……………

(Journal Entry August 27th, 2026)

Thank you God for allowing me to wake up and happy birthday to meeee!  Thank you for not allowing me to wake up in jail this year.  Thank you for my babies, send your angels out with them and me today, everyday; going before us and making a crooked path straight.  Thank you for your provision, protection, direction, correction, and connection Father God. Thank you for the people who have came and gone in my life, for the reasons only you know. Thank you for my health, my true wealth. I could never thank you enough Lord, but you keep renewing my mind, and faith giving me another day, and another way to try… when they ask me who I am I say I am his… and  I pray I make you proud, I pray I live up to my name; be who you made me to be, the reason you put me here for such a time as this.

Amen

About a year ago….


Maybe 2 to 3 days after my last journal Entry (8/18/25) at Refuge for Women (Texas),  I remember waking up feeling ok, a little headache that I didn’t have the night before, but still ok.  The bed felt amazing as I stretched across it, throwing  a pillow on the floor I maneuvered to my knees all in one motion.  I begin to pray, and write, and pray some more. After some quality time with my Savior I remembered about the sunrise and how beautiful it was from the house.  Quietly I tiptoed out my room, across the upstairs hard wood floors moving through the living area I grabbed a yoga mat next to the wall and positioned myself in front of the clerestory window facing the east and waited for God’s show to start… Hearing someones alarm go off I realized I must have fallen asleep.  Stretching my body to prepare for the day; I wiped the mat and placed it back against the wall and headed to my room to wash my face and brush my teeth before  heading down stairs for devotionals.  I didn’t want to miss it because we were having volunteers and we had to allow them space to clean and I didn’t want to spend too much time in my room.


I don’t remember too much from devotionals that day I do remember that later on when day staff showed up in addition to the curly haired lady their was staff that I had never seen before, a light skinned Black woman.  I tried to make conversation with her but she just looked at me and smiled slightly. Shrugging it off  I focused on the positive and that was being able to swim, finally. We were told a few days before that, that we were going to the transitional house and they had a pool.  After saying hi to the volunteers the staff with the curly-hair  let us know that there was “a man outside volunteering so if we saw him not to panic.” I didn’t think too much about it however I did ask her if they were still barbequeing where the pool was because Refuge For Women Vegas still had not sent my stuff yet and I didn’t have a mask.  I was assured that if they were I could sit in the house if the smoke became too much.


Some time went by and the volunteers had finished organizing things and were gathering downstairs so we could pray.  As I made my way downstairs I immediately got a headache but that had been happening occasionally.  Waiting for the last few volunteers we assembled in a circle in the foyer on the floor by the front door.  It was at this point that I noticed the muscles in my body began to spasm.  I didn’t panic because I didn’t smell anything and passed it off as my nervous system just tripping when the curly-haired staff asked if the male volunteer could come in and pray with us.  I said “no” in part, because of the rule in Vegas that said that we couldn’t even “talk to male” support people on the phone so why were they allowing a whole man to be inside around survivors, young ones at that, was weird to me.  Once the last volunteers joined us we begin to go around in a circle while the volunteers prayed for us and for Refuge for Women.  After they  finished I had asked if I could pray, and was allowed to.  I felt the holy spirit there, that morning, but then I felt something else.  Swaying back and forth with my eyes closed I felt my throat begin to swell, then the nerves in my face began to jump in addition to the ones in my body.  As my chest tightened my voice cracked with a final amen.  Staying on the floor I scooted out the way allowing the volunteers and other residents to go by me.  Still on the floor I moved towards the now closed door and used the door nob to pull myself up. Back on my feet, I began to smell a weird smell. Turning towards one of the staff sitting at the dining room table I asked “What is that, what is that smell?” “I don’t smell anything my nose is congested,” she said and went right back to reading whatever she was reading.

