Did you try asking your church for help when you were having financial difficulties? Catholics usually have pretty good social services. Protestants from what I’ve seen, since they don’t have huge diocese, make it a more personal thing, you have to go directly to the Deacons and ask, less anonymous.
No, I was able to do it on my own, so I did. I don’t believe in taking charity unless you really, really need it. They wouldn’t have believed me, anyway. They certainly would’ve called my mother - who would’ve acted outraged and lied about my situation, then blamed me for it, as usual. She would have convinced them that I was trying to scam them. (If my older brother did the same thing she would’ve spoken any lie to protect him - those 2 are peas in a pod) I doubt they would’ve been able to do much, anyway. My father was a prominent Dr. in the community and well-known to everyone, especially to the clergy. My mother had everyone fooled with her “nice in front of everybody - insane to the children in private act” - paranoid schizophrenia, actually. My extended family on my Dad’s side was full of wealthy people - but after my Dad died they didn’t want to know us anymore. (These were the same people I had Sunday dinner with almost every Sunday the 1st 18 years of my life) You see, they were all pure-blooded Italians, like my Dad. My Mom was French (and insane) - this made us half-breeds in their eyes - not worth the trouble. They were all “devout” Catholics. Why would such a smart, educated man as my father marry such a horrible person? Well, I’ve spoken about how even brilliant people have tragic flaws - my Dad’s was that he was a genuinely good person, and couldn’t comprehend how something so beautiful on the outside could be so evil on the inside. She acted differently with him than with us. If you’ve seen the movie “Mommie Dearest”, you will have an excellent idea of what she was like. Also, she came from the worst part of a small town in Rhode Island, the poorest part, from a bad family, and a history of abuse herself. She was a 4th grade dropout. Her father became an alcoholic and abandoned the family (all 9 kids) when she was 9, right after her mother died. You’d think she’d remember what that felt like and not want to subject her children to anything even remotely similar. Unfortunately, she had profoundly limited mental faculties and was quite seriously mentally ill. I think my father thought he was doing something good by getting her out of there. Too bad he was wrong, poor man.