The first days in a women's shelter with my 2 oldest kids, fled for their violent dad

When I left to the women's shelter, I was convinced I did the right thing. Everybody I knew gave me that advice, and how scary it may was to leave your home with 2 kids and only a few bags of cloths in a rush, I thought everything will be just fine. It was so scary to leave because I was packing without even thinking, that was how scared and stressed I was at that time. Between the actual phonecall that there was an emergency bed for the 3 of us and the pick up at home was only 1,5 hours or so. 

I had to get my daughter home before we left to the women's shelter

My oldest was sleeping at her grandparents for 2 days already. They knew things went wrong between me and their son. I was there the day before, and let them listen to the recording I made where he told his whole game plan about taking away my kids and getting me hospitalized if I wouldn't leave that night. He allready had the kids because he had connections, etc. I thought I would find some comfort there, but I was wrong. They were very calm about it, while the recordings were really shocking. They told me that our daughter could stay there another night so she would have no stress around her, as she was a few years older than our baby son. So I agreed to this, for her sake, because I didn't know how their dad would come home that night. I was really scared all day for him to come home. But at least this way I only had to protect our son from his violence. 

That night went terribly wrong

I don't know if they told him about the recordings, or it was his plan anyway, but that night he got violent again. I decided to call the police (you can read in my other post how the officer treated me like I was the bad guy) and they were no help at all. That morning just shortly before he left to work, he ended with giving me a head-butt and screaming that I was crazy and he didn't do that (because he thought I was recording it again, what wasn't the case actually). After this I was in a state of panic, and seeked comfort online with people I knew, and friends. They all said the same thing: get the hell out of there, make some calls, there are shelters for people in this situation. They will help you.. So I did.. When I got the green light about that they could place me somewhere I had little time to pack, and my biggest issue was my daughter, to get her home without her dad finding out.

The rush packing and getting my daughter back to me on time

Because she was at her grandparents house, I had to get my precious girl home withing the next 1,5 hours and I had to make sure her grandparents did not know what I was going to do. Normally they did not rush a lot, and I know my daughter would stretch time while she was playing, to get back home. She loved it there. But suprisingly this time the bell rang only 20 minutes after my phonecall, I looked at his mother and she asked me if I was ok. I told her I wanted to sleep at a friends house due to the fightings and I wanted them both with me. Normally she would be slow to leave, but this time it seemed like she felt what was happening.

I didn't want to be honest to her, afraid that she would call her son, and he would stop me from leaving with the kids. I heard horrible stories from people who could not take their child, because the other parent stopped them. And the police would not do anything about it, because they both had custody of the kids. 

She gave the kids a kiss, and hugged me like she always did. She kissed me on the cheek and for one moment I had the feeling she knew my plans. She looked me in the eyes, and said: "take care". It seemed like her instinct knew that her son was violent and she did not approve, but she was too scared to be honest and to pick my and the children's side. (Later I learned how she did everything her son told her to do and she was scared of him too).

I was packing like an insane person on the run for the police or something. At least that's how I felt. And I needed to be as calm as possible for the kids, but it was hard. I had about 3 bags with stuff, including all the diapers in the house and all the stuff to take care of the kids, and every piece of cloths I could find that seemed usefull to take. I decided to take the older buggy that was a bit smaller, and easier to carry and this one also was easier putting in a car. I forgot to take my laptop, that was bought on my company's name, and I also forgot a whole lot of other stuff that I never saw back.

When the lady arrived from social work, I was glad we could get everything in the car, and we were throwing stuff in the car as fast as we could. Luckily, because later I found out that he had arrived home only 10 minutes after we left. Normally he would not be home for hours! So maybe his mother did tell him, who knows. 

When we arrived at the shelter, I had to do an intake, but first I could put the kids to bed

My son normally didn't fall a sleep without me being next to him, as I was still breastfeeding him, and this was a comforting moment for him especially with the stress the father gave us. But to my surprise they both fell a sleep very quickly, and when I looked at their peacefull faces sleeping I realised that I must have done the right thing at that time. To get them out of that situation, and hopefully get back on our feet without their father living with us. Luckily I didn't forget to take the babyphone with me, so I could listen if they were still sleeping while I had the intake with the social workers at the shelter.

