“This guy finds every way to hold me back.” “He is so cruel to me.”
His response to Brie was “No, I’m not paying for any babysitter.”
At the start of the phone call, she explained to him that she would like to start University, but she would need his help with paying for a babysitter in the evenings while she worked after school and he said he’s not sending her any money. Mind you, any child support he did send was minimal and sometimes there was none.
Fortunately, Brie is not a quitter. She applied for a student loan and started a home-based business. The home-based business did not generate much revenue, but it saved her so many times when she was short on rent and funds for groceries.
Brie was a great student, but unfortunately, she failed the first semester because she had to miss too many classes due to her daughter getting sick from being in daycare for the first time. As always, Brie didn’t let that stop her. She found a job, out of desperation and lack of time it was a cleaning job. She only lasted a month because she grew ill from the job and needed to leave. As a last resort, she reluctantly sent her daughter out of the country to stay with family while she attended school for a shorter 12-month program to learn a trade.
By this time Eliza was 2 years old. All this time Brie had been struggling to raise a child and survive on her own. She felt she had no support system, was lost in the world, and would dismiss her feelings of sadness, overwhelm, frustration, and defeat all for the sake of “staying strong”, and “making it through”. The stresses of Brie’s life and lack of support led to her starting to drink. She started drinking when Eliza was 3 months old, but the drinking worsened during this time.
Eventually, Brie had to move in with her daughter’s father but he forced her and their 3-year-old daughter out of the house. She and Eliza had no choice but to move in with her mother and her husband for 5 traumatic years while Brie tried to get back on her feet and build her business up to a point where she and Eliza could move into a place of their own. She could not generate enough revenue in her business to accomplish this.
Brie’s experience living with her mother and stepfather was challenging at times due to unresolved conflict in their household. Brie decided she’d had enough, and needed to increase her income ASAP and get a place of her own.
Brie did what she had been avoiding for years, she applied for financial support, upon approval, she found a place, applied for tenancy, and was approved. Within one month Brie and Eliza were living in their own apartment. Less than 2 months after moving into their new apartment Brie gained employment in an office setting which drastically increased her yearly income by 80% of what it had been in prior years.
Only 6 months after working, Brie decided it was time to realize some of her dreams of traveling starting with the country she had lived in for so many years but knew nothing about. Brie decided she would plan a week-long vacation for herself and her daughter, for the first time, she did her research to determine what the costs would be, determined the budget, and made a plan to save the funds. She decided on a $4000 budget. Mind you she has never saved this much on her own before but she was determined to do it.
