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This is my story:
Hello everyone, My name is Dana and I am a writer and entrepreneur. I have dreamed of writing the great American novel and creating a business that can provide for my needs but like most things for me nothing has gone as planned.
Until recently my self-employment had provided enough for me to pay the rent and buy just the essentials for life--nothing more. It was enough. I don't need much.
What has happened? As a Buddhist I have always sought to help others when I can. I met a woman who said she was a recovering drug addict and former prostitute but she assured me that lifestyle was in her past and she convinced me she was striving for a better life. I believed her. I wanted to help her see that life was more than drugs and sex. And for the first week or so it was wonderful. I showed her things she had never seen before--Edgar Allen Poe's grave and home, the Baltimore inner harbor, dinner at decent restaurants and a world of literature. She had never heard Mr. Poe's The Raven and I read this to her the night before Halloween.
I have since learned that it was all a charade. She had been prostituting herself when she told me she me was working, using drugs behind my back and stealing from me. At the time, I realized none of this. Am I gullible? Most certainly, I believe in the goodness of folks and believe what people tell me.
Everything came to a horrible culmination in the early morning hours of November the 5th when I awoke to find her and another man in my apartment injecting drugs. I flipped out and in that moment realized all she had told me was a lie. I demanded that they leave. An argument ensued and after many shouted words the two finally left. I was devastated. I really liked her and thought I knew her but I was never more wrong about someone in my entire life. I cried.
A couple of hours later the police arrived at my apartment and arrested me. When I asked them why, they said I had assaulted the woman who was staying with me. No manner of pleading nor reasoning persuaded the police not to arrest me. I was charged with second degree assault and landed in jail.
Late at night on the 6th I was released on my own recognizance but only to discover that she was still in my apartment. Neighbors informed me that after I was arrested, she and the man used a ladder to get into my apartment. The man began to pimp her out through Craigslist and numerous men were coming and going into my apartment while I awaited my release.
I called the police to have her removed. The two had barricaded themselves in my apartment and after breaking down the door the police removed them but arrested no one.
I had hoped that the nightmare was over but it had just begun. Learning of my arrest, my clients abandoned me leaving me with no income. Things were not great before this, I had fallen behind in my rent due to a slowdown of work and the inability to find new clients, my bills were behind and I was barely keeping things up to date. After this everything went downhill quickly and with no money I had to apply for food stamps and Medicaid both of which the state has provided.
I am now unemployed and unable to continue my self-employment with the legal issue hanging over my head. With my medical issues both physical (bi-lateral condromalcia) and mental (Adult adhd and PTSD), I am finding it impossible to gain employment.
I live in a modest apartment and my rent is only $795 a month which I now can't afford. My legal fees, if I wish to remain out of jail, come to over $1000. Living expenses I cannot meet and am now in dire straits.
I need to pay off my rent, pay a lawyer and get some help with everyday expenses until I can get back on my feet.
I have Medicaid and food stamps but no other income and ask you, the everyday person to have mercy on me and help me with the expenses to keep a roof over my head and a lawyer to keep me out of jail.
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