Practical Resources for Living With, Leaving, and Recovering From Abuse

Equipment that does one specific job at one specific stage.

Everything here was chosen because it does something ordinary shopping does not. While you are still living with it, that means quiet, warning, privacy, or a way out. Once you have gone, the list changes, and that section says how. Nobody needs all of it. Read the stage you are in and take what applies.

And more importantly, this is meant as a list of things you may want or need. It is not a complete packing list for what to take with you whether you leave for an hour or forever. No one can decide for you what to pack in a go-bag, or a moving box.

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Living With Abuse · Leaving and Returning · Leaving Forever · Recovering · Get Help Now

Before you buy anything, read this.

Buying leaves a record. On Amazon that record is the order history on the account, the confirmation email, the delivery notification, and the box at the door. You cannot delete Amazon order history. Archiving an order moves it out of the default view, and it stays findable under archived orders.

If someone else can reach the account, the email, or the doorstep: ship to an Amazon Locker or a Counter pickup point instead of your address, ship to someone you trust and collect it from them, buy it in a store with cash, or use an account that person has never had access to, set up on a device they do not control.

A shared account also changes what the site shows you. Recently viewed items and recommendations follow the account, so browsing can be visible even when you buy nothing.

Living With Abuse

They live there. They have keys, they have every room, and anything you add or change is something they find and ask about.

This is the gathering phase. You may never, ever need any of it. If you do need it, you will need it ready, because you cannot go out and buy a fire escape ladder at the moment you have to get out of a second-story window. Everything below is bought early, kept somewhere safe, and left alone until the time it matters.

Safety planning means working out what you may need, where you can safely keep it, and how you might leave or get help if you need to. Whatever you use the first time, whether it is a bag, spare keys, money, documents, transportation, or a place to go, may no longer be safe afterward. They may notice the bag, find the keys, learn about the house you went to, or begin asking questions: Where did you get those keys? When did you buy that bag? Plan ahead for the possibility that a second time may require something different, stored somewhere different, and known only to people you trust.

A Phone They Do Not Know About

Prepaid phone. Check with a domestic violence center. They may give out phones and minutes cards for free. Otherwise, get the cheapest one that makes calls. Not on the family plan, not tied to your name if the store doesn’t require it.
Prepaid airtime card. Bought with cash, so there is no card statement showing a phone company you supposedly do not use.

Keeping a second phone is a reasonable thing to do. The only person who will not see it that way is the one you are keeping it from, which is why where you keep it matters more than which one you buy. Keep it switched off, and check the charge on a schedule you can remember.

Getting Out of the House

Magnetic key box or decorative key hider. Holds a spare car key somewhere outside the house. Keys get taken, and a taken key should not be the thing that decides whether you can leave.
Headlamp. Hands free, which matters on a ladder or carrying a child, and it lights where you are looking without turning on a room light. A phone flashlight needs a hand you may not have.
Fire escape ladder. Most apartments have one door. If the person you are avoiding is at it, a second or third floor window is not a backup plan, it is the way out. If you have young children or you are scared of heights, this does not solve the problem and you need a plan that does not depend on it.

Documents and How to Carry Them

Expanding file with labeled tabs. Keeps birth certificates, court paperwork, insurance, and financial records in an order you can work through with an advocate or an attorney instead of sorting on their desk.
A container that does not look like one. A hollowed book, a false cleaning bottle, a can with a screw base. It holds a key, a card, or cash without announcing that anything is kept. Whatever you pick has to belong where you put it. A single unfamiliar object on a shelf is the one that gets picked up.
Small lockbox with a key. A key cannot be watched and memorized the way a combination can.
Hardware-encrypted USB drive. A drive with a PIN pad built into the drive itself, so it does not depend on software on whatever computer you plug it into.

No storage method is completely secure. A locked box tells whoever finds it that something was worth locking. A drive can be lost and a PIN can be forgotten. Copies held by someone you trust are often safer than copies held at home.