I need fresh air, I’m going outside,” I said as I opened the door and descended into what felt like was hell but was really the Dallas heat.  As I moved about the front patio the smell increased. “Ughhh”, I said grabbing my chest looking to the right and left I figured maybe it was just the wind.  Walking around the house I felt no relief on either side.  Having walked a full circle around the house I raised my hands in the air and prayed as I began to walk the long driveway towards the road.  “You’re such a good God, you are the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, all roads lead to you, thank you Lord, help me Jesus, I don’t want to die here!” The further I got away from the house I started to feel some relief but the heat was too much, I needed to get back in the house.  Turning around before I made it to the road, I reached in my pocket for the only protection I had, a mask that I had been using since I got to Refuge for Women Texas.  It was worn, dirty and of no use, but it was all I had. They were supposed to ship my stuff but they kept giving me the run a round.  It’s like they didn’t believe that I really had a disability and needed them, or they just didn’t care; maybe they threw my stuff away and just didn’t want to tell me, I didn’t know.  The closer I got to the house the more my symptoms increased.  My throat begin to close and my headache intensified with every step.  I felt my leg almost give away.  This was new I thought, not being able to walk.  Stopping for a moment so I could gain my balance I tried to focus on the door that maybe was 30 feet away, maybe more.  Commanding my body to keep going I pressed forward and prayed.  Finally I made it back to the porch where I stopped to lean on the door.  Looking around all I could see was dead bugs everywhere.  Where did all these dead bugs come from, I thought.  I was just out here earlier.  I begin to cough as the stench it was something in the air.  Oh my God I thought as I practically fell through the front door.  “Please take me to the hospital?” I said as I closed the door behind me and leaned up against it.  Neither staff member looked up, nor did they acknowledge my distress.  Sliding down the door on to the floor I repeated my request for help.  Please I need to go to the hospital I need my Dr.’s note saying that I have a disability.”


From across the room on the couch the curly-haired staff member calmly picked up her cell phone and began talking on it as she finally turned towards me.  “Why aren’t y’all answering me I need help?”  I said.  Finally, the Black staff member seated at the dining room table looked up from whatever she was reading and acknowledged me; “what do you need?”  “I need help, I’m having an allergic reaction, I need to go to the Dr., I need my Dr’s note, please help me up, I need to get my stuff and go to the Dr.!” I blurted.  With that, the curly-haired staff member, who was still on the phone got up from the couch and walked towards the office area to the right.  Getting up from the table and following behind her the Black staff lady responded, “she’s going to go get it for you, I’ll go make sure she gets it.” “Wait, what, help me get up, please I can’t breathe, I have to go get ready to go to the hospital.”  Seeing that my words fell on deaf ears, I turned towards the 2 young survivors who had begun frolicking not 4 feet from me and asked them to “help me up, please?”  They looked at me and continued to play.  I didn’t want to fall but I had to get upstairs and get my Dr.’s note or they weren’t going to treat me, I knew they weren’t.  I begin to belly crawl across the foyer to the stairs and then up the stairs only stopping to catch my breath.  By the time I made it half way up the steps the Black staff lady returned.  From the bottom of the steps she asked was I “ok?”  “No” I replied, “I need help.”  She shook her head and walked away. Crying, sweating, and praying I continued to scoot up the steps, step by step and finally into my room where I rested for moment before grabbing my tennis shoes and my Dr.’s note that I had stored in the drawer by my bed in case of emergencies.  The pain on the left side of my chest increased.  It now felt like I had a stack of books on top of me;  I knew I needed to get into a praying posture before anything else.  Getting on my knees, no pillow this time, I begin to cite the Lord’s prayer and through tears I thanked all my ancestors in the Bible, my bloodline and chosen when I felt a single finger poke me on my back. Jumping, I screamed only to see the curly-haired ladies face bent down towards mine. “What are you doing?” I said.


