Source: Reddit
Late last night, I woke up to someone knocking loudly on my apartment door. I was disoriented because I had fallen asleep on the couch since my partner is out of town for his job. It was the type of knock that seemed urgent, and my first thought was that something was on fire but the alarms weren’t working. As I started to get up I could hear more knocking down the hall and a woman’s voice asking for help. I opened the door and there was a woman in a bathrobe standing in the hall. Her hair was in her face, her lip was bleeding, legs and arms cut and bruised, and she was barefoot. She staggered to my door saying she needed help, her boyfriend had beat her up and she needed to hide from him.
She very clearly needed help. She seemed to be drunk and was obviously terrified. She was covered in bruises and cuts. And still, for a split second, I paused and didn’t want to let her into my apartment. I was afraid that if I let this woman into my home she was going to hurt me or rob me or who knows what else.
But because I’m stupid or naive or maybe because I’m thankfully a human, I let her in. I kept her safe and got her in touch with her mother who had already called the police. I held her hand and gave her water and kept her talking and let her cry and kept her from going back to her boyfriend’s apartment which she tried to do multiple times. And when the police showed up I held her hand while she told them what happened to her. Now, I don’t know if what she said was completely truthful as she had had quite a lot to drink and her story changed several times and a lot of what she said didn’t make sense. But it wasn’t my job to decide if she was telling the truth or not about what happened. My only job was to be a safe place for her. And I kept her safe until the ambulance came to take her to the ER to get checked out and have her injuries taken care of.
And I hate that I was afraid the whole time she was there. I was so afraid that all of the terrible things I had heard that could happen when people let strangers into their home would happen to me. As improbable as all of those scenarios were, they kept playing over and over in my head while this woman cried on my shoulder and was dealing with the worst night of her life.
As women, we hear all about the dangers of being taken advantage of because we have a natural tendency to help. Documentaries, podcasts, crime shows, movies, social media posts, chain emails, urban legends – all with warnings about not being lured into a trap because we thought we were helping someone or doing the right thing: Don’t pull over for a cop on a dark road because it might not be a cop. Don’t answer the door when you hear a crying baby because that’s how a serial killer lured his victims outside. Don’t help the lost child because they’re actually being used as bait and are going to bring you to someone who’s going to hurt you. And don’t let strangers into your home, even if they seem sick or injured.
I’m thankful I ignored that last one last night, but I hate that I even had to think about it. I hate that this happened to this woman. And I hate that I second guessed her situation and was afraid of her.
