Help Ben Trigg recover from poor judgment & abused kindness

Hi there. I'm Ben, your friendly neighborhood geeky poet. For the past 24 years I have been the co-host of the weekly open mic, Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at The Ugly Mug in Orange, California. Also for over two decades I have worked for an educational research non-profit, specifically helping schools in California collect school climate survey data so they know how to best focus efforts to support their students. I share a home with my dad and our two semi-feral rescue cats, Tempest and Pearl.

Now that we've been introduced, the reason I've set this up:

Over the past 3 years I have allowed myself to be manipulated into loaning far more money than I could afford to a person who convinced me I would get paid back. I thought I was helping someone get on their feet as they struggled through homelessness while they worked on finding employment, and then health problems while they waited on a disability case. I got caught in a brutal sunk cost fallacy, throwing good money after bad in hopes of coming out ahead (or at least less behind). I have recently learned I have been scammed. The disability case was a lie and there doesn't appear to have been any intention to pay me back. I got severely into debt believing I was keeping this person alive long enough for both of us to turn things around. I believed the lies about getting paid back to the point that I lent more than I had and ended up needing my dad's help to pay my mortgage. The true kick in the pants is that there was no point at which my own desperation mattered to this person who claimed to care about me. I can see now that she would gladly have taken every last cent I had and left me as homeless as she was when I foolishly began helping her. I am now beyond broke. I have monthly payments on these debts that are more than I make. I feel like my life is over. Rationally, I know that's not true and that I will get through this, but I also know that I will be paying for this mistake for the rest of my life.

I do not expect to get anywhere near the amount I've lost from this GoFundMe, but I am hoping to get enough to get me out of this hole in some way; whether that is getting enough to pay my debts down to a manageable level, or if that is getting enough to hire an attorney to declare bankruptcy.

I feel that I must acknowledge that I have previously asked for help because of this situation. Unfortunately I did not listen to the wisdom of everybody around me that told me to cut my losses and cut this person off. I wish to assure you that I have done that now. She's not getting anything from me ever again.

So, this is me humbly acknowledging my mistakes, promising that I have learned from them, and asking for your help so that I can recover from this as best I can.