Help Alyson Rebuild a Safe Home For Herself and Kids.

Hello, I hope my letter finds whoever's reading it well. My name is Alyson. I'm 44 years old. I know everyone has hardships in life; believe me, I know I'm not the only one. But for whatever reason, I was dealt one crummy hand after another. I've always wished people could know my heart. I was born to an alcoholic mother who kept me away from my alcoholic father. She also moved me away from my entire family in Alabama to Panama City Beach, Florida. So I only had her. I missed my grandmother very much, who raised me until I was four. My mom married my stepdad when I was four, and I watched them fight for years and sometimes even beat her. One memory that stands out to me still to this day is while drunk, he smashed a toilet in a motel we were staying at when I was 5 years old. It flooded the whole room, and my mom cut her leg open on the porcelain from the toilet. My baby sister, who is 5 years younger than me, was in her crib screaming, so I ran over to get her and hold her so she would not be afraid. So my mom beat him over the head with a hammer. Another memory was my stepdad chasing us down our dirt road with a butcher knife because he drank dark liquor, which made him very mean. We moved homes more than I changed shoe sizes. My stepdad left us 13 different times in my young life but kept coming back when my mom felt lonely, instead of putting her children first. I don't hold this against my mom any longer because I know she was doing the best she could at the time. And when you know better, you do better! But maybe that has something to do with why I never pick the best partners in life. I always try to see the good in people, and I tend to take people at their word. I suffered with alcoholism my whole life from the age of 14, which led to many bad decisions and accidents. God spared my young life many, many times. I've been alcohol-free for 7 years now. I plan to never go back to that lifestyle that has caused me, and the people around me, so much heartache. It's all I ever knew..There's a lot of underlying issues as well. I'm in the process of finding a doctor who can help me with a possible diagnosis of autism. I'm highly functioning, except my whole life, as far back as I can remember, even in grade school, I have been painfully shy, had panic attacks and always felt out of place like I didn't belong. I could not focus on anything the teachers were trying to teach us and was just ate up with severe anxiety constantly. This went on my entire life. So when I was 14, I tried alcohol; it totally erased my anxiety, so I was hooked. I actually used to drink with my mom. It made me feel "normal," I thought at the time! But because of my alcoholism, my life became out of control. I did not know how to live sober. I reached out for help, but instead of helping me, DCF took my children. My older children are 24, 18, and 13. I don't see them. We speak sometimes, but I am in the process of getting yet another attorney to help me get to see my 13-year-old. In 2019, I spent the only $1,500 I had, and the attorney dropped the ball and let my girl's dad move across the country with them, even against the court order that he wasn't supposed to leave the county.

When I met the person I'm with now, he said all the right things. Even that he would help me get my girls back and that he could help me/us have a better life. I believed him because I really wanted it to be true. We met in church, so I thought there's no way he could be any different than he's claiming. He was the one to help me move into my subsidized housing apartment, only he never left.

I ended up getting pregnant a year after we met, again because of alcohol. When we met, he said he did not drink or do drugs, except he did all the above, and I followed suit, yet again. Now I've been in a loveless relationship for the past 13 years. It has been full of empty promises, a lot of anger and outbursts. I ended up just pretty much living in my bedroom, in my apartment, only growing my agoraphobia. Instead of getting better, which I really truly from the bottom of my heart prayed that it would, it has become unbearable. I have been trying to make this work for the children's sake. We have a soon-to-be 12-year-old darling smart little boy, a 10-year-old precious little girl, and a 7-year-old baby boy who steals my heart on a daily basis. Their dad ended up moving into our boys' bedroom, pretty much taking it over. I asked him to please leave so many times, and his response was, "I'm not going any effing where." We lived in my subsidized housing apartment community for 13 years. Their dad, promised to work really hard for our family to be able to move into our very own home. Like I said, that was 13 years ago. He only worked the bare minimum, enough to sometimes pay the power bill and cell phones. Most of the time, the power would get up to around $800, and they would shut it off. Then he would turn to his mother to cover it because he has no conception of how to budget money.

Mind you, he's 48 years old. There have been a couple of years that he would go file taxes and not tell me that he did that, claiming three of our children, and then hide the money from me from our tax return. I ended up losing my apartment in subsidized housing because he would not go put his name on the lease. I could have stayed there if he would have just left. But now we are in an apartment that costs between $1,600 and $1,800 a month. His attitude has only gotten worse because now he says things like, "This is my house, I pay for this, I pay for that," even though for 13 years he didn't do anything except promise this and that. I cannot pretend anymore because this is not healthy for me or my children any longer. For they are old enough now to see their mom's unhappy & they deserve the healthiest, happiest Mommy! Every time we argue, I try to say, "Let's go to the next room." I hate that it does not bother him that the kids hear the way he talks to me sometimes. He makes sure I don't have any money when he's angry, he tells me I cannot drive the car anymore, and I have to take the kids to school on bicycles or on foot. Usually they're just words and I do get the car.. but this up and down is ridiculous.. and I want my Independence back, because now I'm stuck in an apartment I cannot afford, with no car of my own, all alone after giving up a very nice and affordable place of my very own with my children. All because I wanted to see the best in my kids' dad so they would not come from a broken home like my older girls. But there's no fixing our relationship. Being with him is doing nothing but making my mental health much worse. I can tell he doesn't really love me and hasn't for a long time. It's just been convenient for him all this time because he used to live with his mom, then met me at church. I take care of the house and our three children. And always have. I'm tired of being talked down to and belittled. I want to be self-reliant again. I'm just stuck right now without an income. I don't know what else to do or where to turn. I've never asked for help like this before. He also threatens to turn my phone off, but doesn't. It's getting so old. I don't know what else to do, but God put this on my heart to just try to reach out to people on here and see where this may go. Hopefully closer to eventually having a car of my own again. My last vehicle, my grandma left me when she died, he left it parked at a gas station where there was no parking, and it got towed, and he never went to go pick it up. I've always been self-reliant, paying my own rent, having my own vehicles, paying my own insurance and cell phones, and all my bills. Since meeting him, my life has gone down the tubes, and it's only getting worse. I wish I could find a small home close to my sister who lives across the bridge about 15 miles from me. She's married and doing so well. I thought I was going to have a life like that, but he is definitely not the one. I feel like I have tried long enough to keep the kids out of a broken home, but at this point, this is not going to be good for their mental health in the future as well. He doesn't care that their mother is upset and does not know what to do. I sometimes think he thinks it's funny, as sick as that sounds. But he knows that he has taken some prime years away, and now I don't have my own place or vehicle because of him. I don't know if he loves the control or what, but I need help. I need help bad.

After he refused to leave my apartment for 13 years, I cannot believe that this is happening to me right now. I'm not interested in finding another man, probably ever. Unless God puts a good Christian man in my path years up the road? I'm only interested in taking care of my children every day for the rest of my life and making sure they have a childhood that was nothing like my own. I'm going to wrap this up for now. Believe it or not, there are many things that I have left out because I know this is already so very long. Thank you for your time. I'm just trying to get on my feet, and I have no one else to turn to. My kids deserve the best; they're really great kiddos! If anyone can find it in their heart to help me get back on my feet, I would be forever in debt to you! I'm just praying for a second chance, and I promise to continue making the best decisions for my children and myself.. Thank you, and may God bless you!