My name is Liz, I’m 45 years old, and completely helpless. Five years ago, I held a mid-level management position at a five-star hotel, owned a condo with my husband of (now) 20 years, and was living an independent life. I was on my 5th interview for a job that would take me out of Tampa and into Chicago. Then rumors of an illness started swirling and the dream job was pulled. Then I had to put my cat to sleep. And then I lost my job. All within a period of two weeks. Because I was in Florida and barely made it as it was, I only made it six months before it became necessary to sell my condo and move back in with my parents back in New England. The intention was that I was going to go back to school to improve my job prospects and get out of hotels completely. The hubs would work and put aside money so we could move out as quickly as possible
Very quickly, we realized that my niece (“Hope”) and nephew (“Art”) were in an abusive situation. Although we (my parents and I) had been told over the years that they had been attending online school and were just regular teenagers. It turned out Hope had severe OCD brought on by the hoarding situation she had been raised in and had been emotionally and psychically abused by her cruel mother.
Art was the middle child and was AFAB. He quickly understood that he was a boy despite getting a menstrual cycle at 8 and his family hiding him from the world. His mother and father believed that he was just a girl who had a bad attitude, and were emotionally and physically abusive leaving behind severe PTSD in addition to being autistic without any treatment or early intervention. It was a no-brainer that they would stay with us and they came to share the home my parents and I lived in.
About 3 months into the arrangement, Hope attempted to unalive herself. I took a leave of absence from work to take care of my husband, whose OCD turned disabling experienced a severe mental break. (Now, we’re at year 3 and we still don’t have disability or effective treatment.) And my sister, the provider of genetic material and womb to these kids, decided to take her youngest (a non-verbal autistic) to marry a 25-year old she met on a video game to live in Iowa. Their father has seen them less than 10 times in the last three years. Even though the kids are numerically 19 and 21, they are not capable of entering society yet, but we’re working on getting there. Which leads me to now.
Hope is a lesbian and Art is intersex and we’ve quickly realized that they’re not safe. Their parents are unpredictable and in debt, and the kind of assholes who would turn in their children for a buck to make their lives easier. I am hoping to provide long-term care for my uncle, in addition to my parents, as we are the only family we all have and life hasn’t been kind to us financially. These funds would allow us to buy a five-bedroom house and enough space to grow our own food.
I will be asking a person with more social media skills than me to help me make this a little better. I appreciate your kindness and understanding.