"This is BULLSHIT" I shouted as I slammed my hands on the solid wooden desk for effect. The action garnered a response, the first one yet, as the judge flinched in his mighty chair upon the grand stand from which he had the power to alter, save, and destroy lives.

The victim coordinator stared at me in paralyzed panic obviously having never dealt with someone as short fused as myself.

I continued on with my tirade ....

"This is why people like me don't come to people like you for help. Because I'm a professional, because I don't look like someone that has been abused, because you made your decision before I even came into this courtroom based on a lousy five lines in which I was supposed to express to you WHY I feel my life is in danger!"

The judge leaned back in his chair looking down his nose at me as he slowly crossed his arms over his chest.

"Ma'am" he started in a drawl that mimicked that of the nonchalant and uncaring old sheriff in a poorly acted western drama. "You have not provided me with proof that you are in any type of danger. What I see here is simply your dislike for your husband. You are a big girl, you don't have any kids, you will be just fine. You don't need to involve the court system in this."

Every inappropriate word I knew in every language I had learned flashed through my head at the conclusion of the judge's ignorant response. Luckily though the words did not make it out. I was able instead to form one last argument before making my exit.

"You're right Sir. I don't have a child!" I began through clinched teeth gaining momentum and furry as I continued. "I have three hundred of them! I am a teacher and my students are the closest thing I have to children. If he wants to hurt me, he will hurt them, and you just put all of them in danger. I hope you have a grandchild and I hope they go to my school!"

I snatched my coat off of the chair next to me and fled the courtroom in a blind rage fueled by frustration and embarrassment. After two years of enduring his abuse in silence I had finally reached out my hand for help and was blatantly denied. I pounded on the elevator button as if the harder and more desperately I pushed it the quicker it would come to save me. I had managed to keep the tears welled up at the back of my eyes not allowing any to fall in front of the judge but as the elevator doors slowly opened providing me escape I hurled myself into the the back of it and fell to the floor in a heap of uncontrollable tears.

His threatening and demeaning letters lay untouched at the bottom of my purse. Six of them total sent to me in a variety of ways. One in the mail, two placed on my car while I was at work, two more delivered by an unknown woman posing as a flower delivery worker who would conveniently take back the flowers if I would refuse to come down to my work's office to meet her, and one that he had attempted to hand deliver to my parents house as I hid locked inside their bathroom. The only room in the house with no windows. The only room I truly felt safe.

Two pictures of the crater sized holes that had been put into my walls by his fist as it narrowly missed my face on both occasions remained in the packaging I had picked them up in that very morning. Printing them off at a one hour photo shop in desperation and hope that the judge would at least look at them and assess the force used to create such damage. The force that's initial target was my face. The force that now, if he could not have me had proclaimed, that once he found me would kill me.

"Ma'am, are you ok" a gentle voice asked me as he placed a soft hand on my shoulder.

I hadn't even noticed anyone in the elevator as I had entered in my hurried and disoriented state. I slowly lifted my head from where it had been buried, protectively, in my arms and stared into the concerned face of a middle aged uniformed officer. He was kneeling, probably so as not to have startled me, and seemed to have a genuine look of concern resonating on his face.

Though this seemed to be an ally, because I was still reveling in what had just happened in the courtroom I treated him as though he was an enemy.

"No I'm not ok!" I started. "You guys wonder why women don't press charges on the men that abuse them? You wonder why we don't call the police when something happens? We don't call until we are ready to leave because if we call and you come and we are not ready to leave it only makes things worse." By this point my anger was boiling as I continued to with my speech. " We don't stand up after it is said and done because it is embarrassing and we believe that it has happened because we are weak. We don't ask for help because when we do we get asshole judges like the one upstairs who treat the situation as though it is all a big joke because I didn't CONVINCE him by my five line summary that my life was in danger!"

The officer slowly stood up and backed away. Our short three floor elevator ride had come to a stop and it was time for us to part ways. I figured he thought I was crazy and probably deserved whatever it was that had happened to me. But, his face and the warm but worried look had not left despite the grand fit I had just thrown in his presence. He reached out a hand to help me off the floor and with the other hand supported my elbow as I gained my composure and brought myself up to my feet.

Once I was upright he let go of my elbow but a soft grip still remained on my hand as he stepped forward and in a soft reassuring voice left me with this...

"I'm sorry for what you have been through. I have been on those calls. I have seen the toll it takes on the women involved. I have no doubt you have been there. From what I have seen of you in the last sixty seconds you are a fighter and you are going to make it. Unfortunately, our judges are not in the field experiencing this first hand and therefore do not always make the right call. Don't give up and don't go back! Use that fire you just threw at me to blaze a new path in this world."

With that he gave me a warm smile, a wink, and a quick squeeze of my hand before he exited the elevator without waiting for or even wanting a response. The initial sting of shock from the situation rendered me motionless and speechless for just long enough for him to escape my view as the elevator's doors closed with me still inside. By the time my mind had fully wrapped around what had just happened and I was able to shake myself from my stunned state the doors were reopening with a new batch of passengers waiting for me to get out of their way.

I wanted to tell him I was sorry for having exploded on him. That I was sorry his day had to be ruined for his unfortunate luck of having to share the elevator with me. More than anything I wanted to tell him thank you but he was nowhere to be found.

I exited the courthouse that day with a new found spring in my step. With my head held high and my shoulders back in confidence. I knew that though I had lost one battle in this fight that I could not give up on the war. I would be victorious in this struggle for my independence from the victim mentality I had come to know all to well. I looked to others for help and protection when all along the true guardian of my well being was the warrior spirit within me. The force that the unnamed officer awakened that day.

"When the world says, “Give up” Hope whispers, “Give it one more try"
— Carolyn Agrimis