“You want some help up?” she said as she stood back up and extended a hand.  “No, why would you scare me, why didn’t you knock?” Without saying a word she turned around and walked out the door and back down the stairs.  I immediately regretted saying no.  What was I thinking.  “Wait, come back I need help, I’m sorry you scared me, please come back?” I yelled.  She was gone.  I was gonna have to get myself together.  With the bed’s help I pulled myself up and followed along the wall to the door.  Looking at the long steps I decided to not chance it, getting on my bottom I begin to scoot step by step down the stairs.  Once I made it to the bottom when the curly-haired lady handed me my wallet and my non-narcotic anxiety medicine that hadn’t been working, in a plastic bag.  She didn’t give me the updated letter I gave them explaining my disability, what I had been asking for, but thank God I had an old one.  “She’s gonna give you a ride, she has to move some stuff out of her car.” “Where is she at?” “She’s outside,’ she said as she walked out the front door and closed it behind her.  Ok I thought, there going to give me a ride.   Pulling myself up I held the wall all the way to the door, and braced myself for the heat.  Opening the door, I slowly walked on to the patio to see even more dead bugs than before.  The smell, whatever it was made my symptoms worse as I held on to one of the pillars of the house I grabbed my old mask and waited for her to pull up to the house.  After a few moments I figured she wasn’t going to so I slowly made my way to her car parked on the other side of the car that held the curly-haired lady, and the 2 young survivors.  Walking past their car I tried to get in the front seat and the door was locked.  “Can you open it please?” I don’t know if the windows were tinted or I just couldn’t see from the little particles that had began to obstruct my vision but I didn’t hear a door unlock.  Once I moved to the backseat door, I heard the unlock.  Getting in as quickly as I could, I thanked her for taking me.  She didn’t say anything and I was fine with that.  I just needed to breathe, I just needed some relief.  Taking a right on to the road from the driveway we couldn’t have gone more than a country block when I asked her if I “could get some fresh air.”  She didn’t say anything so I rolled down the window.  She then rolled the window back up. 


Remaining as calm as I could, I rolled down the window again and I asked her if “I could please get some fresh air?”  Saying nothing she rolled it back up.  Finally, I said “pull over” so I could get some fresh air.  She then begins dialing a phone number and I don’t know who she was trying to reach but I think it was the police.  I honestly don’t remember.  Maybe it was the non-emergency line I’m not sure but it was some agency and she was on hold when she pulled over which couldn’t have been more than a minute after I originally asked.  On the side of the road, I attempted to roll the window down.  Finally responding she said, “I would have to get out the car, I could not roll down the window,” Again, I tried to roll the window back down and she rolled it right back up.  Getting out the car I tried to lean up against it when she rolled down the window and told me to “not lean on her car.” Resigned to the fact that something was really wrong with these people, I walked past the car and sat down next to what seemed like a little ditch on the side of the road  facing the house/farm.  Putting my head between my legs I attempted to regulate my nervous system and deal with my allergic reaction the best way I could.  Hearing a car pull into the drive way next to me, I lifted my head to see what looked like a truck with a lady in it.  I asked her could she “please call the ambulance, I was having an allergic reaction and I needed help?”  Her response was that she “needed to ask her paw, paw first.”  I didn’t have the energy to even process what she said, I just asked again for her to please call the ambulance.”  I’m not sure what happened but she drove away.  I looked to the right and the staff was still sitting in her car, so I just put my head back down as I felt some relief when I seen this lady with a smock on.  Looked like a nurses smock.


