This was Discouraging

A young lady I work with had a pretty disheartening experience this week.

She's a very young mother (17) living with her baby daddy. She's employed and going to school. She has very little family support; her own father and mother have their own issues. Her grandmother has health issues.

This young lady was visibly upset one morning and when I asked if she was o.k., the whole story poured out. Her boyfriend has become gradually more physically aggressive with her. He's prevented her from leaving their apartment, threatened to take their child away, and physically hurt her.

Those of us who work with this young lady advised her to seek help from several sources. One thing we suggested was to go to our local Public Housing Authority and find out how to get a place of her own. We told her not to tell her boyfriend about this and keep her plans to herself.

She went to Public Housing and filled out the necessary paperwork and told them that she was in an abusive situation. She left her cell phone number and home number and went to work.

When the agency could not reach her on her cell phone, they called her home phone. The boyfriend answered the phone....can you see where this is going?

Yeah. The individual disclosed the information to the boyfriend.

Do I know the whole story? Of course not. But I can tell you that she's very reluctant to seek help from anyone else now.

She's got my cell and home number with instructions to call me day or night.