From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam. This is my unsung hero, stories where one person reached

out to help another in a time of need.

Hello, I would like to thank my unsung hero.

He invited me to come over for Christmas because we're both.

We're my unsung heroes.

I just want to say thank you.

Today's story comes from Renee.

We're using a pseudonym to protect her privacy. In 2016, Renee was

struggling to leave her relationship. Behind closed doors, my boyfriend was intimidating he was condescending he was

belittling it was very hard to stand up for myself I clearly had no self-confidence and yeah it was just a really tough time.

Renee and her boyfriend were living thousands of miles away from where they had both grown up.

They'd often travel back home to visit friends and family. On one of these

trips things came to a boiling point. They were sitting at the airport waiting

for their flight to board. And my boyfriend was searching for his passport,

but he couldn't find it anywhere.

So his frustration began to build, which is understandable,

but I became nervous because I was mentally bracing myself,

knowing that he was going to take it out on me.

We tried to retrace our steps as best we could. I was trying to help him and at one point I asked a question probably about you know where he last left it and that's when he aggressively snapped at me. I don't even remember what he said, but it was sharp, it was hot, it felt horrible.

And when he was aggressive like that, it just hits you like a punch in the stomach like you just you feel so alone

and it was a feeling I felt way too often I knew it wasn't right

but then suddenly a man approached us

...