so did the girls I went with. They were mostly of age. 18. I had danced with them when I was 11 too at the dance place I took classes.
Initially we would dress up, dance and after go to eat. I usually got cheesecake. It was fun. We still went to school.
However in between these innocent outings, were me being drugged and passed around in back rooms or cars. We rarely drank when we were at the club, just after-if we went somewhere else and after so many years of silence-my speaking up stems from wanting people to stop human trafficking before it starts.
The fault is mostly on the people drugging and raping. It’s important for people handing you a drink (I’ve been drugged in a water before!) to be honorable. If the druggers didn’t exist-no harm would have come from any of these evenings.
I didn’t even know & understand what trafficking was then, and I didn’t know what drugs they used to do so. I had limited memory of what occurred. They knew what they were doing. Some of the girls I went with did too. They can explain which ones. No harm will come to them. The truth will only help prevent this happening to young girls today. It’s already been over two decades since it happened to me. Imagine how many more it has and worse, imagine how many have been disappeared and killed in the process, as was the intention of this time period, to silence me for good.
Balancing the good with the bad.
Through handling my trauma, it didn’t always look pretty. I definitely changed.
Being autistic and select mutism absolutely contributes to more damage being done.
By 16 I didn’t go to that club anymore.
Years back In middle school, I loved our little prom/formal events.
I sang at one, to Celine Dion, with friends. We danced. We laughed. We went home.
At 14 my first ‘prom’ style formal ended with me calling my mom for a ride, not my date bringing me home.
Then I was going out clubbing. My parents allowed it. It wasn’t an issue. Again-it is the people drugging and raping young women that is the issue. 100%
Sophomore year I went to prom with a woman. I wore a dress that was hers. Wore face makeup too light for my skin tone and had hair giant, because I have a lot of hair.
After prom I got drugged and fell asleep in a chair, only to be woken up to men passing me around. I think they put me in the sea after. I woke up in the arms of a stranger on a couch.
The year of being 16-I had been moving in and out of my parents for years. At 16 I stopped working at the salon that I worked at for 2 years and I began waitressing. At the 24/7 restaurant in Rockport-now closed: I used to work overnights. One of the waiters and the managers son, drugged me and passed me around one night and as I shared previously-I was offered a promotion by a different manager and driven to a port nearby, in Bath, where they drugged me, covered my head with a bag and gang raped me.
I did not handle this well.
I would take the bus to Boston to see my friend in College. Her and I went to bars regularly and danced. I was VIP at a local club. I felt safe there. I loved that.
I stayed with her family, leaving because of a strange incident that made me not comfortable enough to speak to them about. They are wonderful people.
I then moved to Rockland. That year I went to prom with a woman and thankfully after two seconds there, she said ‘do you even want to be here’ and despite loving my dress and loving to dance. I did not want to stay. We left.
I got kicked off the cheering squad because a friend told my coach I was getting drunk and dancing. Really she wanted eyes on someone other than her for being involved in trafficking me. She can tell the truth about that. I’m speaking up to help people, not stir up the past or shame anyone.
Later, My roommate had a party and she went to jail for it, while I was at work. Her dad, a police man, blamed it on me and I had a warrant out for my arrest. I found out attempting to join the navy because I had to drop out of highschool, because of this & because I didn’t have a license-even though I drove in rural Maine, to keep a job, live out of sometimes, and before dropping out, to go to school.
My mother did not want to sign for me to get my license because I didn’t live under her roof.
I lived all kinds of places. Moving my belongings in trash bags and going through hell. I also had some good moments.
I got my GED May 2005.
I was Defintiely a lost and traumatized young woman. Always taking it a day at a time, doing my best to survive:
I didn’t realize I had ptsd or was traumatized from my experiences. I stayed friends with the girls I went dancing with.
Eventually we worked together and went dancing when I was older. THIS time was different though. I drove.
I drove there. We danced. We had pizza. We went home.
When nobody was drugging and raping, it was a lot more fun.
At 19 I went to a hippie fest. Initially it was supposed to be with my boyfriend. When we were first together he was in jail. We wrote letters. Somewhere between then and the concert, us dating on and off, he decided to bring his other and new girlfriend. So I went alone. Upstate New York.
I didn’t want to be anywhere near him or his friends.
I met someone else. We spoke on the phone for a few months. My parents invited me on vacation. They did that sometimes and I appreciated it. Usually it was nice for us to spend time together: I don’t think they ever realized how much I experienced in that time period. We also never communicated about how to fix the harm done in the past.  I flew from vacation to see this man. To Buffalo New York.
