u/bluerotundas

seeking advice from fellow divas… what are yall doing to protect the rhinestones on your clothes? i’m washing with cold water and hanging to dry, but every load i feel like im one step closer to getting eaten by the business casual monster hiding in my closet. my knights of shining armor are falling, literally, off my clothes and into the watery grave that is the bottom of my apartment’s communal washer.

and yes, yes, i understand in an ideal world i would be handwashing any bedazzled item of clothing. well in an ideal world girls wouldn’t be literally nailed to the cross of soul sucking domestic chores for having an entire closet’s worth of snooki’s weight in rhinestones!!! so there!!! (please don’t tell me to hand wash it all i KNOW that’s what i should be doing. anything but that. you don’t understand how much bedazzled clothing i’m wearing in a week)

edit if you’re looking for the advice: cold water where possible, hang dry. the missing pieces to my krabby patty secret formula were lingerie bags and turning the items inside out. plankton voice “wow. that was surprisingly easy.”

tl;dr my parents have abused and then disowned all three of their adult children. my little sister just turned 18 and i’m watching history repeat itself. she is making some big life decisions with their financial support as a main factor. i am scared of her relying on them— they have proven many times that they cannot be trusted. i try to talk with her about this as gently as i can, offering to help her myself, explaining how to achieve financial independence bit by bit, sharing my own story. im not trying to control her or change her beliefs, but i don’t know how to stop the cycle that our parents have created. she is in an echo chamber that won’t protect her. i really need advice.

this is just gonna be long. my apologies. long story long— my parents have a consistent and unchanging pattern of verbal, physical and emotional abuse. this abuse is inextricable from their religious beliefs (i can elaborate if needed but this would probably require a trigger warning flair).

my parents have weaponized our access to education, food, other people (including each other) as a form of control. we were all homeschooled and raised in a very insular christian community. my parents are active participants and leaders in that community. there is no pity in my hometown for wayward sheep who feel the shepherd’s rod, so to speak.

my parents are very well off. though they abused us badly for the duration of our childhoods, they have always promised financial support. inevitably, myself and all of my adult siblings found ourselves failing to meet my parents’ standards for support for various reasons. the goalpost is nebulous and shifting.

my older half sister was kicked out & disowned when she got pregnant at 17. i was kicked out and disowned in high school for my political beliefs (relatively milquetoast baby liberal opinions) and again in my first semester of college when i was outed as a lesbian. my little brother was kicked out and disowned several times from ages 16-20 because he got addicted to vaping.

as fucked up as it sounds, i thought that maybe we were cut off from financial support because we were, according to christian logic, all living unrepentantly in active sin. i could understand it, even if i didn’t agree. i was no contact for a long time and held my two baby siblings at arm’s length in the hopes that they might start fresh with my parents. my little sister especially has always been very kind, very good at deescalation, and very devout. if any of us had a chance of keeping my parents’ favor long enough to become a financially independent adult with a college education, i thought it was her.

i can’t speak for my siblings, but my parents’ tendency to revoke support they promised to give has been devastating.

when they first kicked me out, i was homeless and living in my car. i was a dual enrollment student and had one college class to take in my last semester of senior year before graduating with honors and with the highest gpa in our county. my mom went to the county courthouse and reported me as a high school drop out, so i had to enroll in public high school. there i found out that none of my homeschool classes had been properly accredited. i was told i would have to settle for a GED.

i didn’t— i took state exams to test out of every class that i did not have credit for while taking a full time college and high school course load. i was working two jobs and sleeping in the walmart parking lot. i graduated with my high school diploma and associates degree with honors. i would’ve been valedictorian if i had attended high school for a full year instead of transferring halfway through.

i scraped together all my money and moved to germany on my own. i was there for a year working to support myself so that i could take german language classes. while there, i applied to colleges and got wait listed at an ivy league. i moved back to my hometown to wait for the final decision and was couch surfing. i found out from a friend of a friend who i was staying with that my parents had been bragging about how they organized my year abroad.

i made a deal with them that they could keep bragging about me if they paid for one year of college. i told them that i felt this was fair payment. they agreed. i was at college for one month before they called to tell me that they had changed their minds because someone found my then-girlfriend’s instagram account. i was always very careful, but my girlfriend didn’t know to be. she posted a picture of us kissing for pride without my knowledge.

i was given an ultimatum to return home and take college classes online while in therapy at our church for my homosexuality, or to remain where i was with no support. it was just past the deadline to drop classes, so dropping out would’ve tanked my gpa. i opted to stay.

