I Sent $200 to Someone I Met on Reddit
By: Maggie Ray Anderson
Tags: Woman, Friendship, Abuse, Reddit, Domestic Violence

I Sent $200 to Someone I Met on Reddit

I provide the support that I can while she navigates the complex and often traumatizing legal system

Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash

About one year ago, I stumbled into the painful, yet important, Reddit ‘Abuse’ community. Here, I read countless stories from women and men that made my stomach drop and my bones ache with sympathy. It is here that I met *Lily. We quickly struck up a private conversation after being disappointed in the style of support offered in the Reddit community. For anyone who has studied domestic violence, comments of “just leave” are not only unsupportive, but also drastically ignorant to just how suffocating situations of abuse are.

Over the course of the last year, we spoke as often as we could. Lily was not allowed to text or call. In fact, she was not allowed to even have friends. Every day while her husband went to work, she would download Reddit as a way to communicate with the outside world. Each evening, she would uninstall the app out of fear of him finding out.

Trapped

Lily was nearly set up to fail from the beginning. She had no friends or support. She also has three young children. She has no job, as she was not allowed to work or go to school. She has no bank account or credit card. So how was she ever supposed to leave? Living across the country, I felt helpless as to what I could do. The best thing that I could offer her was judgment free support, encouragement, and a lack of hard pressure on her to leave. I knew she would leave when she was ready and able. Until then, I would answer every message.

There would be weeks when I would hear nothing from Lily. I would go into a state of panic and fear. What if she was seriously hurt? What if she was killed? A sinking feeling emerged over me as I realized I would have absolutely no way to ever know what happened to her. I only knew her first name.

Thankfully, I would always hear from her eventually. Her safety had to be her first priority, and she had to limit her Reddit usage to when it was safe to go on.

Through the Storm

If I am being honest, I was unsure that Lily would ever get out of her situation. As a devoted and loving mother, she refused to leave her children behind. A lack of social services in her rural area meant that she could not rely on much help. If she called the police on her abuser, she would be left without any source of income to provide for not only herself but her children. And so she stayed. And I stayed, listening to every horrible story of abuse.

One day, out of no where, I received one of the greatest messages of my life. Lily told me she had had enough. She had called the police. She had a neighbor who would let her and the children stay with her while she sorted things out.

My Small Role

Proud does not begin to describe how I felt. But I also felt afraid. The time when a woman leaves her abuser is the most dangerous time. Again, I struggled to know how I could help. Lily never asked me for help. She absolutely never asked me for money. But I offered. I sent her what I could at the time, $200. She was able to purchase a prepaid phone, and food and diapers for her children. When she called me on the phone for the first time, it felt unreal. She had an East-Coast accent. Something so silly, but I had never even imagined what her voice sounds like.

Today

Today, I am still in contact with Lily every single day. I provide the support that I can while she navigates the complex and often traumatizing legal system. I am happy to share that she is safe and doing the best that she can.

I write this story to share the impact that we can have on a person. The internet is an evil scary place, just as this world is. However, we have the ability and power to form real connections. To save a life. To truly be the light in the darkness for a person who needs someone, anyone, to just listen and cheer for them. Even if it is across the country, even if it is someone you have never met.