What a nightmare.
He spent what little money I had and he did not have a plane ticket home for me, as discussed. He was a gambling nightmare.
I called a friend for help. Good thing: just another time being almost trafficked- for the last time. You see, all these people are connected by the same drug. A drug I have very little experience with, though I’ve tried. One that many people are tormented by the white people here, who deal and use it. Or cover for their spouses and kids. Cocaine.
I like coffee, I love chocolate, cocaine and I thought, well it wasn’t my thing. I had some asking how I controlled myself-the same way I did with everything else.
I have always thought the issue was not drugs or dealing, because I never became an addict of anything I tried.
I always said the issue was  human trafficking-but if the dealers aren’t honorable, then they cause trafficking of humans to be out of control.
What a mess they have here. When I finally spoke up-the same women whose cop husbands or family’s cover for them,  willingly let me tormented and almost trafficked again-all so they can keep a ‘good face.’
I’m tired of being tormented for people like this.
Later that same year, 2005 I worked at a strip club. Five months of my life.
When expected to say yes to an ‘outcall’ I said no. Strippers are NOT hookers-as I said before.
This upset pimps.
At the same time period my ex and some others were triangulating with dangerous people and caused me to be in even more danger than I was, already.
A woman who survived so much is better dead in their eyes.
I quit the club.
My friend I was an exotic dancer  with,  died in an alleged car accident only a few weeks later. I wished I had died with her, or been in the car to prevent it.  None of the details sat well with me.
19 years ago right now, she was in a coma.
I loved her so much.
I was going to leave my boyfriend to move in with her.
We were companions. I adored her and we spoke of being friends forever.
When she died-she was taken off life support Memorial Day that year, 2006. I was a different person. Broken hearted. We had so much in common. Dancing. Singing. Painting. Nature lovers. Kindred spirits.
After her death, it was hard to let new people in my life. I married the man I was going to leave.
It happened fast.
We stayed married two years. He wasn’t a good husband. I’m sure he wouldn’t want a man like he was to me, with his daughter.
I stopped staying friends with the friend I had stayed friends with for 10 years, no matter what she did. I loved her too. Like a sister.
I ended up with a dog, a good life and staying alone. Through all this I kept a job or jobs and worked a lot!
The next woman to befriend me did so with bad intentions.
Now I’ve learned, alone is best.
Me being crippled was the silencing and disappearing I was supposed to finally experience.
The same group of people have tormented me a lifetime.
This group of people in the midcoast area, with only one intention.
Torment me, humiliate me; they raped me more-they lied about me, framed me, shamed me, blamed me, exploited me and attempted to Use me as a scapegoat.
Finally  Disappear me to another country and everyone believed the lies…..so done deal for them.
It was almost successful.
I lived.
I got away from my ex after abuse.
I survived medical torture.
I saw the reverse of the human trafficking circuit they use.
Here in Maine. The airports in New York, LA, then to or from Canada  & South America. Or reverse.
South America where 11million people were in the city I ended up, after being on a sidewalk homeless, seeking medical refuge for a spinal cord injury, caused by my ex, covered up by this circuit. Including women that married cops to get away with it.
I was offered a cleaning job in South America, As a crippled and oppressed woman-it could have been perfect. However there was that hidden network taking place. The plan to disappear me. Not everyone working there was part of it. It is subtle too. It took someone who had been tormented to notice.
The man running it looked to be white. He said ‘English, tea for two’ as he passed me outside making eye contact.
It is a network. It’s dangerous and I faced it all alone.
They are clever. They pay people into silence. Most take the payout.
Now I’m speaking up.
They were trying to make it seem like I imagined my travels.
Can you believe that?! Like I never left, never worked and was just crazy. Like I never studied overseas.
That’s the way these people are. That’s how horrible.
Because you can dance if you want to-
But hopefully you can do so without someone drugging you. Raping you. Trafficking you. Tormenting you. Oppressing you and silencing you.
The people who do that-are the ones who are the issue.
Happy Memorial Day.
To all those we have loved and lost.
May every one of us, fight for what’s right, not what’s easy.
I know when people take the payout, you tell yourselves it’s ok.
If I was like you, though, none of you would be alive. None of you.
Honor and integrity,
Let’s try it again. Collectively.
Free the World. It’s easy. Just want for everyone what you want for yourself.
Photo taken with timer camera, by me-On top of ragged mountain. Pre spinal cord injury.