She identified herself as “Jessie” if I remember correctly and she asked if I was “alright” and I let her know I was waiting for an ambulance.  That’s when she asked me if she could “stand behind me” that way “I could lean on her.”  I responded that I wasn’t leaning backwards I was leaning forwards but she could if she wanted to I just needed some relief.  That’s when a young girl riding like a mini 4 wheeler pulled up.  I could smell the fumes from the little vehicle and it just seemed odd as there was literally no one around just minutes before.  I don’t know if I asked her if she knew her or is she could have her move because of the fumes but I remember the little girl driving away.  Then what looked like a police officer or a medic came with a box asking me if he could “take my vitals.”  I declined  stating “that I was waiting for an ambulance to come.”  That’s when I noticed that the advocate had gotten out of her car and she was speaking with a Hispanic officer who had not approached me. The young girl on the little motor bike returned and started driving back and forth.  I felt like there were other people that started showing up as well.  It just seemed like all of a sudden there was so much going on around me, I just tried to focus on breathing  when the 2nd officer who was Hispanic walked over to me as I sat on the ground and gave me what I would call the look of death.  This stare couldn’t have lasted more than 10 seconds but when I tell you there was a look of pure hate coming from him, so much so that I said, “why are you looking at me like that?”  That’s when I noticed “Jessie” wasn’t standing behind me anymore.  She was now crouched down behind me with her arms extended under my underarms and almost had me in what I can only describe as a full nelson.  “What the fu&%,” I screamed, “Let me go.” I said as I began to twist and turn in an attempt to get this stranger to let me go.  After a lot of twisting and turning I was able to pull myself out of that women’s grip.  Having gotten free, I ran across the little ditch to the other side where there was a fence and a tree, I think.  I wrapped myself around whatever it was and prayed and braced myself in case “Jessie” came over to try to finish me off.


That’s when a older white man with a beard came over and asked if he “could help me.” Followed by the ambulance pulling up in the driveway next to me.  I didn’t want his help, but he was standing in between me and the ambulance so I let go of whatever it was I was holding on to and took his hand.  Getting into the stretcher they begin to lift the stretcher with me onto the back of the ambulance when I begin to fall out of the stretcher.  I was literally hanging sideways when they had to put the stretcher back down and strap me in.   “What the fu&^, I screamed again.  “What is going on?” The guy paramedic whose name I don’t remember apologized.  At this point, I’m hysterical I’m sure but I’m calm enough to ask for “some oxygen?”  They gave me the oxygen but didn’t turn it on.  “We need to get your vitals” There was now a man and a woman in the back with me.  “I will wait until I get to the hospital, could you please turn on the oxygen?” I asked again.  That’s when he nodded to the woman sitting to my right somewhat behind me while he was to my left sort of in front of me.  “Please just take me to the hospital?” I said through tears, “this is too much.” “Were going, I just need to make a call to the hospital and let them know were coming.”  He made his way behind me and a few seconds later something said to turn around, and I turned around to see and hear him saying that I ‘was hallucinating.”  While he was still on the phone, I said “that’s not true, you’re lying why would you say that, why wouldn’t you ask me?”  He quickly hung up the walkie talky or whatever he was talking through and came over to me and explained that “the people outside had said I was hallucinating.” “But why wouldn’t you ask me if I was seeing or hearing things, why would you just tell them that, don’t you know that lady put me in a bear hug?” “Is this being recorded can they hear this?” I asked.  “No they can’t hear but they can watch it, and they don’t take paramedics word for it anyways.” 


(my apologies for the grammatic etc. in the rest of this piece, because I’m triggered and I probably should stop writing now, but I want to finish this episode)


Eventually making it to the hospital, they put me in a room that was at the end of the hallway.  It just seemed like there was a lot of noise, but I had to go to the bathroom and after I came out the bathroom, I gave them my Dr.’s note that I had been holding on to and asked for steroids to help calm what ever was wrong with me.  I didn’t know how it worked, it just worked in the past.  I asked if I could have some stronger medicine to help with the anxiety because what I had wasn’t working.” I was told they had to “ask some questions and run some tests before they could give me anything.”  I’m not sure if I was able to tell them fully what had just happened to me.  I’m unsure, but I do remember getting moved to a different room, one that I was told was quieter.  But as soon as I was moved, everyone started coming to that nurse’s desk, that was empty when I was moved into that room.  Then I noticed the security (who I later found out was “Roby”) walking by room waving at me.  I asked for the phone and was given it as they had given me the steroids and I felt some relief.  But the noise the noise from the hallway was just a lot and I needed airflow, so I needed the door open.  I didn’t know what to do.  I called my aunt’s number knowing that I hadn’t spoken to her since she got drunk and tried to put me out down some stairs layered with ice and snow, but it was the only number I remembered.  She didn’t answer of course so I left a couple of messages that I’m sure sounded strange because of what I had just experienced.   Finally, both nurses came back to my room all the while “Roby” continued to circle pass the door to let me know he was there, I guess.  I asked again if I could get a another dose of steroids as my symptoms had not completely gone away and if I could get something to help me calm down.  I needed to calm down.  One nurse was Indian, not Native, but Punjab or something similar.  Looking at the Caucasian nurse she said, “no, you didn’t come here for anxiety, and we have already given you enough steroids, and were going to discharge you.”  I’m pretty sure they both left after that and I knew what would come next if I didn’t get myself together and leave that hospital.


