Hi, I hope this gives you some hope.
I had been with my husband for 10 years. He gradually became quite mean, verbally abusive and then physically so after we got married. One morning there was another incident, I took dd to nursery and then just had a breakdown on the phone to my mum and I knew at that moment my marriage was over. I never went back.
I stayed in a hotel for 5 days and spent all my emergency money whilst I waited to get housed. My council refused to house me because they said it was a refuge I needed. Refuge refused to house me because I was employed and wanted £400 per week to cover expenses (or to give up the I'd spent £60 000 in student debt and 10 years of my life building up). I got social services involved and they helped fight my case to get me and dd in council emergancy housing.
Council housed us 30 miles away from nursery (which itself was a 40 min drive from work). We lived in a home primarily for homeless men, most of whom were open drug users. We shared a bed, the room had no lighting or electricity and the smell of weed was so overpowering it came under our door. Drug needles were left all over the garden and the police regularly did late night/early morning drug raids.
I managed to find out that there was a local network of women who gave advice in our local shopping centre. I went along and got legal advice and when just having a chance to talk to someone helped. She bacame my case worker.
I eventually got the strength to report the abuse to the police. But my mental health was deteriorating and I became suicidal. I was ashamed, lonely, in debt and no idea how to buy food. My food budget was £8 per week for me and a 2 year old. I ended up on anti depressants.
My case worker eventually found out about my living conditions after I told her the landlord flipped one evening after one of the tenants had broken the washing machine trying to steal the money. He was banging on everyone's doors saying he was going to kill everyone if someone didn't own up. The police came, I got rehoused 3 days later.
My next place was specifically for survivors of abuse. It was far from ideal, but we had lighting, and Internet. Housing then rung me up and told me my application to be housed had been approved but I was looking at a wait time of 2+ years to get anywhere. The woman in the room next to me was still sharing a bed with her 11 year old son, 8 years after she had first been moved there.
In the meantime, my husband had taken out a prohibitive steps order to make me stay in London. I couldn't afford my rent and was in rent arrears and the court case exh took out to get child access ended up putting me 15k in debt (and I didn't even prevent access). Everyday I was getting more and more into debt because I earnt less than my rent and childcare alone.
I had a huge cry and decided that was it for me. I got myself out of my contract from the job I loved so much. Left the city that I called home and headed away from all my friends just so I could afford rent. I found a job, who offered to match my London salary because they needed my skills. I am currently saving about 1k per month and am almost ready to buy a house. I reackon as soon as CV is over, I'm going house hunting as I should have the deposit. I have friends here now. I go out and have a babysitter because I have disposable income. I met someone. He gives me butterflies and never gets angry and knows about my past. I'm doing fundraising for women in emergency accommodation. I am off the anti depressants. For the first time in a long, long time I do not have to lie about being happy. This is not how I pictured life to go, but i call it a success story because I left and never went back. I realised how strong I am and that has given me confidence in my work too.
I'm not going to lie - the last year has been absolute hell. There were so many times I wanted to take a full pack of pills and end it all. But it did get better and it's so so worth it. The sunshine does come out eventually ☀️☀️☀️