I am asking for my daughter and her two boys. My daughter, 34, has two sons ages 7 and 10. She is currently a single mom. I’ll break down her story and her struggles, and why we’re at the point where now I’m asking for help.
My daughter was a bright, energetic person. She was sexually assaulted at the age of 16 by someone she knew. I didn’t find out about this until many years later. She herself repressed the memory of it…or perhaps just didn’t confront it. She went on to graduate HS and proceeded to start her college coursework at Loyola University in hopes of earning her psychology degree. When she was in her sophomore year, her college best friend was also sexually assaulted. My daughter’s efforts to help her friend through it, triggered the trauma from her own assault and over the course of a few months, she mentally and emotionally spiraled. She ended up leaving school and was admitted into a mental health facility for a couple of months after she openly discussed suicidal thoughts. She has been in therapy ever since.
A few years later she met a man who would go on to be the father of her children. Everything was great in the beginning. They both worked and got along great. She eventually got pregnant, despite being on birth control. She was told that the meds she was on for her mental health, affected the efficacy of the birth control. They went on to have a beautiful baby boy. Life seemed to be going well for them. When her first born was 2.5 years old, she got pregnant with their second child. Her boyfriend proposed and they got engaged, with plans to wed sometime after the second child was born. Well, as it so often happens, the birth of the second child caused a shift in their relationship. Things became strained and eventually led to him becoming mentally and emotionally abusive. That abuse became physical in a short span of time. When her second child was only 15 months old, she decided she’d had enough and she left her fiancé. I had her move into my home, and after a few months I helped her settle into her own place. I live in a small condo and unfortunately, the bylaws limited how long they could stay with me.
She’s had a very tumultuous co-parenting experience. He is either completely absent for months at a time, even living in different countries, or he is present locally and makes things very difficult for her. He seldom provides any financial assistance and even though she’s filed for child support, he doesn’t earn traditional income, and he can’t be docked for it. He basically lives off his mother’s finances and the income from an Airbnb rental that he has under his sister’s name in South America. She has managed to provide for her kids regardless.
Her problems began about two years ago. Her health started declining. I wish I could tell you what is wrong with her, but the doctors have not been able to figure it out. She can barely eat because it causes her digestive issues. She experiences severe abdominal pain afterward. She has joint pain, muscle aches, and randomly breaks out into rashes. Her weight has fluctuated drastically. She has mental brain fog, extreme fatigue…she can sleep for 14 hours straight. All of this has caused her to become depressed. She has anxiety, and at times suffers from panic attacks. Due to this she lost her job about a year ago. She lived off her savings for a while, supplementing her income with a couple of small businesses that she was able to do when her illness allowed. One was a custom printing business, the other is a houseplant pop-up shop that she erects at community events. She’s also done Uber Eats. Once her savings were exhausted, the supplemental income proved to not be enough. I stepped in to help her when needed. Unfortunately, I lost my job in December and was unemployed myself up until last week.
She has been trying for a few months to find a job. She has some government assistance to help…LINK and healthcare basically. It’s a fine line between finding a job that pays enough to cover their needs and finding a job that doesn’t pay enough but puts her over the threshold where she’d lose government assistance while ultimately making her overall financial situation worse.
She’s now at risk of losing her home. She’s behind on her mortgage payments, her utilities, and her car note. She can try to sell the house, but she doesn’t have much equity in it and she’d walk away with very little. Finding a 2-bedroom rental would eat that up with just the required deposit and upfront rents she’d have to pay. Plus, rental prices are higher than her mortgage is. And who’d rent to her if she has no job and bad credit? Obviously, the hope is that she can find a job soon. But even me, with the extensive experience I have, took 5 months to find one.
I know the economy is horrible and we are all suffering with it. But if you could find it in your heart to help, it would be so appreciated. I’m just trying to help her stay afloat and not lose her home. LIHEAP has helped with some of the past due utilities, but it didn’t cover everything. She also needs to make some car payments, so it doesn’t get repossessed. She needs the car to transport her kids and for the Uber runs she’s still doing.
I am very concerned with what the stress of this situation is doing to her mental health and how that may affect her.