Money They Cannot See

A prepaid card bought in a store with cash. Money in a shared account is money that can be seen, moved, or spent without you. A card bought with cash is not on a statement and is not attached to your name. Do not order one online, because the order is the record you were trying to avoid. Cash does the same job with nothing to buy, and neither one has to live in your wallet.

Finding Out Whether You Are Being Watched

Start with the free step. Both iPhone and Android warn you when an unknown Bluetooth tracker is travelling with you, and both let you scan on demand. That costs nothing and catches the most common kind.

RF and hidden camera detector. The radio side listens for anything transmitting nearby. The camera side is a ring of red lights around a small red filter: you look through it and sweep slowly, and a lens reflects the light straight back as a bright dot.
GPS tracker detector. For a vehicle. Wired units fitted to a car do not announce themselves the way a Bluetooth tag does.

Finding something is not the same as removing it. A tracker that stops reporting, or a camera that goes dark, tells the other person you found it, and roughly when. If you find something, talk to an advocate or the police before you touch it. What you do next depends on where you are in your own plan, and that is a decision worth making with someone who knows your situation.

They cannot ask about it. Asking why the tracker went quiet, or why your phone stopped reporting a location, admits what they were doing. That does not mean they let it go. It means they look for another way, and you will not be told about it. Watch what they do rather than what they say. A change in their routine, their questions, or their temper that lines up with something you changed is information.

Keeping Your Own Phone and Laptop Private

Privacy screen filter. A film that makes a phone or laptop screen unreadable from the side. Not many of them can protect your screen from someone standing behind you, and they’ll give you just enough time to close the screen before someone can see anything at all.
USB data blocker. A small adapter that lets a cable carry power but not data. Plugging a phone into a shared car or a computer that is not yours can copy the contents of it.
Signal-blocking pouch. A lined bag that stops a phone sending or receiving anything while it is inside, so your own phone reports no location for as long as it is in there. It only works if the second phone already holds the numbers and the information you need, because a phone in the pouch is unreachable to you as well. Treat it as short-term cover rather than somewhere to keep a phone. They will not ask why the signal stopped, and they will work on finding out.
Webcam cover or electrical tape. A cover for a laptop camera (but not the microphone).

Quiet

Silicone spray lubricant or WD-40. Silences a hinge, a window track, a gate latch, a screen door. Anything you may need to open at four in the morning without it announcing you. Silicone spray works on more surfaces and leaves less smell behind than oil.
Noise-canceling earbuds or earplugs. Banging on walls, slamming cabinets, yelling. Breaking things. You are frightened and you need to think, and noise like that makes thinking almost impossible. Cutting the volume buys back enough quiet to decide what to do. Earbuds that block outside sound also stop you hearing someone approach. Earplugs are listed again under Rest, for a different job.

If You Want an Alarm

Personal safety alarm. A keychain siren loud enough to carry past the walls of the house.

An alarm only works if someone hears it and acts. That means asking a neighbor, ahead of time, to call 911 the moment they hear it. That is the entire request. They do not need to know why, they do not need to come over, and they do not need to be involved past dialing.

If You Want a Weapon

Three conditions, and they all have to be true. You know how to use it, you are willing to use it, and you are willing to live with the possibility of it being used on you.

If any answer is a no, do not buy one. A weapon you will not use is a weapon you have handed the other person.

Pepper spray. The most commonly carried option. Some states limit the strength, the canister size, or who is allowed to buy it.
Stun device or Taser. Stun guns require contact with the attacker. A Taser “shoots” two electrodes through the air, but they can also be used in close contact. Laws on both vary widely and they change. Check what applies where you live, and where you travel, before you buy.

A firearm is not a link on a resource page. That is a conversation with a local instructor about training, and with an advocate about whether it makes you safer at all.