because my parents’ income was so high, i was only approved for $2,000 in federal student loans. i tried to appeal to file as independent, but was denied because there was no formal documentation of my homelessness in high school. my high school guidance counselor wrote a letter confirming i was homeless when i asked, but she had never reported it to the state because she didn’t want to embarrass my family. i was removed from dorm housing & homeless again, but was able to finish the full year of classes with an emergency fund offered by the college. i dropped out after spring 2019 and planned to re-enroll once i could apply for FAFSA as independent. i moved in with my then girlfriend.

when COVID hit, i was working in food service and my hours were cut drastically. i was paying for rent and food on a credit card. i got an entry level job in healthcare, but at that point couldn’t keep up with the minimum payments and my living expenses. from 2020-2024, i worked as hard as i could and earned a raise or promotion every 1-2 years. but without a degree, my income wasn’t very competitive. i couldn’t keep up with the interest on the credit card.

i got accepted to nursing school in march 2024, then in april 2024 my bank sued me and threatened to garnish my wages. i settled to pay the balance in full on a payment plan to avoid garnishment, but had to postpone my enrollment in nursing school because of this. in in april 2025, i applied for PSLF. there was a clerical error and my account was not placed in forbearance while that application was processing, so my student loans were defaulted in october 2025. in october, i was also promoted to a management position at the hospital i work at. i set up a rehabilitation plan for the loans, but would not be able to go back to school using FAFSA until the 9 month rehabilitation period had passed. in november, i had emergency surgery, and in december my roommate broke the lease with very short notice. my landlord stated that if they did not receive the full rent, id get evicted, so i put every dollar i had into the rent. i couldn’t afford it, and in february 2026 negotiated an early lease termination. my credit score has been decimated, and i’ve been homeless and at the mercy of friends for shelter. i had to take out a loan against my 401k and was finally able to sign for an apartment this august.

obviously i am an adult and am responsible for my own life— i am nearly 30. however, i have spent my entire adult life trying to recover from the mistake of trusting my parents. i am just now at a place where i have a stable home, a livable income, and a way to finish my degree.

i am really strong and resilient, but i don’t mean to valorize myself. i hate who i have become in surviving all of this. i am cold and emotionless a lot of the time. i am emotionally withholding. i expect the worst from everyone. i am very empty and tired. i am constantly terrified. i am placating and fake. whatever, im in therapy. my worst nightmare is seeing my baby sister learn what i have learned. i don’t want her to have to know how to be an island of a person.

for the past two years, i’ve been in cautious contact with my family. i’ve made nice with my parents so that i can see my baby siblings again. i found out very quickly that my absence hadn’t fixed anything. i’ve felt very helpless watching my little sister go through all of the same things that happened to me, trying to be supportive but neutral because she needs their money to survive. i wanted desperately to just speak plainly to her, but it felt cruel to do so when i couldn’t offer her an escape. i just wanted her to know she can trust me, and was trying to fix my own life so that i could support her when it was time for her to jump.

i regret leaving all of my siblings in that place and not maintaining a real relationship with them. i really hate myself for it. it’s not something i will ever forgive myself for. i missed my opportunity with my little brother; i was so poor and young when they did the same thing to him. but with my sister i have had time to prepare. i can help her now.

i thought i would have more time to soften the blow for her. i thought i could fly home, see her in person, have her visit me where i live now a few times. i know two years of phone calls is not enough to build up the trust i destroyed when i left. but everything is happening so fast.

she’s being abused, not just by my parents but by my younger brother. he had to move back home when his employer went bankrupt and withheld his last paycheck. he’s always had anger issues. i know why because i went through it with him, but my little sister just knows that she’s in danger around him. he was doing better, but he reconverted recently and has backslid in his coping mechanisms. being in my parent’s church has him convinced that the way my parents treat us was our doing as prodigals. i don’t even know how to feel about that— im angry at him, and i’m so heartbroken. he’s the only person that went through it with me. i feel so alone being the only one that remembers. it’s crushing. it makes me feel crazy. i know why he’s choosing not to remember. i know why he’s hurting my sister. it makes me sick.

