Vet asks for help after abuse
A week before Halloween, “Phoebe” made a phone call she’d never wanted to make.
It was a call to the veterans crisis line — a suicide hotline.
“I feel like I’m failing,” she said. “I’m falling apart, honestly.”
A single mom living with post-traumatic stress disorder, Phoebe escaped an abusive marriage this year.
She had previously lived out of state with her children and former husband. He had a drug problem, she said, and once overdosed in front of their three small kids.
He later threatened to strangle Phoebe in front of their children.
“It was the last straw,” she said.
After five years of abuse, Phoebe fled with her children to a domestic violence shelter and later returned to Idaho.
Phoebe’s ex doesn’t know where she and the kids are, she said. She’s grateful for that, because it’s given the family space to heal.
“This is the first time my kids have been stable in about three years,” she said. “There’s no drug use around them.”
Still, it’s tough to build a life from scratch. Phoebe has a job, but money is tight. She hand-washes the children’s clothes in the bathtub because she can’t afford to go to a laundromat. Rent is a monthly struggle.
Phoebe became emotional when she spoke of her eldest daughter, a first-grader who is just old enough to understand that the family is struggling.
“She tells me, ‘It’s gonna be OK, mom,’” Phoebe said, her voice wavering. “As a parent, you shouldn’t have to hear that from your 6-year-old child.”
Three of Phoebe’s friends have died from suicide this year, she said. But she’s determined to keep going, despite the challenges.
“I can’t give up,” she said. “I have three people counting on me. They’re the reason I wake up in the morning.”
Though she recently joined a support group for veterans with PTSD, she’s on a wait list for badly-needed therapy. The Department of Veterans Affairs helped her access medication for her depression and anxiety but couldn’t get her into therapy any faster.
“It’s hard to get counseling,” she said. “There are so many wait lists.”
For now, help with rent would make a big different in Phoebe’s life and allow her to focus her limited resources elsewhere.
But the gift she hopes for above all is one that costs nothing to give.
“Prayer that I get better,” she said. “We need prayer that it gets better.”
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