Records

Domestic Violence Safety Plan Workbook. Staying safer whether you stay or leave, with the space to write your own plan rather than read someone else’s. Sold here as a PDF, and on Amazon in paperback and Kindle from my author page.
Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log. A repeating structure for writing down what happened, when, and what followed, so eleven separate entries can be read as one pattern. Sold here as a PDF and not on Amazon.
The bundle of both. The log and the workbook together, sold here as PDFs.
Voice recorders, or the phone in your hand. A phone records video as well as sound, and either one is a record. Recording laws vary widely between states and countries. In some places recording a conversation without the other person’s consent is a crime, and a recording made that way can create legal problems for you rather than help you. Ask a local advocate or an attorney what applies where you live before you record anything.

Leaving and Returning

Leaving is not one thing. Sometimes you go because staying right now is not safe, and you expect to be back. Sometimes you go and do not return. You may originally think you will leave until they cool down, but after you’ve gone, you may change your mind. The opposite is also true.

The Go Bag

Duffel or backpack. The larger the go-bag, the more important hiding it somewhere outside the house becomes.
High-capacity power bank. You may not have a wall socket for a while, and a dead phone costs you the numbers in it.
Multi-device charging cable. One cable that fits every phone in your group.

Where the bag lives matters more than what is in it. A packed bag found at home might be worse than no bag. Consider keeping it at work, at a trusted person’s house, or in a rented locker.

The Car

Portable jump starter. A flat battery on the night you need to leave is a different problem from a flat battery on an ordinary day. A jump pack does not require another driver.
12V tire inflator. Same reasoning. A slow puncture should not decide anything.

Shoes and a coat, in the car. People leave barefoot. Whatever is already in the car is what you will have, and a coat and a pair of shoes in the trunk raise no questions.

Children

Almost nothing that protects a child is a purchase. Who they go to, what word means go now, which room they use, and that they know not to step in. Those decisions do more than anything that can be bought.

Do not take the child’s GPS device. It reports to an account, and an account can be opened by whoever set it up or whoever knows the password. A device that logs where your child is also logs where you are, which is the opposite of what you need.

Pets

Some shelters take pets, and some arrange fostering through a partner organization. It is worth asking before you assume a pet is the one keeping you there. The hotline below can tell you what is available near you.

Soft-sided pet carrier. Folds flat and stores easily, which matters when it has to live somewhere unremarkable until it is needed.
Slip lead. One loop over the dog’s head. Nothing to buckle, no collar to find first, and it lives in a coat pocket.
Travel food and water bowls. You could probably leave these in the trunk with no questions asked. But you know your situation better than anyone, and if they belong in a go-bag instead, put them there.

Free and worth doing now: check the pet’s microchip registration and make sure the name and phone number on it are yours and current. That registration is what decides who a found animal goes back to.

Leaving Forever

There is nothing to buy in this section, and that is not an oversight. Leaving for good is a plan: housing, money, and legal help. No product solves any of those. What it needs from you ahead of time is that the papers are already gathered, which is the first section on this page.

Recovering From Abuse

After separation the risks change rather than end. Most of what follows is about controlling who can find you, see you, or reach you, and about sleeping in a place that is finally yours. The last two sections are not about safety at all.

Checking What Came With You

RF and hidden camera detector. The same tool listed further up, used differently. Sweep the car, the bags, and the boxes before they go into the new place, then sweep the new place once you are in it.

The calculation changes once you have gone. Before you left, pulling a tracker announced that you knew. Now it may be the thing that keeps someone from learning an address. If anything turns up, tell whoever is handling your case. A device found after separation can matter to a protective order.

Stalking

Dual-lens dash camera. Records the road ahead and the inside of the car. If someone follows you, a plate number on video is worth more than a description you tried to memorize while frightened.
Doorbell camera. Also listed below under Your Door, for who comes to the door. It does a second job here, which is establishing a pattern of showing up.