she’s starving herself, too, in the way that i did when i was her age. asking for food feels shameful. simone weil, eat your heart out. she’s hanging on in the way i recognize as hanging on. she cries on the phone with me. she’s so smart, it makes my chest ache. she’s brilliant. she thinks she’s crazy, and dumb. she wants to understand our parents. she wants to understand god. she wants kids and she’s scared that hurting small things is a heritable trait. she’s okay with me being gay. she doesn’t think i understand that she has to forgive them because i don’t believe in god. she thinks it’s okay that i don’t believe in god. i think it’s okay that she does. i tell her this. i don’t tell her that i have forgiven them and that it makes me feel like im boiling alive. i tell my mom and dad that i love them when i call. i do mean it. if that’s not forgiveness, i dont want to know what is. they are so cruel to her. she has curly blonde hair like an angel.

she has been working three jobs to fund a mission trip that god is calling her on. then she wants to go to a private christian university to study psychology so that she can be a christian counselor. every time i talk with her on the phone it is about the countdown. but i am seeing the writing on the wall— the systemic vilification that will later serve to justify them abandoning her. she sees a christian therapist who tells her that her anger is a temptation. she goes to church where my mom’s friends lay hands on her to pray it out of her. she has never hit a person in her life before. she is very good at blocking hits. my mom tells her that she is so difficult to love. my little sister asked my mom how she could make it easier for her. the therapist told my little sister that she seems to be withholding love from our parents as a punishment, which is not christlike. my little sister tells me that she wants our mom to be her best friend. she says she understands that mom doesn’t want that. our mom doesn’t like her. she tells me she was just born with a big sister built in, and now she’s looking for me all over the house.

my mom tells me on facetime that she is a failure because all her kids hate her. i cannot do anything but laugh and shake my head.

my little sister believes that god has placed a calling upon her life. the christian campus is the only campus they let her tour. she told me that she felt her heart open on it. i felt that way about college, too. hers will cost them $35,000 per year. they gave her $300 to plan her own high school graduation party with. they invited all of their friends to her party, where everyone will lay hands on her. and pray.

she wanted shirley temples and strawberry shortcake for her graduation. she didn’t have enough left over to get these things and my dad wanted to cancel the party because she is ungrateful. her mission trip will cost thousands of dollars and she is praising god for giving her life a purpose. she wants to help people. she wants to be a christian counselor just like her therapist.

she wants to understand our mom so bad. when my therapist asked me why i tried to understand my mom when i never will, i thought maybe i should’ve seen a christian counselor. ive missed all my therapy sessions since then.

yesterday i told my little sister that she will never be good enough for them to help her. i told her that i think she’s the most good person ive ever met. i think she’s so easy to love. i think she’s so smart. i think hurting small things is a heritable trait except when i look at her it’s like i don’t have a bone of my mother’s in my body. i will never have kids. i have three kids. one of them punches her when he’s mad. one of them thinks she’s bad, bad, rotten. one of them doesn’t remember that i changed his diapers.

yesterday i told my little sister that she can do anything she wants except force a family where there isn’t one. i told her that my friends have always wanted a little sister, though. i told her that i have a two bedroom in chicago and a real good job, with health insurance. i told her that id put her on my phone plan so she can always call me when she’s on her mission trip.

she is so grateful it makes me want to scream.

she says she can’t do that to me, that she doesn’t like asking for help. she can’t take money and time from me. i told her she’d be giving me the biggest gift in the whole wide world. i do not ever want her to understand what i mean by that.

she cried and said she wants that. but she doesn’t want to leave on those terms— she can’t run away. she’s got to leave having been good enough to go back. she cried and said she doesn’t know what to do if she can’t be good enough. she cried and said she hasn’t read her bible in four days. she dried her tears and said that god didn’t place her in this family on accident. she wants to do the right thing. she wants to honor god’s plan for her life. she wants to understand all of this.

she tells me that she will talk it over with her christian counselor.

i think of the things that her christian counselor and her church elders and her spiritual mentor and her god-fearing parents and her born-again brother and her loving father in heaven have convinced her she deserves. i think of how she is postured for blows. i think of how she twists herself to minimize the damage. i think of how apologetic she is for being so beatable. i think of how badly she wants to be good. i am really scared of her going into the world like that. i’m scared of her needing them, while she is out in the world like that.

i don’t want to stop her. i know she can do whatever she puts her mind to. i don’t think my life has had much purpose beyond survival, but i believe her when she says she is called to something great. even if it means a mission trip and a christian college and a lifetime in church. if she wants those things, i want her to have them and find only joy there. i just feel like she needs a place to rest for a few months, before she goes out into the world. i was bleeding and alone and i smelled like honey when i left our parents’ home. the earth has such teeth on it, so many hungry hungry hippos and people shaped like leviathans.

