After trying every avenue I know of, I am at the end of my rope trying to figure out how to get up out of the hole I am stuck in. I have been unemployed since July 2022. I was working as a Licensed Community Association Manager in Florida for the company I had been with for nearly five years when I lost my job suddenly, but the story of how I got to where I am is something I myself can hardly believe but I will try to summarize.
One thing I know for sure is that when life knocks you all the way down and takes away everything you have ever worked for, it is grueling to even try and get the assistance you know you truly need from any government agency, including receiving your own unemployment benefits, which I have still not after all this time received. I now live in a house in Alabama where I am from that my daughter leased so we could all try and recover together. It has not gone to plan and she stays broke and in the negatives and I have no income whatsoever since my vehicle was repossessed.
I have no advocates from any other organizations that can help in my circumstances and I have no support system in any friends or family. I have my children, who are 24, 22, and 17 who are not and should not be responsible for supporting me as their mother. It should be the other way around so they can have a better start at their young lives than I had. I thought I was headed in the right direction but greed and tragedy had its way. The only thing I see I can do is tell my story and hope that anyone in the world might care enough to help me.
In September of 2017, I was unemployed and my father had recently passed away. I was beyond grief stricken and frustrated but I found a job with a local Association Management firm in spite of my circumstances. I honestly had no idea what I was doing but turns out, neither did the owner so I was told to “make it my baby”. I took that literally (I LOVE my babies) and set out to make something out of almost nothing. I had no co-workers, no training, and no idea what I was going to do but I have a tendency to just do and figure things out so that is what I did and as I experimented with different things, started getting busier, and seeing results. All I really did was genuinely care about the people and act out of that main idea. What do ya know? That notion is good for companies and their success and when people are sincere, other people know it.
I became so busy that I needed help by October so I convinced the owner to allow me to bring in my sister to help me. She and her husband owned their own foundation company that was struggling and she was skilled at both admin work and knowing people who could perform work in our communities. She was scared to get into an office outside her own but agreed knowing that she would get health benefits and a paycheck, which her household needed as much as mine at the time and it reassured her that I was there to guide and build her confidence so she very much thrived in her position. I gravitated toward the accounting, communication, and technical duties so we became a great team.
She and I built that company from six accounts in Alabama when we started to over a hundred accounts in two states by 2021. We endured years of incentives dangled in our faces that we never received, worked hours we did not get paid for, drove miles we did not get reimbursed for, tolerated the owner’s crude behavior toward us and others, and poured our passion and most of our daily lives into that company only to have the owner place us into a power struggle game with new hires who would work for less money at the promise of one day “taking our roles”.
In 2021, after working through the worst of the pandemic and watching he and his wife spend the PPP money on exotic cars and a full house remodel among other things, he sent me to Florida to release the LCAM who was running the branch into the ground with illegalities. I then began to run the branch although I still lived in Alabama. During that time, my sister’s treatment at the office had started to decline severely with us being separated and I was being made to travel every week. She was not even able to function at work anymore and was offered a “medical leave” to which she refused and she was fired. This devastated her. I was made to move to Florida under the incentive that I would be compensated higher, be given a vehicle, have the rent supplemented since it was out of my range; all to rebuild the branch by correcting the existing issues while growing the accounts to create more revenue. I was successful at this, however the owner of the company was never true to his promises. I had sold both of the cars I owned in order to consolidate to one vehicle (under the owner’s guidance), I sold my house, and uprooted myself from the place I had lived 40 years, the rent check then never came on time, and we were not taken care of as a branch for supplies and support, but I kept pouring myself into it thinking it would somehow benefit me and the other employees one day and I wanted the branch to grow. (I have a thing for rebuilding broken things) My sister was unemployed and started losing everything she had. I was so torn between where I was stuck and wanting to be with her. She was deteriorating and while I kept telling her to seek help from someone…anyone… I know now so well how horrible it is to try.
From February – April of 2022, my sister and I had four deaths in our family. In April, one cousin’s funeral was just the day before our uncle’s, who had just buried our other two cousins who were both his grandsons. I was able to convince her to come to the one funeral with me. She was in a complete state of shock still from the job loss and not knowing how to pick back up. She looked physically ill and was mentally ill from the stress of it all. Our mother was also not treating her kindly, even though she lived nearby, and she yelled, cursed, and belittled her daily for asking her for help. I won’t go on about our mother but the abuse in our lives has been devastating and all carried so long under the biggest lie we tell ourselves: “someone else has it so much worse” “I’m fine”
In May of 2022, my sister committed suicide at 54. This beautiful creature who was my hero and everything I ever wanted to be somehow felt she had no worth and was broken. A burden to the world, she said. I had always felt like a burden for the way my life had gone. She had worked hard all her life to get what she had and it all was collapsing. We both grew up being abused by our mother only to move right in to being abused by our spouses. I had been telling her to get help when she reached out to me. I thought I had done all I could until she was gone and I started just thinking I should have walked away from everything I was doing to help her myself. Our boss would not let us keep doctor appointments, and I have cPTSD and Hashimoto’s Disease. He would not let us take vacations, take time off, be compensated for going the extra mile, or anything that truly benefited anyone other than himself.
