24 years ago at the age of 21, two older men in my small town community broke into my apartment and raped me.  I felt dirty, shameful and in shock because these men were both married with families and belonged to the same church as me.  Until recently, I never told anyone.

Since then, I've worked very hard raising my family and working as a child care provider out of my home.  Over the past 8 years I have been battling multiple physical medical issues.  Over the past year, the pain escalated, anxiety and depression took over, and finally a nervous breakdown forced me to quit my job and seek help.  I never imagined that something like this would or even could ever happen to me.

After so many years of taking care of others, I found myself unable to properly care for my family or even myself.

Last fall I finally got the medical help I needed to at least diagnose my medical issues.  I was told that I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  I was reluctant to believe that this could cause such dramatic physical problems at first.  But since then I have been diagnosed with PTSD by 4 other doctors in 4 separate fields addressing different problems that I've had.

The medical bills for all of this has taken its toll on my wonderful family.  We have our two oldest daughters college dreams on hold because we've had to use that money for medical bills.

We've maxed out all of our credit cards at over $50,000 and although my husband works very hard to bring in the most amount of money he can, we are not bringing in enough money to even pay our monthly bills and mortgage right now.

Up until now we have lived successfully as typical middle class Americans, with 6 awesome children and NEVER a late payment on anything.  However, within the past 6 month's we've borrowed all the money we can from family and are dangerously close to filing for bankruptcy.  Our current financial desperation is adding excessive stress to my mind every day and is completely counter-productive to the healing process that I'm trying to go through.  Unfortunately PTSD is still so widely misunderstood in mainstream society that most people can't even grasp the severity of what I'm going through or putting my dearly loving husband and kids through.  Not only does PTSD affect you physically, it gives you a feeling of "helplessness" that mirrors the situation that caused it. I feel like I'm being raped all over again.  Once again, I feel like I'm in a situation that I have no control over.

I'm doing everything medically and spiritually that I can on a daily basis.  Our family has always been givers and we intend to continue that kind of tradition with our children.  It pains me to ask, but I desperately need to ask for financial help right now.  I am in dire straights and I know we will turn everything around if we can pay down these bills, avoid bankruptcy and continue being able to get the help I need.  A grand total right now of $82,000 and counting.

Any amount of money that you could find in your heart to help me and my family would be tremendously appreciated and we'd be forever grateful.  I know that once I get through all of this I will use this experience to return whatever blessings came my way to helping others who are in desperate need. 

Thank you so much and God bless.