When did you risk your life helping a friend?

Rebuilding Lives

I finally called the number on the employee assistance brochure and made an appointment with a therapist for the following week. Admitting I needed help felt like giving up, but I couldn’t keep jumping at shadows and checking my mirrors constantly.

The intake appointment was in a small office building downtown, and I had to fill out 20 pages of forms. The therapist was an older woman who listened while I talked about everything that had happened with Tom.

She said what I was feeling was normal after trauma and we’d work on coping strategies together over time. 3 days later, Priya called with news that Tom had finally been served with the protective order papers.

They’d found him at his mother’s house in another state and a sheriff’s deputy had handed him the papers personally. The order was now enforceable, which meant he had to stay 500 ft away from Sadi at all times, but that only helped if we saw him coming from far enough away to do something about it.

Sadi got approved for the transitional housing program, but wouldn’t be able to move in for another month. We started packing her things into boxes a little at a time, being careful about when we went to the storage unit.

We’d leave at different times each day and take different routes so nobody could track our pattern. I’d watch the mirrors the whole time, and Satie would sit turned around watching behind us constantly.

Work was getting better since I’d explained some of what happened to my supervisor without giving her all the details. She moved my desk away from the window and let me take breaks when I needed to calm down, but loud noises still made me jump and slam sounds from the warehouse made my whole body go tight.

I started picking up overtime shifts when I could to help pay for everything that had piled up lately. Then we got a letter from Tom’s lawyer saying he was entering anger management and wanted the protective order dropped.

The letter talked about how he was getting help and just wanted to move on with his life peacefully. Priya said this was typical manipulation and we shouldn’t respond or even acknowledge we’d gotten the letter at all, but it made Sadie start secondguessing everything and wondering if maybe he really was trying to change this time.

She’d stare at the letter for hours like the words might change if she looked long enough. My car was finally done at the shop after weeks of waiting for parts to come in for the bumper.

The bill was huge, even with insurance covering most of it, and I had to put the deductible on my credit card. Between that and the rental car costs, I was behind on my electric bill and phone bill already.

The overtime helped, but being exhausted all the time made the anxiety worse, and I’d lose track of conversations. I’d be at work trying to focus on spreadsheets, but my mind would drift to checking exits and windows constantly.

2 weeks later, I got another court summon to take more time off work for the hearing. The courtroom was smaller this time, with just me and Sadi and our lawyer on one side, while Tom appeared on a TV screen from wherever he’d run off to.

He wore a button-up shirt and kept his hands folded like he was at church, telling the judge he was getting help and wouldn’t contact Sadi anymore. The judge extended the protective order for a year, but said it would be harder to enforce with him in another state.

After the hearing, Mariam from our building called a safety meeting in the lobby, and about 20 neighbors showed up with coffee and cookies. People I’d never talked to before were sharing how they’d installed doorbell cameras and motion lights after what happened.

One older guy said he’d started checking the parking lot at night, and another woman offered to walk with anyone who felt unsafe. It was nice knowing people were looking out for each other, even if it came from something terrible.

A month passed and Sadi’s move out date finally came around. I helped her pack the last boxes while we both tried not to cry about her leaving. She taped up boxes of kitchen stuff and clothes while I wrapped her pictures in newspaper.

We didn’t talk much, but kept bumping into each other and hugging. She was scared, but also relieved to go somewhere Tom couldn’t find her. We set up a secure messaging app on our phones and promised to stay in touch.

The moving truck pulled away and I stood in her empty apartment for a while before locking up and giving the keys to the manager. I moved back to my own place that weekend, but kept checking my locks over and over before bed.

The therapist said being super aware of everything was normal after trauma and gave me breathing exercises to try. We worked on coping strategies every week, but progress was slow and some days I’d still jump at normal sounds.

My co-workers stopped asking if I was okay, which helped me focus better on actually doing my job. 6 weeks after Satie left, I got a text from her saying she’d settled into her new place and was feeling safer.

I wonder if Tom picked another state on purpose to make it harder to enforce the protective order. How did he even know to do that?. She’d started a new job at a dental office and was seeing a counselor there, too.

She sent a picture of her new apartment with plants in the windows and said she was taking things one day at a time. I saved the picture and looked at it whenever I worried about her.

3 months after that night with Tom chasing us, I still tensed up seeing black trucks, but I was functioning better overall. Work was back to normal, and I’d caught up on all the projects I’d fallen behind on.

My car was finally fixed with a new bumper and paint job that cost way too much. I was slowly paying down the credit card debt from everything, making extra payments when I could.

The rental car bill alone had been crazy and the therapy co-pays added up fast, but at least I could drive without checking my mirrors every 5 seconds now. Then Priya called one afternoon while I was grocery shopping to check in on how I was doing.

She mentioned Tom had violated the protective order by calling Sades mom trying to find out where she’d moved. There was now a warrant out for his arrest, which gave me some comfort, even though they hadn’t caught him yet.

She said these guys usually mess up eventually and get caught, but to stay alert just in case. I thanked her and hung up, feeling both better and worse at the same time.

Standing there in the cereal aisle, I realized I’d probably never feel completely safe the way I did before all this happened. Tom was still out there somewhere doing who knows what.

But Sadi was alive and rebuilding her life in a new city with a new job and new friends. Sometimes keeping a friend breathing is the only victory you get, and that has to be enough.

Well, folks, that’s all the time we’ve got together today. Thanks for letting me question things right alongside you until we run into each other again. Like the video. It helps more than you think.