i don’t know how to convince her to let me protect her, just for a little while. i don’t want to scare her. but i am scared for her. what is cassandra to do, far away from florida on the walls of troy?

i am seriously considering cashing out my 401k, which is currently at about $10,600. im 27, paying off debts that were already charged off so the damage to my credit is done. i’ve got about $6,000 left to pay off. one of the accounts will be removed from my credit report once paid off, the other will be there for the full seven years.

i want to be debt free. i’m at a point in my life where paying a lump sum of like $4,000 would enable me to actually start a savings account. is it worth it, or am i being impatient? i feel like if i can just pay off one of these debts i will be able to breathe

i am making a plan and i’m looking for advice.

basically, i’m sick of being paycheck to paycheck no matter how hard i work or how many promotions i can claw myself to. i don’t really want to overshare about how i got where i am but here’s my current situation:

-i am currently spending exactly what i am making each month, oftentimes forgoing groceries at the end of each pay period so i can afford public transit to work. like literally no margin for error
-i have no savings
-my credit score is 535
-i am paying of the full balance of a charged off credit card (6/2024 charge off date, projected date of paid in full 6/2031. i did not get a pay for deletion and goodwill removal is no something my
bank does) & rehabilitating my student loans (7 months left before rehabilitated & removed from credit report)
-i have an estimated ~$3,000 unpaid medical bills. haven’t touched this balance because it’s not on my credit report

i currently have a main checking, an auto pay checking for debt/bill payments, a sinking fund checking, a HYSA cash account through wealthfront, an HSA account, & a 401k that has like $1,000 (pitiful, i know. i cashed it out previously). i have no open credit lines within the past year and i don’t have any investments.

my immediate goals are to improve my credit score & learn to passively increase my net worth gradually.

to improve my credit score, i wanted to get people’s thoughts on a secured credit card versus credit builder loan. should i do one or the other? pros and cons? should i do both but space them
out to avoid multiple credit inquiries? how far apart should i space them if so? is there another option i should consider? which will do the most initial damage to my credit score & which will make the biggest difference in the long run?

to passively increase my net worth, i’ve opened an HYSA account. i would also like to learn how to invest. to be clear— im not a finance bro, and the idea of navigating the investment market terrifies me. i am wondering if anyone can recommend a good index fund for someone who is not investment literate and who cannot afford a lot of risk or a large initial investment. right now my budget to start investing is like $50 up front. some specific questions: is it worth investing with such a small amount to start? should i grow an investment egg in the HYSA for a year before venturing into investments? should i do my investing through the same company as my HYSA, or should i prioritize a larger, more well established company to do my long term investing through? would an international index fund be a safer bet than domestic (american) at this point in time? does the current recession make it a bad time to invest at all right now, especially for a beginner?

i was also wondering if it was smart/possible to have an HYSA and several CDs on different terms, and move money between these accounts in tiers. as in, initial deposit goes into HYSA (emergency fund) which i contribute a low amount to monthly. then quarterly:
-HYSA into a 3 month CD
-3 month CD into a 6 month CD
-6 month CD into a 9 month CD
-9 month CD into a 1 year CD

is is allowed to have multiple CDs open at once? is this an inefficient or over complicated way to grow my money without the ability to do a large initial investment? would an index fund be a good place to move the money in the one year CD? are there drawbacks to this? can the APY of a CD change throughout the term?

my long term goals are to rehabilitate my credit score into the 800 range, finish my college degree, be able to afford a one bedroom apartment on my own by the time im 35, pay off my medical debt before it gets put on my credit report, get a car, and grow a savings account and my baseline in my checking account.

any advice or suggestions? im all ears. sorry if these are dumb questions. i’ve been trying to do my research but i feel so overwhelmed by how complex it is

part of this is a vent, part is desperation. i have no idea how to recover my credit in this situation, so i welcome suggestions and advice. oversharing ahead because i don’t know what details might be helpful.

my (27f) fico credit score is 535. there are three negative accounts on my report— one, a charged off credit card from bank of america. second, my aidvantage student loan account. third, the account
my student loans were transferred to when they defaulted.

the total balance owed on the credit card at the time it was charged off was ~$8,100. Credit limit was $7,000, the rest was interest. i became delinquent in 2020 payments when the COVID pandemic happened and i was working in food service. my hours at work were cut drastically, and i used my credit card for rent, food and utilities. at the time, i was just trying to survive each month. eventually i was able to get a job with full time hours in healthcare. i worked my way from entry level to middle management, earning a raise or promotion every 1-2 years, but I could not keep up with the increasing balance of minimums & was delinquent several times. in 2022 my rent increased by about 3x and I stopped making payments at all, except random lump sums when I got bonuses or gifts. in mid-2024, the card was charged off.