The person that I had my first chat with there was very kind. At that time I started right away telling everything that happened, not knowing that all of this would not even mean anything afterwards, because nobody did a damn thing about it. Not even willing to listen to my recordings. When you arrive at these kind of shelters you will have to wait several weeks before they give you your personal social worker on your case. Until that time they just say, you have to discuss it with the social worker that will be on your case. This is very frustrating especially as the situation (because of the unknown) is scary too. You don't know if they will let you stay there, or maybe you will be moved to another shelter 300km away from your hometown. 

It was a mad house there when we arrived, loaded with mothers and kids

The next morning they told me they would call the father to let him know the kids are safe, because he had custody. And the father did not even contact me to ask this before. He just texted me these words: "where is the money on the bank account?" nothing more, nothing less. At that day I left there was 80 euro on the bank account left, and I booked it to mine, because I had to buy diapers and formula for our son. He only said half was his, and I could not do this. While 80 euro's would not last too long and I didn't know when I would have money again, and how to arrange this after it would be finished, while he always could depend on his mother for financial help. So for the kids sake I took this. He had been partying for weeks anyways, so actually I didn't care a bit if he would be in trouble, he could easily make sure he had food by asking his mother. The way that he reacted only confirmed that I did the right thing, as it was for the kids, because food would be provided in the shelter for us. 

When we finally were a bit settled we saw that it was packed with women and kids. Therefore we were sleeping in the emergency room, while no normal room was vacant. I remember that it drove me a bit crazy, because there were some kids staying inside with code red (not allowed to leave the building due to danger) for almost 5 weeks in a row. They were bored, and not really behaving anymore. You can imagine this is hard to understand for some kids, that they cannot leave the house to go to school. 

Luckily things were a bit more quiet the next day, because in the weekend there were no houshold tasks and schedules for preparing food. Everybody had to make their own food in the weekend. After the weekend there was more regularity in the day. I still did not know what to expect from now on, and I could only accept it and wait for news.

I got a security scan by telephone

That day they would call me for a security scan to see if I needed to stay code red or maybe I got more freedom as leaving the house. They decided that day that it would still be code red. I was mostly talking to my friends that had supported me before leaving, and I wanted to share my story about how I got in the shelter and what it was like. I could not stop crying most of the times, when the kids were sleeping I cried a lot. It was good to get the support from all those people, but I still felt so damn alone there. I really didn't know what was going to happen, and people in the house said that all the shelters were packed, so most likely they would send me to the other side of Holland. This scared me, because then I really would be alone, without my support system around me. 

The next day things were getting a bit calmer, or so it seemed

I was a bit more at ease the next day, and the kids were participating in the kids hour that morning. While I didn't have to participate in the tasks yet, I sat outside the playroom. My telephone was in the pocket of my jeans, and suddenly it started to make buzzes and sounds, and when I got it from my pocket it was making pictures and sending messages. I knew instantly what happend, but I didn't understand how this happend while it was in my pocket and I didn't touch anything, it was even locked.. The telephone was set for emergency messages when I got the phone about a year before. This was a new setting that I didn't know, so I found it and I put in 3 names and numbers for when there was an emergency. I never thought about it again, until the week before. When the father had stole my phone and it was doing this in his hands, while he was screaming what the hell I did to the phone. While I told him, how can I know if you are holding it for the last 2 hours? When you activate this service it keeps making pictures on both cameras and sending this with an emergency message to the people you put in the list, that you need help. I never used it, so I forgot it even existed until then. It was not clear to me back then why it happened, afterwards (later on when I understoot who I was dealing with) I know he had hacked my phone that evening, and that day in the shelter he activated this on purpose. He knew that I would be in trouble, because this service also give the location of where you are right at that moment. But the shelter was a secret location not to be shared with others, for safety reasons obviously.

I was telling the social worker that my phone sent this message to my 2 friends AND the father, at the time that I told her she looked at me like I did something wrong, while I still did not know how it got activated. She told me they would discuss this, and possible I would be moved. Several months later I knew that he was behind this, because he said with his evil look: "Yeah, they really found that a weird story you told them about that message, and thought you did it on purpose to see if I would come there to get violent, but I didn't so you failed". By the way he looked at me, I knew it had been his plan to let them think I was trying to get him to the secret location. 

That evening we had to move to another shelter in a terrible rush, and under circumstances you would not believe.. I will get back to that in another post as it is a story at itself.. unbelievable that that is legal what they did...

Special thanks for the support I find here in the steemit community. And special thanks for the possibility and acceptance to write under the Familysupport tag! I appreciate the support of each and every one of you, and hope we can all bundle the powers to stop the crimes and corruption among the CPS and other government agencies around the world. 

AnoukNox