Watching the images of Hurricane Katrina victims on her second-hand television set, Kelli Ramsier feels their pain.

She knows all too well what it is like to start over — with literally nothing but the clothes on your back.

Because six months ago that’s what she had to do.

She didn’t flee Mother Nature. She ran for her life from an abuser — the man she loved, cared for and cowered from for five horrific years. The man who fathered two of her sons. The man who convinced her that she was worthless without him.

In the early morning hours of May 26, she left her northeastern Nebraska community and boarded a bus for Lincoln with nothing but the clothes she was wearing.

She came to Friendship Home, where she lived for eight weeks before moving up to “transitional housing” and ultimately an apartment of her own.

Her youngest, 18-month-old Hunter, plays on the living room floor with a block sorter while Clifford the Big Red Dog plays on the television. Her other two sons still live with relatives.

Kelli waves her slender hand around the room. The couch, the TV, the end table, the lamp, her kitchen table, Hunter’s toddler bed and high chair and her matching set of birdhouse dishes are all from Friendship Home, which not only helped her find the strength to start over, but gave her the very basics to survive.

And so it seems rather ironic in this time of great need, when thousands upon thousands of hurricane victims receive an outpouring of money, clothes and assistance from strangers from all over the world, that the people who may ultimately suffer the most because of  this generosity live in our own communities, our own back yards.

“Hurricane relief is important and people are in crisis,” said Wendy McCown, development director at Friendship Home. “But the reality of people living in crisis and doing things they wouldn’t normally do — that happens every day in Lincoln.”

That’s why sharing the generosity in the south and here in Lincoln is critical, she said.

If everyone in Lincoln gave just $1 they could raise $200,000 from the community, McCown said — enough to keep all 50 beds in Friendship Home’s two shelters open.

Only 44 beds are available these days, because of funding problems. The waiting list of women and children wanting safe shelter from abusers was 77 at press deadline, according to McCown.

Among those women waiting is Julie (not her real name). Julie and her children have been on the list for 2½ months. She has filed for divorce from her abusive husband. She says he stalks her, calls her repeatedly, stands outside her door, outside her windows, watching her and threatening her both directly and indirectly by his persistent presence.

“When a woman chooses to leave (her abuser), it is the most dangerous time in her life,” McCown said.

“Domestic abuse is not about bruises and fists to the face. It’s about power and control,” she said. “And abusers will go to great lengths to make sure they maintain that power and control.”

Kelli lived with her abuser for five years — she wanted to leave for three. They shared addictions to methamphetamine and alcohol. He controlled everything from what she wore to what time dinner was to be on the table to how long she could be at the grocery store.

Faced with financial struggles, they often had to choose between food, heat, medical care, diapers or drugs.

Drugs always won out, Kelli said.

 She discovered she was pregnant while she was being treated at a hospital following a beating that left her with a stab wound, broken ribs, a laceration to her head and a dislocated hip. Before  X-raying her hip, doctors administered a pregnancy test. It came back positive.

From the beginning “he was always abusive in little ways,” Kelli recalls of her former boyfriend.

He would stand in the lobby of the fast food restaurant where she was the manager watching to see who she talked to and how she acted. He called her 20-plus times a day at work. Eventually she lost her job.

She also lost contact with her family and became more and more isolated. He sold her birth certificate, driver’s license and social security card — effectively selling her identity and all options for having a life of her own.

As she tried to kick her meth habit he would ridicule her. “You think you’re better than me,” she recalled him saying time and again.

Said McCown, “Drug addiction is another control tactic.”

Usually the victims are like Kelli — women who have left self-defense marks on their abusers, who have substance abuse problems, who have been in trouble with the law.

Legal problems changed Kelli’s life for the better.

She was arrested after shoplifting baby formula for Hunter. A repeat offender, she served six months in jail.

Hunter went into foster care.

In jail, Kelli said she “got over” needing and missing her abuser.

She got help. She went straight from jail to a Lincoln-bound bus where someone was waiting to take her to Friendship Home.

She regained custody of Hunter. She attends three support group  meetings a week — one for domestic abuse survivors, one for recovering drug addicts and one for domestic abuse survivors with children.

Through the help of her case manager she is building a life. She continues to reclaim her identity and fight the credit nightmares created by the fraudulent Kelli Ramsiers. She lives in an apartment where her car cannot be easily spotted and where she can keep watch just in case.

In January she will return to school. She wants to be a drug and alcohol counselor for teens and preteens.

She smiles readily. She’s confident and self-assured. She’s proud of all she has accomplished since May.

To a stranger, it’s hard to imagine the old Kelli.

But Kelli remembers  — every single day. Not always with haunting dreams of what was — but with glee at the simple pleasures of her new life.

“I can eat what I want to eat. I can cook what I want to cook. … I can take Hunter to McDonald’s and Chuck E. Cheese,” Kelli said. “We went to the zoo twice this summer. … We’ve spent a lot of time together doing all the things we weren’t able to do before.

“I’m able to be myself,” she said.

“I’m able to put a smile on Hunter’s face — no one can ever replace that.”

Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.