I was in a very bad relationship when I was living here! I lived in rural Wiliamson County, Texas in a place that was so remote that it was 15 miles to the neartest public telephone. The abuser had disabled my vehicle and was going to get a shotgun. I ran and made it to the one public telephone and I dialed the 800 number.
The lady on the phone told me there was nothing they could do for me because I did not have any children and they would not come and get me.
Excuse me? My life was in danger and I am a lady and elgible for this service and you people who are sucking the United Way Funding are NOT going to help me when I asked you for your help urgently!
I hung up the phone and spent a very scared and lonely night hiding behind a rural convenience store that had long since closed. No point in calling the sheriff's department in this good ol'boy county because it is always the woman's fauolt—SHE is the one who makes the alcoholic drink and SHE is the one who is responsible for all of the alcoholic's set backs and personality conflicts at his jobs and for his job losses by their way of thinking. And besides, women NEED to be slapped around just to show them who is boss.
So the deputy sheriffs and constables in Williamson County used to laugh at the courthouse whenever a case involving family violence or child and spousal abuse would cross their path.
After one particuliar bad blowup, I rode in to the nearby larger town with the abuser, promplty jumped out of the vehicle at the first opportunity and caught the public bus with money he never knew I had. I went to a pay phone and I dialed the HELP number again. This time a lady told me that if I could get to Williamson County, a peace officer would come and pick me up and bring me to the shelter where I would be safe.
There WERE no buses running to Williamson County at that time except one that ran about two miles from the county line —a hefty walk in the blazing Central Texas sun. So I took that bus, got off where the driver told e to, went to a rather unsavory convenience store and called the Williamson County Sheriff's Department. They laughed at me and referred me to the local police in Cedar Park, Texas. They said they were not a taxi service for women stupid enough to be in my situation.
The police officer was baffled as I was. I believe he at least had the courtesy to call his dispatcher and have her contact the battered women's shelter. Whoever the liar was who had told me I could get transport to the Battered Women's Shelter if I could get to Williamson County had apparently gone off duty and the woman who had replaced her laughed like I had told the best joke of the year. I was not getting any transport to that facility and the Cedar Park police officer had no authority to take me there anyway —wherever there was. Locations of Battered Women's Shelters aren't exactly plastered on every TV screen to keep the abusers from finding out where they are so they can' t get their gallon of whiskey and six-shooter nd do reprisals on everyone for taking their chew toy and punching bag, aka the human being who used to be the one person they pledge to love and cherish, away.
And so he drove away, leaving me feeling confused, angry and rather dizzy from the sun —it was about 102 degrees Fahrenheit that day. I had no choice but to go back where I came from and maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
The williamson county so-called battered women's shelter is a joke like almost everything else in that insular, secretive little place and no more money should be given to them until it is ascertained how many people are actually assisted by them to escape abusive hell situations!
They are NOT serving the rural areas of the county at all and so the inclusiveness indicated by their name COULD constitute FRAUD!
I am glad I am not there anymore but every so often when I can't chew my food very well because my teeth were knocked out of alignment (all present, however, because I fought backl!) or my back aches because it was kicked with a steel-toed work boot, and I have nightmares, I remember this place. It was less than a year ago!
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