Father seeks help for family

Chris Lauer is organizing this fundraiser.

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We have both always worked and never needed to rely on any outside help, never had to rely on the system before so this is extremely hard for us to be in this position. I had written an original post about our situation on social media and I thought that was hard. People replied and suggested i do a gofundme, this took me almost two months to write. It's crossed my mind that there's probably others worse off, was this the right thing to do, could I actually get the help and support we need to get through this. Unfortunately we now have nowhere else to turn we are completely out of options. We are aware and have applied for any/all government programs, received little help but most are filled or out of resources. The past few months I have not been able to keep up on the bills falling even farther and farther behind I'm afraid even if I could get back to work it wouldn't be enough. The only means of transportation we have right now is going on 3 months behind on payments, I couldn't tell you the last time I had money for rent or for some real food. I try my best to shield these hard times from my daughter she's way to young to have to worry about things like this but its hard when theres no food in the fridge or we cannot get her the things she needs such as winter clothes, a jacket etc. Then we have Christmas less then a month away and my daughter says she doesn't want anything. She knows we don't have it and that hurts me to the core. I lay awake at night sick with worry, how this is effecting my family especially my daughter , will my car still be in the driveway or an eviction notice on our door in the morning. Any support we receive would help us to rebuild our family to be in a position to get my wife the help she needs, allow me to have to time to go to the appointments I need to instead of keep inflicting damage to my hands because I'm forced to work, groceries, get us caught up on rent and utilities, vehicle payment/maintenance, or rescues the care they need and hopefully give our daughter a Christmas. If you have any questions or would like more information please feel free to contact me. Thank you all

My name is Chris and this is our story,

Up until a few years ago we were a normal family, sometimes struggling to get by other times doing okay. However, what began as something my wife did every few days completely changed the direction of all of our lives. She was doing laundry like any other time, when someone broke into the laundry room and violently assaulted her. She was choked and during the struggle became unconscious. She awoke to this person on top of her, she fought and screamed for me but since I was three stories up I couldnt hear her. He continued to try and choke her with one hand and covered her mouth with the other to stop her from screaming. She wouldnt stop screaming so he eventually ran away. After months of him not being caught and her living in constant fear, severe PTSD set in along with anxiety and some dissociative episodes. She wasn't being effective at her job something I know that tore at her, she eventually was no longer able to work. My wife has a Masters Degree and has worked in child welfare and social services for almost 20 years. She has dedicated her life to helping others, but when she needed help it was few and far between. We are not the type of people to put our issues and problems on others, so we tried to keep going for as long as we could. She fought with the criminal jsutice system when he was finally apprehended to get some type of justice, which instead just re traumitized her. I have watched her tell her story over and over again to anyone; mental health or medical professional that will listen, in the hopes of finding someone that can help her through this. Unfortunately that battle is ongoing as she has not been able to find appropriate mental health services.

Throughout all of this we tried to shield out daughter from everything that was going on, she knew something bad had happened to her mother. She was used to seeing her mom as a strong professional woman who went to work every day and managed the household and a million other things that came her way. Now, my wife could barely leave the bedroom and was petrified to be outside alone. I continued to work as hard as I could in order to make up for the lack of income, (weve have always been a two income household). Meanwhile, my wife was falling deeper and deeper into her trauma and loosing more and more of herself everyday. This trauma has changed her so much, it’s been so difficult to watch such a strong and caring person turn into a shadow of her former self.

I tried to hold the family together as best as I could, that meant working long hours away from home, which left my wife to have to take care of our daughter and house when she wasn’t anywhere near able to. But she did the best she could even though at night she would hide in the bedroom and cry because she felt so angry knowing she would never be the person she was before. She struggles daily to just feel a small glimpse of what her life used to be like. Her main reason for wanting to get better othan than for being there for our family, is so she can get back to working and helping others. She struggles with herself daily not knowing if she wil ever be able to do the work that she went to school for and spent most of her life doing. Being a social worker placed her in a lot of dangerous and unknown situations, and she doesn’t know if she will ever be able to handle that type of work again.

My wife who is always used to helping, wanted to do something so during COVID we began to foster dogs. She also thought it would help therapeutically with her PTSD, which it did. Only being a temporary home for them until they were adopted. Our last foster was unable to be placed with a family, each home he went to sent him back for a variety of reasons. We were told by the rescue that he was going to be euthanized or muzzled 24/7, we couldn’t live with that. By now he had been with us a little over a year and had absolutely become part of the family. Knowing we were no where near a position financiilly to take on another animal we worked with the rescue who promised us assitance if we were to keep him. Unfortunately that assistance didn’t ever really come through. Before he came to us, he was very sick we aren’t exactly sure what he had or what treatment he recieved but his teeth are severly damaged (yellow, small, mishapened), I’m afraid he will lose them. He also has stomach/digestion issues vet says he needs all kinds of tests. My biggest concern is that he's living in pain and we can do nothing for him. We have tried to treat him as best we can but the vet bills keep adding up and he deserves to be cared for. In addition to this we already had a rescue dog for the past 10 years that we saved when I saw her being thrown from a truck window onto the street in freezing temperatures and snow. She’s getting up there in age and needs vet care as well. The extra dog was not an expense we were prepared to take but we didn’t have it in us to put him down or make him live a life of being muzzeled 24/7.

COVID hit our family hard just as it hit so may other families and a lot of my work dried up. We have been going to food pantries and trying to get as much help from available programs as possibile. I know that these past few years have been tough on a lot of people. Normally I wouldnt even consider doing something like this. When times have gotten hard in the past, I've always just worked harder. I would place an add/adds online and offer my services to find work. Unfortunately work for me is no longer an option and i have run out of time. I work for myself doing general construction, electrical and plumbing repairs. Over a year ago I injured my hands and have open wounds that will not heal. I can no longer close my left hand and can barely close the right. My fingers are beginning to curl over and have little blood circulation in my fingertips causing severe pain. Been seeing wound specialist but it's a long painful process that will eventually lead to surgery. I have done my best to work through all of this but my left hand is continually getting worse and it seems like every other day I am sick or have an infection.