Before my sister passed away, my best friend of 37 years found out she was sick with liver failure and two months after my sister was gone, so was she. I was devastated. The only two people I had in the world to count on were gone within two months of each other. My marriage had been rough at the same time and he was more than unsupportive through all the death and devastation that had fallen upon me. I won’t go into detail about him either but it was just another frustrating situation to have to deal with and still is.
My boss then used all these events as an opportunity to get rid of me once and for all. He offered me a medical leave, guaranteeing my job once I had recovered from these losses and I accepted. When I reached back out about six weeks later, I was ignored until I persistently asked when I could come back to work and got the answer that they didn’t have anything for me. I was again… devastated. My husband and I split in July, he paid none of the bills we had accumulated together which were to the tune of $5000.00 per month and I quickly began to spiral. My unemployment never came through so I was about to become homeless quickly. I created a go fund me which generated enough money to catch up the most important of the bills I was behind on and bought me some time to find a new job, although now I still would have only one income and two incomes worth of bills.
I reached out to a competitor to inquire about a position he tried to convince me to take the year prior and he hired me. The ladies in the office were familiar with who I was unfortunately and were not fond of me due to my previous employment so I lasted two months and was released on the terms that I just didn’t fit in. I had to use the last of my little bit of money to move back to Alabama.
My daughter has a great job as an HR Assistant but it isn’t enough to afford this household alone and she is suffering tremendously. I feel responsible even though I know what lead to this isn’t my fault. I was not able to secure a job here in Alabama before my vehicle was repossessed and I had been DoorDashing every day to be able to pay just what I needed in order to live here. I now have no cellphone service, no vehicle, no income, no support system or financial assistance and soon my daughter will need to break this lease so she can utilize the hard earned money she makes to further her own future, just as she very well deserves. I can’t even take care of my pets anymore without having someone else get them food.
I know what my sister must have been feeling because trying to find some help in my crisis has been impossible and keeps leading to more crisis that just makes me feel worthless when I know I have things I am great at and can achieve just like everyone else and I have the determination to do them. I applied for disability but it takes a year for it to go through. It is 41% complete and usually those are denied the first time anyway. I have applied for countless remote jobs and none have hired me. I applied to school and can’t even pay the costs of getting my SAT documents because they are so old and archived. I keep telling everyone that I am just trying to get my footing so I can stand back up and keep moving but I cannot get the footing anywhere.
My utility bill is currently late, all my credit cards are in default, I have a vehicle repossession, my credit score went from 700 to 500, I cannot finish paying for my divorce, I am about to have no place to live, and can’t even get a job without a vehicle. I am looking after my mental health and that is all I can do because if I don’t, my cPTSD and autoimmune illness will consume me. I did spend a week in a facility and am doing everything I can to get the care I need but it is made so much more difficult with all the things the way they are and I have to live a healthy lifestyle to keep my illnesses in check. My family and I need help so badly. I know everyone plays their own part in everything that happens to them, but these things I have had no control over and I am at a loss for what to do about it. I managed to get myself and my kids away from my abusive first husband and raise them on my own and I have always been able to pick up and keep going after anything major has happened. That is just life, I always say, but not this time and I have nowhere to turn. After almost a year of her being gone, I have gotten less than nowhere.
Thank you for reading my story. I have never asked anyone for help like this before and I feel ashamed but I have got to keep trying somehow. Here is a list of everything I am struggling with and dollar amounts but I would be grateful just to not have the lights and water turned off at this point and a vehicle so I can be the reliable employee I am. The full amount would be about $45,000 to set things back in order fully but I do not expect that. I would love to help my daughters get what they need so they aren’t held back from the start of their bright futures. I really want to go to school myself and get my accounting degree since I was the Director of Finance for 4 years but no one will hire me because I don’t have a degree. I have solid goals and ambitions and good ideas that are stirring in my mind and am unable to produce anything with them. It kills me that I am not able to take care of myself or my family when that is all I have ever wanted to do. I am humiliated, discouraged, and the silver linings I am usually so good at seeing are coming few and far between. I am appreciative of anything I can receive. Thank you.
Utilities and Water – $224.89
Home – $13,600 (pays the duration of the lease my daughter is struggling with)
Vehicle – $6,000 (for a good used car)
Debt – $25,000