the total balance owed towards student loans was $2,000. I moved where I am now for college in 2018, but was outed as gay & disowned by my parents within a month of starting classes. I didn’t want to drop out and tank my GPA, so I tried to do it on my own. I dropped out after a year because I was still too young to be independent in my FAFSA application, and my family’s income meant that I was only eligible for $2,000 of federal aid a year. I couldn’t make up the difference, and dropped out to work full time. 2020 came along… well, see the paragraph above. I couldn’t make the monthly payments on my student loans either.

in mid 2024, i applied to fafsa as independent. i was approved and got accepted to a fast track program through nursing school. i was excited because a nursing salary would enable me to actually pay off my debt and start a savings. two weeks later i got a letter from my bank stating that they were beginning the process of wage garnishment. i was able to negotiate a repayment agreement to repay the full balance ($9,000 including interest and court costs) in installments rather than a wage garnishment. these monthly payments meant that i couldn’t start nursing school, so i postponed my enrollment by a year.

in mid 2025, i earned a promotion to a salaried position. i worked so, so hard for it and planned to pay down my credit card debt faster during the six months left on my lease (rent was lower as i had a roommate) before enrolling in nursing classes and moving closer to work. a month after i started, i had to have emergency surgery (ovarian torsion— iykyk. it was terrible). while i was hospitalized, my roommate broke the lease without my knowledge. my living expenses doubled on top of unexpected medical expenses. my landlord said that if the full rent was not paid i would get evicted. they would pursue the balance for the remaining lease term from both myself and the roommate who broke the lease (i.e. wage garnishment), and would report both of us as past due and evicted. my roommate was a canadian student, and had no credit score or wages to be garnished. i knew that would irreparably damage my credit, so i tried to stick it out through the lease on my own to salvage my credit. the next month, my student loans went into default.

in march 2026, my landlord agreed to let me out of the lease without penalty. i had three weeks to find a new apartment, but was denied by all i applied to due to my credit score, history of delinquency, and the recent collections balance of my defaulted student loans. at this time i was approved for a payment plan to rehabilitate my student loans. i have to make 9 consecutive payments one month apart. the rehabilitation is considered void if I pay them off faster than scheduled. i got desperate enough reach back out to my parents after a few years of no contact & ask them to co-sign for me. they agreed, but my rent applications were denied since most landlords won’t accept a cosigner unless you’re a recent student or grad. id love to enroll in nursing school now, but am ineligible until my loans are fully rehabbed.

i didnt get accepted for any apartments and had to move my belongings into a storage unit. im couch surfing with friends. i am now looking with another friend to rent together, since her credit is higher but income lower than mine. i’m doing my best to compensate for my poor credit history— before we schedule tours for units, i email the leasing agent or landlord or property manager a very stripped down explanation of my credit history, i take responsibility for my circumstances, I attach a copy of my credit report for them to review ahead of time, along with the documentation for my repayment agreements. every answer i get is the same— no one will rent to me.

i know that there were things i could’ve probably done to avoid getting to this point— i could’ve been more proactive, i could’ve been more frugal, i could’ve asked for help earlier. i was young, and really alone, and scared out of my wits. and probably stupid, but the damage is done so whatever. i just don’t know how to recover starting from where im at now. BofA doesn’t do goodwill credit removals, and I am making the biggest payments I can afford right now to resolve the balance but I still owe about $4,000. I can’t expedite my student loan rehab since it’s on a set schedule, I can’t open any new lines of credit right now to improve my credit score that way. I feel utterly and totally lost. this just feels like a losing game. i don’t mean to be self pitying— if anyone has practical solutions for me please share. i don’t know how to fix what a mess my life is

EDIT:
A tl;dr for those who have advice to give
-I have three negative credit accounts on my report
-I have 11 delinquencies on my report. 1 30 days past due (CC), 1 60 days past due (CC), 4 90 days past due (CC), 9 90 days past due (student loans)
-Date of last delinquency was 12/2025 (student loans)
-I have one balance currently in collections (defaulted student loans)
-Amount in collections is $2,248
-I have two charge offs on my report (CC & loans defaulted)
-Amount currently past due is $6,376
-The charge off date of my CC was 6/2024
-The charge off date of my student loans was 12/2025