Tamara

“B…TCH! SL..T! WHO…E!” These were the words that the man I had been with since I was 15 yelled at me, pretty much on a daily basis, before I moved to Red Door. I’m 34 now and had a hysterectomy in 2007 as I had cancer in my uterus. I had to leave my job as a cook and teacher’s assistant at a daycare as a result of the illness. My boyfriend, and the father of my son, 13, and daughter, 11, wasn’t working either after being laid off. Money was tight. Tensions were high. And the emotional abuse was horrible. He also had a drinking problem, and when he drank he would punch the walls with his fists. He never shouted at our children, just me.

I had tried to leave once before with the children. I got my own apartment in an inner-city neighbourhood. I was broken into twice. The burglar climbed from one balcony to another, before entering my fifth-floor unit and stealing some of my jewellery and a DVD player. A few days later, a man in the building followed my daughter as she went to play at a friend’s place. My daughter managed to escape the man before he could assault her. But he would have. I know that for sure. I had no choice but to return home.

But the abuse continued. The night I left my children’s father for good, he had been drinking a lot. He threw a beer bottle at me and put his fist right through a door. I grabbed the children and went to his mom’s house. We stayed for about six months, but she blamed me for the abuse and eventually said I had to go back or find somewhere else to live. A social worker referred me to Red Door in early 2007.

It’s safe at R