Today while in the pharmacy waiting for a prescription to get filled and sitting next to a woman about 10 years older than I - looking rather cross, I couldn't help but hear her short but curt conversation with her 36 year old son. "I am still here waiting. Well you will have to pick her up! I don't care!!! Just get out of my house and don't come back!"
After a brief moment of silence she began to cry, sob. Not knowing if I would get chewed out or worse I reached over and put my arm around her. She started to just pour out everything. Her son is an alcoholic. He was drunk and couldn't pick up his own daughter - expecting his already very stressed mother to pick up the slack. Her abusive husband, his girlfriend, her hell. Then she said "what do they want me to do? All everyone ever says is 'just leave.' Leave where?!?"
I talked to her for a few more minutes, gave her my card and told her to call me sometime. We have a lot in common.
I've heard those same words, "just leave." In a similar fashion I would say, "well there are some real pearls of wisdom, duh, why didn't I think of that ever so simple and attainable answer before? Oh wait, I did. There is no where to go!" However I hear underneath the Washington Ave bridge has breath taking views this time of year, but to reserve my milk crate now - spaces are going fast.
Of course you follow up the "just leave" scenario advice and say "I have no where to go" and you are lovingly forced to endure hearing someone who has absolutely no clue give you more great advice about going to a shelter that you get thirty days in. Because you never thought of that yourself.
This is when you have to, yet again, relay the fundamentals of homelessness and the staggering statistics against you once you no longer have the stability of a roof over your head. That once your time allotment in a shelter is up, then what? Then where?
Family? - dead or not willing to help
Friends? Half of them are in hard times and caring for their own and if you want them to stay as your friends best not put them in a position to say no.
State Housing? 4 year waiting list or longer in some areas.
What of everything you own? Might as well sell it or just kiss it goodbye. As if losing your mind and soul is not enough, this little extra bit of demoralization is the icing on the cake.
Then there is the help you are supposed to get, which often makes you feel like YOU did something wrong.
Is it any wonder why women don't leave and many choose to live in a miserable silence, in hell? At least you have creature comforts and a place to call home albeit a miserable one. Once you remove yourself from the home you stand a very high probability of hitting the streets if you are unable to provide yourself with enough income to make it on your own. This is more so painfully true with women who also suffer with disabilities and chronic illness and may not even be able to work. They are just sitting ducks.
Now don't get me wrong - there are really good people out there doing incredible work, doing the best they can. But I dare say the ones who are honest about it also know they are fighting an up hill battle. Resources are very scarce and more and more people are trying to access them. They try to take only the most severe cases, but even then many don't make it to help in time and fall victim to their situation. A very sad reality that any social worker worth their salt is painfully aware of.
The women who stay and live in these often horrendous domestic situations are the ultimate survivalists. They don't stay havenot thought about leaving, they stay because they HAVE thought about leaving, long and hard.
They have carefully weighed the pro's and con's and understand clearly what they are up against. They say it takes an average of seven attempts for a woman to leave an abusive relationship. That does not sound like a person who has given up and is not trying. One must ask why they fail with so many attempts?
Because that hell is preferable to the very dangerous one on the streets. And because when they do try there is not enough assistance out there aimed at specifically making sure they do not have to return to that situation or end up homeless.
So if you ever find yourself sitting with someone confessing to you that they are living in an abusive relationship. Please, please... Don't tell her to "just leave" as it's the most demoralizing and thoughtless thing an alleged friend can say. You may not have realized that at the time, and it seemed like the most reasonable thing to say, but hopefully after reading this you understand it's not reasonable and understand just a little....
And a little is all we need.
P.S. If you are going to tell her to "just leave", make sure it's because you are offering her a safe place to live and escape to. Escape and exit plans are a whole other topic for another day.
Namaste,
Raven Muse
