Women in recovery find creativity and healing in a Charlotte author’s class

Dove’s Nest resident Sabrina Jones wrote “live by faith not by fear” in response to her teacher’s writing prompt. Dove’s Nest is part of Charlotte Rescue Mission, a nonprofit organization for addiction recovery.

The teacher, Charlotte author Cathy Pickens, asked her class to write a six-word poem. Jones doubted she could tell a story in such few words but surprised herself with the results.

The class, “Cathy Create,” was added to the curriculum two years ago. Despite COVID-19, some 30 to 50 women attend Pickens’ weekly online class. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the class met on the Dove’s Nest campus in West Charlotte.

Jones is from Aurora in Beaufort County. She arrived at Dove’s Nest in late October — it was her second admission in 2020 for drug addiction. “Cathy Create” gave her an opportunity to explore and be imaginative in ways she hadn’t considered.

“I think it gives me a different perspective on how to do things,” said Jones, 40. “It helps me tune into my creative side.”

Jones took a week to write “Am I a Woman?” She included these phrases in her poem: “Is it the click of my heels or the way my heart feels that makes me a woman” and “Is it my self-esteem or that I dare to dream.” She read the poem aloud to her fellow residents. Although she was nervous at first, she said she left more confident.

“I think it’s very important to each and every woman to be able to identify confidence and self-esteem,” she said. “Being able to express myself openly and honestly without feeling any type of judgment, I think that’s very important in recovery.”

Finding their superpowers

Pickens is the author of the “Southern Fried” series, “Create!: Developing Your Creative Process” and three historic true crime books. She also teaches “CREATE!” classes at Charlotte Center for Literary Arts.

Many know her as Cathy Anderson, the retired professor in the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte and as a trial attorney from upstate South Carolina. She uses the last name Pickens for her creative endeavors.

Pickens often uses George Ella Lyon’s list poem ‘”here I’m From.” as a writing prompt. For some Dove’s Nest residents, it’s a reminder of when they wrote when they were younger. Many become nostalgic and write about happy times.

“These ladies, as they call themselves, have lived creative lives out of necessity. But they don’t always recognize what I call their superpowers,” said Pickens, 63. “They write of their hometowns in vivid, concrete detail: fried croaker or dancing among the fireflies. When they open themselves up and just play with something, they prove themselves crazy creative.”

The sessions aren’t rigidly planned. New residents join current ones in the class.

Pickens reads poems, gives prompts for writing poetry and stories, and provides opportunities for hands-on activities. She leads them through an activity with tin foil: Make whatever comes to mind. They’ve crafted crowns and scepters, houses with dogs and kids, a tree with a swing, a woman with a dress and a big hat and flowers galore, Pickens said.

“They look into the past and the future,” Pickens said. “Very few of them had taken time to engage in anything they considered creative before, certainly not writing poetry or drawing pictures.”

‘Healing in a different way’

Barbara Thomas has been the program director of Dove’s Nest since late 2018. The four- to six-month residential program provides free addiction support, treatment and recovery programs for women, and women with their children. About 85% to 90% of the residents come from the Carolinas, and the rest are from neighboring states.

Women at Dove’s Nest attend Christian and faith-based programs and educational classes.

They follow a 12-step program and receive treatment from certified clinicians. It opened with a 12-bed facility in 1992, and the program moved to its current location with 120 beds in 2011. Rebound is the men’s addiction recovery program connected to Charlotte Rescue Mission, founded in 1938.

Pre-COVID-19, about 95 to 100 women plus their children were in residence. During COVID-19, the number has been reduced to 75 to accommodate quarantine rooms.

Thomas noticed how the women in the recovery program coped with low self-esteem, felt invisible and lacked the ability to express themselves. She believed a class that focused on creativity would help the residents develop skills to aid in their recovery.

Two years ago, Thomas invited Pickens to teach a creative class on a volunteer basis to residents. They’d met through a mutual friend who had taken Pickens’ creativity class through Queens’ MBA program.

“There are multiple benefits (to ‘Cathy Create’)” Thomas said. “Writing, storytelling, using the prompts that Cathy suggests for them connects them to their deeper selves and connects them to their experiences in a new way that allows them to reflect on it. I think they begin to see themselves as women who have something to offer, something to say.”

Interaction outside the class has had unintended and positive outcomes, Thomas said.

“Our residents have shared the poetry that they write, the stories that they write with each other as a way of saying, ‘Here’s who I am or here’s where I want to be,’ ” she said. “That creates community and healing in a different way. It’s a highly impactful program all the way around.”

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This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 3:07 PM.