After I was told I had to leave and they wouldn’t be helping me with my anxiety, I went to the nurses’ station to see if they could call Refuge for Women and no one was there anymore.  I began to get a bad feeling, so I grabbed my plastic bag with my wallet and the non-narcotic anxiety medicine that I had from Refuge that was not working and I went in search of a nurse.  Soon as I left the room I turned around and Roby was behind me.  I found another nurse’s station and apparently that is where everyone had moved to and I asked if they could contact where I was staying and the nurse said she didn’t know where I was staying.  I asked if a staff from the shelter had come or anything and she said “no,” but that she would try to look it up.  As she looked it up, I noticed Roby getting closer to me.  I asked him if he could please stop following me.  He replied that he “was there for their safety.”  Turning to the nurses I asked them was “I making them feel unsafe?” and they replied “no.” but he still didn’t leave.  That’s when the nurse said I could wait in the waiting room, since he was making me uncomfortable while she tried to find their number because no advocate or staff person had come or called to see if I was ok.  I made my way to the waiting room and as soon as I sat down, they rolled a gentleman into the waiting area and he begin to scream in pain on que.  I couldn’t take it, so I went outside but there was a car parked and running so I went all the way into the middle of the field adjacent to the hospital in an attempt to get some fresh air.  It was beautiful still, even though I had just gone through one of the worst days in my life.  I pulled open the plastic bag and took a few more of the medicine that hadn’t been working and prayed and that’s when I noticed I still had the phone.  I made my way back to the hospital to return the phone when I saw the nurse who had been researching the number for Refuge for Women Texas.


I immediately handed her the phone and she in turn handed me a piece of paper with Refuges number on it.  I asked if I could use the phone and another nurse handed me the phone and I called and Lakeysha answered.  “Are y’all going to come back and pick me up?”  “You are no longer welcomed here because you lied and said that we weren’t helping you.”  “Y’all weren’t helping me and I couldn’t breathe or walk.”  “Well, you shouldn’t have told them that and you’re no longer welcomed here.”  Well, I need my phone, I need my stuff, I don’t know where I’m at.  I need a way from here.”  That’s not our problem, we will pack your stuff, and I will bring it to you there.  When will you bring it?”  “When we have time to go through it.” And with that she hung up the phone.  I started crying again, because I didn’t know what to do.  I handed them back the phone and went outside to try to calm down and about 6 or so minutes later someone pulled up and I asked if I could use her phone as she was getting out of the car.  Her response was “hold on” I will be right back” and she went inside and came out with Robby who immediately said I was” trespassed” and I needed to “leave.”  I explained to him through tears that “I was waiting for my stuff, and I didn’t know where I was at and I didn’t have anywhere to go and I couldn’t leave because I didn’t have anywhere to go.”  “I’m calling the police then” he said with a smile on his face.  He took the phone out of his pocket and began dialing and I just walked away from here to the other side of the parking lot.  Maybe they would help, I thought.  But that was short lived as they arrived rather quickly and asked me my side of the story.  Because we were outside and they had their police car running I was starting to have chest pains on both sides this time.  I asked them could we go inside the hospital and get out the heat, and away from the fumes from their car and finish talking about it and they allowed me to go into the first entry way but they stood in front of the sliding door preventing it from closing, which would have blocked the cars fumes from coming in had it been closed.  So my symptoms seemed to come back as they explained that “I needed to leave the hospital.”  They said I could go stand outside a “Walmart.” And I declined because my stuff was coming to the hospital and I was still not feeling well both “physically and emotionally.”  They directed me by pointing to the property by a field that was off of the hospital grounds and yelled at me to “get out of here.” As they walked away.


