Help Be A Voice For Ember! Help Us Heal…

Hello Everyone, my name is Callista and this is my daughter Ember. We are sexual assault survivors, and we desperately need community, space for healing, and resources. Ember’s main abuser has been given a fair trial petitioning for parenting time! I’ve tapped all of my energy and resources paying for court, and simply trying to survive this last year. Watching her live through her ptsd, and trying to also navigate my own has been beyond taxing. This last year and half I personally have experience assault after assault in and outside the club. I suffer from a lifetime of ptsd from sexual assaults since I was a child, and i can’t take it any more!!!

I just cannot dance (strip) any longer; it only pushes my ptsd further and I have never been able to even begin to heal.…

I cannot take it any more!! I need to heal in order to help and protect my daughter from her own traumas.

I have been training in a new job, and have begun to get some home businesses off the ground; however exciting, this transition is stressful, necessary, and takes time. I’m hurting really bad financially, and just need to get by for the next four months until the training and home businesses start to pay off.

I am currently going through a court trial against Ember’s main abuser for parenting time, and I must hire an attorney on top of rent, bills, food, etc.

I found a great attorney who knows the ins and outs of domestic and sexual assault cases, and I feel like hiring him would be the smartest move. The retainer is 1500.00 plus $150/hr after.. It’s a crazy amount, but he’s actually doing us a huge favor taking his prices down to the modest means level.

(Thank you for reading this far!)

Embers back story over the last year:

Ember has not only been through hell with these people, but around the same time she endured abuse and neglect from her own father and his girlfriend. This child has been through hell, and after her father girlfriend left bruises and nail marks on her arm, he left her right before Christmas (last year) only to tell me 6 months later, that if he were to see her again I would have to sign over full custody. MY CHILD DOES NOT DESERVE THIS. Ember is an absolute Angel, and she has seen more heartbreak in her first five years of life than most adults my age. PLEASE, the holidays are terribly rough for the both of us right now, and we’re just trying to live,

as far as the cps reports and our experience with the system:

I thought I did the right thing by reporting the abusers to CPS, and following all of their advice and procedures. However, the system failed my daughter. (Go figure) Every step that was taken, we have been met with roadblocks and I feel completely gaslit by the detective, the social workers, and Cares NW themselves.

Then, 9 months later the main abuser petitioned for parenting time, and my whole world was again flipped upside down! Because of trial, I’ve been ordered to go through mediation with this monster. I’m tapped. I suffer from a lifetime of ptsd from sexual assaults since I was a child, and I just cannot dance (strip) any more; it only pushes my ptsd further and I have never been able to even begin to heal.

I’m at a loss, I’ve never asked for help before, but I’m desperate to protect my child and to provide a life of safety and healing for the both of us.

(On top of everything I recently tripped backwards onto some garden gates outside of the apartment building next to mine, and hurt my left knee really badly.)

Ive had fibromyalgia and an auto immune disease since about 14 years old, and I am simply just struggling (and have been all year.)

please, anything helps

I also have an Amazon wishlist for Ember, posted on my Instagram (@callistapdx) for clothes, toys, Christmas gifts and art supplies.

I’m hoping that with this money I can pay our bills, rent, attorney and court fees, new job attire, keep Ember in the martial arts class that she loves so much, food, and winter clothes…

My hope is to get my home businesses of selling art, health products, and homemade clothing, off the ground. And to also complete training for a new job; however it’s going to be a couple months before that training really pays off.

Bless your souls and thank you all for your support!! It seriously means the world… A MILLION TIMES OVER, Thank You.