What I've Learned From Being A Victim Of Crime | Lifestyle Update

It has been so incredible hard to sit down and put into words what happen to me & my family in December. If you saw my Fitness Update post from February, you would have seen that I mentioned I was the victim of crime.

I don't want to share too much detail as I am pressing several criminal charges against the person whom attacked my home...twice...but I do want to share some of my experience as I felt very alone and like there was no one around to help me during this time. Perhaps sharing what I've gone through could help someone who has been the victim of crime recently or help someones home security so they do not become a victim of crime.

Our attacker came to our home twice, I'm still not clear on what they were hoping to accomplish, before I was able to have them arrested....and even then it was a very long month before things were somewhat resolved. Unfortunately because the first attack was on a Friday night and then the next attack was on Sunday night I couldn't do a lot over the weekend. Monday was really the first day I could run around and ask questions and beg people to help me. I am very sad to say that the person whom damaged our property and threatened us is a family member of my husbands.

By the time Tuesday rolled around I was heading downtown to court to get a warrent for the persons arrest....which was granted but unfortunately our attacker ran and was able to outrun the RCMP. As he was not a high priority person of interest I was told I would have to wait until he resurfaces in order for the arrest to be executed. This took 24 days.

I lived for the next 24 days in compete panic and fear of my families safety. We were completely unaware of if this person was going to return to our home, if more damage was going to be caused to our property,ect. I didn't feel safe leaving the house period. I wasn't even leaving my home to walk my dog and I never wanted to be left alone for any reason. Basically this meant that if my husband needed to go out I would be calling up a friend or family member to come and sit with me.

On the 24th day when this person resurfaced I was told that my warrant had expired...which was in the fine print of my paperwork which I should have read more carefully and I would have to go back to court to obtain another one. I returned to court and my warrant was executed that day....THANK GOODNESS! Finally a feeling of relief.

I know that this is all far from being over but at least we have taken a step in the right direction to keep our family safe.

I am so thankful to say that even though we had several thousand of dollars in damages done to our property my husband & I were very lucky unharmed. We did receive verbal death threats and my husband was physically threaten with a weapon but thankful some ice on the driveway saved his life. Basically when his attacker lunged at him with a hammer he fell to the ground and allowed my husband a few seconds to get out of harms way.

Being a victim of crime can really put your life into prospective. This experience has put some several things into perspective and has shown my family that we are NOT prepared with our home security.

I used to be one of those people who thought....this would NEVER happen to me. We didn't have any sort of surveillance or security system in place - but now we do. I think this is so important now, even though you don't think you need it it's not a bad idea to be prepared. You don't necessarily need to bring in a home security company and spend a lot of monthly fees. Honestly figure out what's important to you and find a self monitoring system. It's a lot cheaper and it just gives you that piece of mind.

Be careful who you trust with information. Unfortunately our attacker (being a family member of my husband) knows a lot about our home. We trusted him with privileged information and he even knew our daily schedule. Be cautious with whom you give out information to.

Have an emergency family plan. The first thing that I did when I figured out that someone was breaking into our home was panic! I knew that we had weapons in our home to defend myself but I couldn't find them and I even struggled unlocking my phone and calling 9-1-1 during the incident. Having a emergency family plan and knowing where everything was and what I should do could save your life. Even if this wasn't a family member but someone just breaking into my home the police suggested that the better thing to do would have been to flee my house with my animals. Knowing the safest way to flee your home, how to defend yourself against an intruder and a family meeting place are all important things that I never sat down and planned out with my family before.