--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog" <raunchydog@> wrote: > <snip> > > I comfort my mother and pray for my brother. Violence > > against women isn't so far away. It's in our homes, quietly > > hidden in families too afraid or ashamed to tell anyone > > about it. I'm talking and it's damn painful. I don't have > > the any answers for my niece, but I do have a responsibility > > to speak on her behalf and tell her story, here and now just > > to see if I'm alone in the echo chamber or resonating with > > someone out there I don't know. > > Raunchy, your niece's story makes my heart hurt. I hope > she'll be getting psycholgical counseling as well as > medical treatment to help her get past this awful trauma > and get on with her life. >
Thanks, Judy. She's living with a girlfriend. Her two youngest kids are with her. She's on antidepressants. Psychological counseling is an unbelievably remote possibility considering her circumstances. She's unemployed and on foodstamps. My mother, brother and I send her some money to get by, but that's about it. She has a case worker through social services, but I don't know how much good that will do. As shocking as this may sound, her previous caseworker tried to force her to give him a blow job. She filed a police report. Since it was just he-said she-said, they didn't do anything about it. He still has his job. That gives you an idea of how impoverished social services have become in Michigan. We don't know if the boyfriend is still in jail. I hope he stays in there long enough that she doesn't feel tempted to go back to him. As crazy as that sounds, it happens all the time. Abused women have so few resources, they become dependent on the abuser.
