Britt | Queen of Bomb Résumés

3. If you can sneak your social security card and birth certificate out to get it to the duffle bag, great. If not, you can order a new birth certificate online and have it mailed to the address with your duffle bag. 4. Make sure you take/mail your baby’s docs too.

5. Apply for public assistance. medical, cash assistance, and food stamps. Dont include your abusers income. When you speak with your case worker, ask for a domestic violence waiver to be put on your file that will exclude them for your abusers financial info.

6. Go online to USPS and request that your mail be held at the post office instead of being delivered to your home.

7. Identify what clothes you’ll need. Is it school uniforms for your baby? Is it clothes for work for you? If you need to rotate a few outfits for your baby out, you can say something like “these outfits are too small, I’m handing them down.”

If it’s your work clothes, cycle out a few all black things that require little ironing, are inexpensive, and can hold you over for a little. You may only be able to take 5 outfits so don’t overwhelm yourself with looking awesome. Decent and presentable is good enough.

8. Once your duffle bag has a few outfits, your vital records, and toiletries, you can really begin to strategize what leaving and not returning looks like. You’ve done amazing for getting your bag together.

9. You do not have to wait until the next fight to make an exit. You can go pick your child up from school and never return. You can go to the market and never come back. You can run to your cousin’s house for sugar and don’t come back.

10. When you do leave, the next business day, make your way to family court or wherever you go in your jurisdiction to file for an emergency protection from abuse order. The scope of these is rather narrow so have clear examples of the intimidation and/or abuse.

While at family court, apply for relavant custody of your child. This is important because many abusers use the child as a pawn to lure you back because in many states without a formal custody order, technically the child can’t be kidnapped by either party.

In the course of your transition, pray, journal, maybe speak to one trustee person but this isn’t the season to spill your soul because your safety depends on the quiet and swift moves you’re making.

There are a lot of free resources for individuals experiencing intimate partner violence. Understanding the nuances of them can be overwhelming. Women Against Abuse, Women Organized Against Rape, and a few other orgs in your area have support for you.

A follower just reminded me of this tidbit I left out when I mentioned having the mail held at USPS- Your state has a SAFE AT HOME program. This allows you to use a PO Box for everything so that you never disclose your physical address- the program forwards all your mail to you.

You can request a police escort to accompany you to the home if there is something you desperately need to retrieve. Prescriptions can be resent to the pharmacy and refilled at a low cost if you explain the circumstance to your doctor. This may require a police report.

You can also request to appear for child support and/or custody hearings over the phone instead of in person if you feel intimidated speaking or asking for you and your child’s needs in the same courtroom. In some places you can also ask that they be removed while you speak.

Speak with the HR Dept at your job. You may have designated leave time for DV. You may also have legal protections against losing your job for taking off for court or anything related to adjusting after leaving your abuser.