In Feburary 2015, my daughter Lily-Ann and I were taken to Anna Marie 's Alliance, a women 's domestic violence shelter. The building sat in a location where I would have never thought a domestic violence shelter would be. It wasn 't hidden, but it wasn 't sitting out in the open either. The building sat off in a corner lot away from a main street. It was built of nice smooth gray bricks, had a white privacy fence surrounding the back half of the building, and a small parking lot for people to park in. There were a few small trees out front with a little garden filled with red, yellow, pink and white flowers. Lily-Ann and I ended up here due to my ex-boyfriend. He threw my daughter down on the bed and tried to strangle me. A few days after the incident Lily-Ann and I were removed from the home and taken to the shelter. All our belongings were left behind at the apartment except the clothes we were wearing. I was beyond scared and very nervous as Lily-Ann clung to me at only 10 months of age. I didn 't know what to expect, and I didn 't want Lily-Ann being taken from away from me. On arriving at the shelter, Lily-Ann and I were taken to our own room. The room had pretty light blue colored walls with butterfly stickers plastered everywhere. A large window let the sunlight stream in and fall across the bed and floor. A small …show more content…
After a few short weeks at Anna Marie 's, I decided to start going back to school. I had started going back to school to try and recieve my high school diploma, which was a big deal. I also started art therapy, talk therapy, seeing a psychiatrist and attending support groups within the shelter. Some of the support groups were guests or speakers that would come in and talk about their experiences and knowledge in domestic violence. I would also attend groups to talk about my experiences so others would know they were not alone. The shelter had free daycare on site so I was able to attend the groups, therapy, doctor 's appointments and job