I am writing this letter to express the importance of my financial need. I have been estranged from my family for four years. My estrangement was due to a conflict that had been an on going argument before I left my parents household. For many years of my life as a young child I was sexually abused by one of my half brothers. It took me several years after this abuse to tell my parents. When I told them, I was hoping for some support, in turn my parents were not very empathetic. I received an apology from my brother and a very clear message from parents. The message was to keep this between us, because if other family members were to find out it would cause chaos in the family. I was strong enough to do so for a while but eventually needed some support. At that time I was
Since then I have been living on my own working forty or more hours a week to support myself. Working so many hours and dealing with the tremendous amount stress and depression had entailed my academic performance to drop way below my potential. Last year I felt the need to seek counseling and I did. I went for a few sessions but I could not afford to keep going, so I did not go back. While in therapy I learned many things about myself and how not to push myself too far.
living with my godparents, my mother’s half sister and brother-in-law, and I told them. They were very supportive and could not understand why my parents treated the situation like they did. My godparents felt obligated to address this situation with my parents. This issue caused my family to fall into great turmoil. Family members began