Some situations seem to just happen with me I don’t seek danger or excitement I’m honestly quite a boring person just a boring person to which interesting things happen to – constantly.On the other hand there are times I have been known to say escalate situations. I only do this to protect or help another person, you never know when someone is going to need help.
Once when I was 21 I went on holiday to Norway to visit an old friend who was living there. It was my first independent holiday and I was terrified about getting lost in a foreign Country, where I knew only 1 person and spoke none of the language unfortunately for me this was only the beginning of my problems.
My friend lived with a relative who was very abusive toward her and I knew this when I went to visit but for some deluded reason I believed this abuse would lessen with me around I thought that he’d try and make himself look better with a guest but if this attempt was made I did not see it!
There came a day where my friend came to me and told me not to leave the bedroom under any circumstances and then she left. I listened to the banging and the yelling and I really wanted to burst out of the room and help but I stayed put. When she returned from this fight she was shaken and very quiet, I didn’t know what to say that I hadn’t already said to her before and so I repeated a speech to her I’d used many times and essentially I said “You deserve better, you shouldn’t have to live like this you know you could come live with me, you could come back with me on my flight if you want”
I’d suggested this to her many times and she had always refused so when I asked I really thought she’d say “No, I’ll be ok” but unbeknown to me that day was her breaking point and she said “You know what? Fuck it. Yes” I was shocked – I really hadn’t thought she’d said yes, but I wanted to help and I had offered.So my 2 week holiday became a reconnaissance mission – we had to plan her escape, there was no doubt that things were dangerous and if he found out it would be worse so we covered our tracks booking and paying for the ticket online and then deleting the history and rebooting the computer as a cover – then we needed to get hold of her passport.
We were lucky that at the time it was at the passport offices in Oslo and her relative did not have it. So we made our way to Oslo one day to get the passport unfortunately for me her relative had stolen the soles out of my shoes they were the only pair I had so I had to use them it was not long until my feet were bleeding and eventually I gave in and just went barefoot around the streets of Oslo I have no idea why he took the soles of my shoes but I can at least admit it was effective! It literally hobbled me and it made going out really hard.While he had no proof of anything he was certainly suspicious of us and he made things as difficult as possible he stopped giving her money to buy food and didn’t buy any for us so I had to spend a lot of my holiday money making sure we had food as well as budgeting for travel.
He was self employed and kept odd hours and sometimes he would pretend to leave for work but then actually sit in his car watching the bedroom window, we would keep the light off and hide waiting for him to leave then when gone we would pack and prepare to leave quickly and quietly in the middle of the night.
On the very day of our planned escape the relative found out we had her passport and burst through the bedroom door demanding she gave it to him – we were supposed to leave in the evening but from that morning on my friend kept wanting to leave early she kept saying “I think we should go now” she had a really bad feeling about staying but I didn’t listen as I was worried about being out in the open all day and as the flight wasn’t for another 20 hours I urged her to wait. Hindsight is a splendid thing if I had known that we would lose her passport I would have taken the risk!
Again we waited for him to leave and then called the police and explained the situation they simply told her to ask for it back and if he refused to call back and they would then deal with it. After much discussion we waited for him to get back and then my friend snuck out and got it while he was in the bathroom!At around 11pm we rushed out the house and ran to the edge of a wood with a small road we knew he wouldn’t be able to get down in his car and we felt safe.
Now when you think of Norway I’m sure that most of you think of cold weather but for 14 of the 15 days I was there were it was lovely and warm, but the night we ran away
IT. WAS. FREEZING!!!!!
It was so bad and we were out from around 11pm to 5.30am around half way through my friend turned blue and was groggy I had to keep waking her up and trying to get her to move. I convinced her that we could take better shelter closer to the train station and while she got slightly better I started feel tired and confused – no matter which way I turned there was this bitter, unending icy cold wind everywhere, the last hour was the worst I was tired and dizzy I had to be constantly woken up and as the first train arrived my friend had to help me onto it.
We made it to airport just in time – we were the second to last people on the plane and we had to run to the gate – but we made it!It was an experience that I will never forget. I spent the entire time scared out of my mind, but I did it anyway I have always lived my life on a knife’s edge but usually it wasn’t by choice.
Looking back this was the first time I ever felt that I had to do the hard thing and be brave and I learnt that being brave is not about feeling brave but doing the right thing – despite being terrified.
Survivng Life 