I made my way down the stairs, passed the huge parking lot and off of the hospital grounds where I stood for a couple hours until a nurse came out and was getting in her car.  I asked her if I could use her phone and she smiled at me and said yes.  I called Refuge back and Lakeysha again.  I asked her about my stuff, and she said they still hadn’t gotten to it and if I’m not mistaken, she said she was giving my stuff to the police and when I tried to object she hung up.  I tried to call back but the nurse said, “I couldn’t use her phone anymore.” With a smile on her face she turned and walked away saying “no good deed goes unpunished.”  The last thing I wanted to do was meet those officers again, but it started to get dark, so I tried to walk by what looked like a business park to the side of the hospital and on the other side it just looked like woods.  I didn’t want to end up in the woods’ dead, so I tried to walk over to see if there were businesses or any signs of life and on the way I seen a police car coming down the road.  I jumped up and down and attempted to flag the officers down and they just went right by me.  So, I walked back towards the businesses and sat down on the curb and then I was thinking that what if they came with my stuff and I wasn’t up there so I started walking back across the street to get closer enough to at least the parking lot when another officer going the opposite direction of the other car that had just went by came and I again tried to waive them down and they kept going.  By now it was dark and I decided that I would go call the police and ask for help so I went back onto Medical City Decatur’s hospital grounds and went right to the security desk and asked Roby if I could call the police myself.  He handed me the phone and eventually I got a person on the phone, and I let them know that “I was stuck and if the officers could come back and give me a ride because my stuff hadn’t been dropped off yet.”


The operator asked if I could call the non-emergency line and I explained that I could not because Roby wouldn’t let me.”  She said she would “let the officers know” and I got off the phone.  Handing Roby back the phone I asked out of desperation, if I could just “sit outside of the hospital and wait for the officers in one of the wheelchairs because it’s dark?”  And surprisingly, he said, “yes, let me roll you out.”  When I said “no, I could roll myself out” he immediately got angry and called the police on me again, so I walked over to the steps and waited about 7 minutes and they showed up; one below the steps to my left and anther one from the parking lot to the right of me.  I remember as they asked me to stand up and put the cuffs on me so that I was facing away from the hospital one of the officers said “your stuff just showed up, we’ll book it in the jail with you.”


Matthew 25:23 (KJV)

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”


REFERENCES:

Refuge For Women (North Texas):
North Texas – Refuge for Women

Refuge For Women (Las Vegas):
Las Vegas – Refuge for Women

The Rescue Industry: The Blurred Lines Between Help and Hindrance:
(PDF) ‘The rescue industry: The blurred line between help and hindrance’

The Safe House Project:
https://www.safehouseproject.org

International Human Rights Clinic: Over-Policing Sex Trafficking, How U.S. Law Enforcement Should Reform Operations
Over-Policing Sex Trafficking: How U.S. Law Enforcement Should Reform Operations – International Human Rights Clinic

We Are The Victims: Say The Residents of The Refuge:
‘We are the victims,’ say the former residents of The Refuge | TPR

This is Movie Stuff: How a Dallas Mom Said Leaders of a Non-Profit Tried to Take Her Baby
‘This is movie stuff’ | How a Dallas mom says leaders of a nonprofit tried to take her baby | wfaa.com

Control and Protect: Collaboration, Carceral Protection, and Domestic Sex Trafficking in The United States
Control and Protect by Jennifer Musto – Paper – University of California Press

Trafficking Rescue Initiatives as State Violence:
39559-psl_122-1

Closing the Door on Survivors: How Anti-Trafficking Programs in the U.S. Limit Access to Housing
View of Closing the Door on Survivors: How anti-trafficking programmes in the US limit access to housing | Anti-Trafficking Review