Dani's Fight for Her Daughter's Future

Hello friends, it's very hard for me to write this, and it has been hard for me to accept all the events in my life that have taken place for me to get to this point in my life.

I was a victim of sexual abuse from a person in my own family for 12 years. Because of the depths of my trauma, I have battled suicidal thoughts and depression ever since I was a teenager. I was a child back then and did not know how to cope with the situation. I fell into substance abuse. I was able to leave the situation with this person once I turned 18, but it took me almost all my 20s to mentally mature and understand the depth of what happened to me and why I was not able to be like my friends who I grew up next to and why my life feels like a series of unfortunate events.

This situation has forever broken a part of me and the relationship with my direct family as this person never acknowledged what they did and instead decided to evade everything and is still an active member of my family. This has left me to bear on my own, trying to create a life for myself.

Unfortunately, this trauma has affected me and my ability to love and receive love from someone. I haven’t been able to have a healthy relationship, and I have a very codependent form of attachment with my partners as I now understand was taken away from my vital providers way too soon in life. I am looking for help and currently starting an assessment with Henderson Behavioral Health and have an appointment coming 1/24/2025.

Feeling oftentimes very alone and without real support in life as most people do have. I know there are people in way worse situations than me. But what happened to me takes a toll on my daily life. Now I am a mother, and I have the responsibility to be a good example for my daughter and to protect her as much as I can from her to never endure what I did.

I don’t write all of this for people to just feel sorry for me. We all have a story. I feel I am in a situation where I really need to reach out to other humans who hopefully can sympathize and help me.

I currently live in an apartment with my beautiful daughter who is my strength to try to stay alive and do the best I can for myself and her. Her dad is a good man and helps me as much as he can, and so does his family. My rent went up to $2000 last May, and since then, I have been slowly falling behind on my bills and paying late fees. Between rent, groceries, insurance, phone, and electricity, I am left with nothing, and I am currently in debt.

The worst of my issues is that since last September, I stopped being able to pay for car insurance, and my tag expired at the same time. I have been driving illegally since then. To renew insurance for only one month and the tag registration of my car, I will need $450. I cannot stop driving and going to work, but I cannot keep piling up citations. I have been stopped by the police 3 times since September for my expired tag, and now on top of my car debt, I have 3 citations and 3 parking tickets that equal $900. If I continue this way, I will lose my license, my car, and the ability to move and be a provider for my daughter and my cats.

This is very hard and almost shameful to express, but it is my truth, and I am fighting to stay here and see my daughter grow. I hope you find it in your heart to help me so I can at least get back on the road legally so I can continue to work and provide for myself and my daughter and continue to work on my mental health and overcoming all that trauma that happened to me but does not need to define the rest of my life.

Thank you for reading, from the bottom of my heart.

Dani