Refuges are there to help.

Women's Aid

I have found a tiny flat to rent and will be leaving the refuge a week on Monday. It has been a very tough, frightening, frustrating, depressing, hilarious, enabling and enlightening nine months.
When I came to the 'Refuge' My heart ached and still aches for my home and the life I left behind and my loneliness is still profound. It was a world that I would never have thought I would ever have first-hand experience of, at first, for me to be there, was totally incomprehensible.

However, I now know it has possibly saved my life and it has definitely given me courage. I now believe that I can probably deal with most things that life can throw in my path. .

As I leave this strange environment, I am truly sad to go.

Some of the women I will miss, but mostly I will miss my key-worker who has been a tower of strength to me. She alone understands the traumatised mind of the woman fleeing from a man who has stripped her of her self-esteem, robbed her of her pride, her home and of her possessions. She will stand beside you shoulder to shoulder and get every single thing you are entitled to. She will give you tissues when you cry, make phone-calls on your behalf when you are too shaken to lift up the phone. She will write letters for you. She will fill in forms. She will come with you to the doctors, the solicitors, the police, the counsellor and the court. She will help you find a place to live that is safe and she will talk to your new land-lord on your behalf. She will fight every single corner for you.

Then one day you will emerge from the refuge a stronger, braver, woman, your pride in tact, your abilities reinforced and with your head held high you will say to the world. Bring it on!

Goodbye dear A, and thank you. xx