A stalking case is built on dates, not on how frightening it was. One drive past the house is nothing on its own. Eleven of them, written down with the date and the time each happened, is a pattern, and a pattern is what an attorney or a judge can use. Write down every single one, including the ones that felt too small to count. The Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log in the footer of this page is built for exactly that.

Stalking is a crime in all fifty states. What counts, and what a protective order can do about it, varies by state. A local advocate will know yours.

Your Door

Door reinforcement kit. A long strike plate and three-inch screws that reach the stud behind the frame. The usual failure point on a forced door is the frame, not the lock.
Portable door lock. For a rental where you cannot change the hardware, and for hotel and temporary stays.
Door and window contact alarms. And a plan for what you’ll do if you hear them.
Motion sensor floodlight. Battery or solar models need no electrician and no landlord permission.
Video doorbell. Also listed above under Stalking, where the job is showing a pattern. A record of who comes to the door, which matters if you are documenting contact. Set it up on a new account, with a new email address and a password nobody has ever had. Check the shared-user list. Footage lives with the company and can be requested from them.

Mail and Paper

Micro-cut shredder. Cross-cut is the minimum and micro-cut is better. Anything carrying your new address is worth shredding, including delivery labels peeled off boxes. If they are the one that moves out, then shred your bank statements, credit card statements, etc. that they could use to fake your identity.

Rest

Blackout curtains. They stop light getting in, and they stop anyone seeing in.
Weighted blanket. Some people find the weight lessens anxiety. It is not a treatment for anything and it does not suit everyone.
Earplugs. Also listed above under Quiet, for a different job. Here it is a new building with unfamiliar sounds, when every unfamiliar sound gets checked.
White noise machine. Covers hallway and street noise in an apartment with thin walls.

Being Heard

The bruises get asked about. The rest of it does not, and you may have spent years having your version of events corrected. Wanting to be heard after that is not weakness and it does not go away because you moved.

Writing paper, envelopes, and stamps. Letters get said differently than anything typed, and nobody interrupts one. Some of them go in the post. Some of them are written to people who will never read them, and those count too.
A new journal. Not a worksheet and not a record for anybody else. Use it however you need to, including badly, including for one line a week, including for lists of things you are angry about.

Something Other Than This

Recovery is not only the paperwork and the locks. At some point the house is quiet and the problem is what is in your head. None of what follows treats anything. It gives your attention somewhere else to be for an hour.

A book that has nothing to do with any of this. A novel, a history, a thriller. Something you used to enjoy.
A starter kit for something you have never done. Watercolors, embroidery, coloring books, bread, a cheap keyboard, seeds. The point is not to be good at it. The point is an hour where the only thing you are deciding is what color goes next.
Over-ear headphones. For music, an audiobook, rain, a guided meditation. The apps that carry those are mostly free and the headphones are the part worth spending on.

Get Help Now

Free, and you don’t have to sign up for anything. Advocates can talk through timing, shelter, pets, and what the law is where you live.

National Domestic Violence Hotline 800.799.7233 · text START to 88788 · live chat at thehotline.org
Deaf Hotline Video phone 855.812.1001
StrongHearts Native Helpline 844.762.8483
Love Is Respect, for teens and young adults 866.331.9474
Outside the United States Contact your local domestic violence service or your emergency number.

All of the above are United States services. If you are reading this on a phone the other person can reach, a call to any of these numbers appears in the call log and perhaps on the bill.

The Safety Plan Workbook, the Incident and Pattern Log, and the bundle of both are sold here as PDFs. Buying direct leaves no Amazon order history, no confirmation email from Amazon, and no box at the door. Each product page also links to the same file sold under a plain, unrelated title, for anyone who needs the purchase and the download to look like something else. Not everyone needs that, and needing it says nothing about how bad things are.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Product links on this page are affiliate links.

Nothing on this page is legal, medical, or safety advice, and no product listed here can make anyone safe, prove abuse, or replace advice from a professional who knows your situation.