*EDIT* - Wow. Thank you *ALL* so much.
This came out much more... 'victimy' than I meant, but, like I said, I felt like a kicked and defeated, beaten puppy. I need therapy, I know. I'm broken. M'just terrified, you know? Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyways, I'm not going to change the original whinging, but all's... doing OK now. I have a lawyer, I've replaced the car so I can keep working -- which was the main thing. I'm now just figuring out what to do with Mom. She'll likely have to move out here, as this accident has set me *WAY* back.  But  hey, she liked it here. *I* am just the insane person that misses Ohio! :-D


Where do I start.

Let me start at the beginning of my move to California, and everything that has me feeling like a destroyed, beaten, and defeated puppy.
I will skip over some details, or else I'll be typing forever.

In 2006, I moved here from Ohio to be with my mom and stepdad after they moved from Ohio to here in 2003.
The first year was fine. My roaming computer repair business started picking up, things were going alright, etc.

October/November 2007 rolls around, and grandpa was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Mom and I flew back to Ohio to see him, grandma and the rest of the family.

Come back home. ....my car is gone, mom's car is gone, my stepdad is missing, there are homeless people, drug addicts, and flat-out criminals living in the house. Stepdad finally shows up and won't get rid of them. These are the type of people that, if I even tried to report either car stolen, I'd have been executed in the desert. I stick around to make sure mom is safe and has everything she needs.

June 2008: the house gets raided. I'm pulled out of bed at gun point and handcuffed. I, personally, love police, so I treat them as I would treat anyone else I like: truthfully, with some playful snark in there. No cuffs.

July 2008: Raided again. I'm bodily pulled out of bed, handcuffed, and made to sit outside. Apparently, there was a pair of nunchucks on my floor. Those are illegal in California. I told the truth. Yes, they were mine, but they'd been missing for nearly a year; this was the first I'd seen of them in that long, and they weren't on my floor when I went to bed. I'm uncuffed.

August 2008: Power gets cut off to the house. I'm done. This has been going on for more than a year. I move down the street to my sister's house. I don't have enough income to have my own place -- and when stepdad *FINALLY* goes to prison, Mom and stepdad's-disowned-daughter's-second-abandoned-child become homeless. Any spare money I have immediately goes to them from here forward.

I'll skip a bit more; it gets more messed up along the way, but we'll bring it to today.

I'm heading home from the UPS store, and some IDIOT decides to drive from the Del Taco driveway, across 5 lanes of traffic, to get to a Starbucks.

And, obviously, she wasn't watching where she was going.

My car is *DESTROYED*. 2020 Kia Soul GT-Line vs 2019 Chevy Tahoe.
I had no possible time to react.

I don't have the money to replace the car. Yes, insurance will cover the balance of what I owe, but that will give me nothing towards actually being able to get a down payment to get another good car.
With the amount of driving I do, I need to get a new car with a good warranty.

This is also going to take every penny I had set aside to attempt to move back to Ohio.

I want out of this state so bad. But I need a car in order to gather the funds to be able to *DO* that.

TL;DR: Happiness is illegal in California, Gavin 'The Lich King' Newsom will find a way to make you hate life, and someone else will help enact it.