Help with Fixing My car

My car needs repairs. The upper headgasket is blown. There is antifreeze in the oil. The brake booster went at the same time. All 4 tires tread are on the wear bars.

Trigger warning ⚠️ suicide

I haven't been able to work since I witnessed a horrible tragedy. Suicide, committed by a young woman on the turnpike outside of Philadelphia 3 years ago. The woman had stopped on the side and waited for a semi-truck to step out in front of. I was driving the car behind the truck. All I could do was try and make sure no one else hit her.

I knew in my heart, her family would need her body to mourn. So I stood there in the dark, cold night trying to use my phone's flashlight to make sure oncoming traffic didn't hit either one of us.

The young woman looked like my oldest daughter (Lydia), who has struggled with suicidal ideation since she was a child, and my phone had this setting on where the flashlight turned off when you shook the phone, so I was panicking, crying, and praying all while Philadelphia traffic was coming at me at 70 miles an hour, trying to protect what was left of the young woman.

It was a miracle I was able to drive the hour and a half to my home afterward and made it physically home to the house I owned and lived in with 3/4 of my children (for 12 years in all). I really haven't been the same since. I have severe PTSD and anxiety now. I can barely force myself to leave my home. My mental health has caused me to be unable to work. I had to sell my house. My car was repossessed. I was 2 years from paying it off. After everything was all said and done, all I could do was buy a $5,000 car outright. My youngest daughter (Sierra) and I worked off half of the cost with physical labor. The auto dealer had us cleaning out the cars the shop bought and fixed to sell.

If it wasn't for the generosity of others, I wouldn't have had a place to live and haven't had an income to support myself since then. Sierra and I have relied on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and food banks to even be able to feed ourselves. However, those have ended.

My youngest son (Cedric) has been paying our phone bill and car insurance (only liability for both his and mine) since 2023. His sacrifice was exceptionaly difficult because he was also dealing with homelessness (living in his car) or with other people who generously helped him, but ultimately it didn't work out for one reason or another, and being jobless at more than one point up until extremely recently, and his car got totaled with only liability. So he no longer has a car and he is unable to help.

My oldest daughter Lydia is disabled (legally blind) and unable to work, so she is on disability and has been since the age of 18. When the house was sold, she ended up living in a $400 1975 pop-up camper that was a blessing but a money pit. Lydia was helping pay for (at one point) 3 storage units of things that came from the house. The units were in 2 different states. They were full of 7 different people's things. Lydia and I had to set it up where she had to move campsites every 28 days. Lydia only had so many options of campsites because she was using my Thousand Trails membership (7-year loan) I had gotten in 2018 and had to pay off with the sale of the house. So she was paying for gas, food, and other necessities every month for me to move her with my car. I found an apartment that Lydia could afford, but then she lost it due to other people's actions. Thanks to the generosity of others, she had a place to be until I had a place she could live. My youngest daughter Sierra had her birth certificate and social security card misplaced before she ever even had access to it. So she was unable to get an ID and therefore couldn't get a job.

She did not complete the high school diploma program she was in within the time limit she was given and has lost access to the website, unable to complete the last quarter of the curriculum. Even after getting an ID, with no license, no diploma, and no job history, at 21, she has not been an ideal hiring candidate and has been living where I have lived without a job for a little over 2 years, selling her belongings to take care of her responsibilities. Everyone has been doing everything we can, but we are running out of hope and out of options, especially since my car and Cedric's car broke down in May of this year. Not having a car has made life harder for a multitude of reasons. We have been attempting to sell off our belongings to make money to fix the car, but with not having any real income and still having regular bills because no one lives for free, having to feed themselves, it's next to impossible to save a dime, let alone $5,000.

It would be disingenuous to say we only have one specific reason. I need the car fixed because there are so many. The most important 3 are: The Feast of Tabernacles is coming up and my girls and I would like to be able to go and fellowship with our friends and family.

A friend of the family is having their first baby, my girls and I are invited to the baby shower in that state at the same time.

I also need to get a trailer back to the cousins who let me borrow it in order to empty out 2 of the 3 storage units.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story and any help, even just sharing this with your friends and family, will be greatly appreciated.