Escaping Danger

It’s not very often that one hears the whole story of how an individual ends up on Social Assistance. I do admit that it takes a lot of courage to share such a story. Especially dealing with any form of abuse; whether it is verbal, physical, sexual, or any other kind of abuse that can be named. To be honest, I have struggled to tell my story because the amount of verbal abuse I have encountered in my life. The situation that I was in had escalated to the point that I was literally fearing the verbal threats coming true by means of physical abuse. For a good part of my adulthood I have been dealing with anxiety/depression, being a single female with no kids, not knowing the resources available at the time in order to better handle the anxiety/depression and finding a safer environment that would not push me to the brink of suicide. I was struggling greatly with the medication, keeping a stable job, and the fear of returning to my parent’s place in which my younger brother and I still resided at the time- a little over 3 years now. Yes, my brother was the source of the abuse, which was verbal, and caused me to fear for my safety due to the threats he was uttering at the time. I tried everything in my power to reason with my parents that this was occurring at the time, but they told me practically every line in the book of how I am the oldest, I should know better and handle it. But the problem was I didn’t know how to handle it, other than to commit suicide. Thankfully I was taking a program during the midst of all of it, and gratefully, the co-ordinators of the program helped me get into subsidized housing and aided with the transportation of its humble furnishings. Though the Social Assistance monthly payments are hardly enough to eat properly, there are people such as myself that use it for a hand-up rather than a hand-out to get out of threatening environments.