Donate to Lauren and Devin's Journey to Stability

Welcome! I'm Lauren and my partner is Devin. We are struggling financially due to us both losing our jobs in December 2024. We're struggling with paying basic needs, pet supplies, rent, utilities, loans, and credit cards. We are both in our application process for unemployment. We have also started the application for food stamps.

We've had a tough couple of years with my partner being laid off multiple times, both of us getting late-diagnosed autism and ADHD while juggling our own depression and anxiety. I had to take FMLA this year due to autistic burnout. We had taken out a loan to help us get by since my pay was cut down to 60%. I did start job hunting while I was on FMLA to see if I could find something better. I returned to my job since I couldn't find anything and hoped things would get better. I also continued the job hunt. My employer wasn't adhering to my disability accommodations and caused my burnout to come back.

Eventually, I found a new job that sounded like a healthy change for me. It turned out they were deceptive and had me working 12-15 hour days for less than half of what they said was the weekly pay. After 2 weeks of the new job, I was fired due to an autistic meltdown. I immediately had an interview for another job but did not get it. I have filed for unemployment and am waiting to hear back if I was approved. Unfortunately, it'll be a significantly less amount that won't even cover half of the bills.

Devin had an at-work head injury. Luckily, we still had insurance and filed a workers' comp claim that is still ongoing. They are still having concussion headaches and have not been able to go to a neurologist since we lost our insurance through my previous job. Their job decided to pull one more rug out from under us and fire them. We are now getting them started on the unemployment application.

We are also taking action when businesses are open from the holidays to try to get community-based assistance. We're doing every proactive thing we can, but nothing has been working in our favor.

Thank you for even reading.