Help Monika Keep her Home recovering from TBI, & Gen Trauma

Hi, my name is Monika, and I’m asking for help during a very vulnerable in my life.

From ages 24 to 27, I survived an abusive relationship where I was physically assaulted. I sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and I’ve lived with its long-term effects physically, emotionally, and cognitively ever since.

I did tell some people what happened, but I didn’t ask for help. Not fully. I shared my story in pieces, but I didn’t feel safe enough to be truly open about how much I was struggling. I felt shameful for asking for help and felt I had to manage alone. It’s only now, after years of holding it in, that I’m allowing myself to open up fully to ask support.

My silence wasn’t just about shame it was something inherited, something learned.

I grew up in a home shaped by intergenerational trauma. My parents came from post-war Poland, where they lived under a state-controlled regime marked by fear, scarcity, and repression. After the war, people lived with chronic shortages and constant surveillance. Individual expression and trust were dangerous.

Therapy and support were seen as dangerous or shameful. Asking for help was nearly impossible for many people who endured this type of trauma. 

As a learned behavior as a child I learned to survive by staying semi-quiet. By burying my needs. By carrying pain in partial silence.

When I was abused as a young adult, that same fear took over. The police were called many times, but I didn’t have the internal framework to fully follow through. I didn’t hold the person that assaulted me accountable, not because it wasn’t serious, but because I had been conditioned to believe that staying silent was safer. I was afraid, deeply and instinctively. Also my experience showed that it’s difficult to make choices after being hit in the head repeatedly by a partner, it’s a different world :(  I wish no one to experience this nightmarish life experience, and the years that followed. 

The man who abused me was never held responsible for what he did to me. Recently, however, he was jailed for domestic violence against someone else. It’s heartbreaking to know that it took another person being harmed for consequences to finally reach him.

I did tell some people what happened, but I didn’t ask for help. Not fully. I shared my story in pieces, but I didn’t feel safe enough to be truly open about how much I was and am struggling. That silence was still in me the fear, the shame, the belief that I had to manage it alone. It’s only now, after years of holding it in, that I’m allowing myself to ask for support.

To make things even more complicated, when I was 27, I lost my brother in a plane crash. That loss devastated me and added another deep layer of grief to an already overwhelming period of my life. It shook everything. I was deeply shaken and traumatized. My world became even more uncertain.

More recently, the war in next door in Ukrain reawakened many of the emotional wounds. My grandparents who lived in Poland now are swept into a state of feeling unsafe again, uncertain about the war next door. My grandpa who is 97, still fully aware tells me stories of how Germans used to kill people in his yard as a child, and of Russian aggression during the post war period. Being so close to a war zone again , hearing the stories of displacement, fear, and aggression it has triggered deep feelings. I’m tired of staying silent. The echoes of my family’s past, of war and survival lives in me. It’s been retraumatizing in ways I didn’t expect, adding another emotional layer to an already heavy load.

I’ve spent years trying to recover emotionally, physically, and financially. I rented out my apartment to bring in some income, but due to the effects of the TBI and ongoing trauma, I’m unable to work full-time. I’ve worked for 20 years in my life and have been told by doctors that I should not be working now, and need to focus on healing and taking care of myself. I have applied for SSDI but the process is lengthy I have a final hearing in September. Right now, I’m at risk of losing my house, and I don’t have a support system to catch me because of all of the hardships I have faced have caused a lot of isolation, shame and depression for years. I have so much to work on medically, and I need support to do so.

That’s why I’m asking for help.

This fundraiser is to help me keep my home, my safety, my base, and my chance to continue healing from the physical somatic affects of severe TBI, and trauma have had on my body. Donations will go directly toward essentials, and basic living costs. Any amount truly helps. 

Even if you can’t donate, simply sharing my story means a lot. It took everything in me to reach out and ask for help. Thank you for reading this, for seeing me, and for offering kindness when I need it most.

(I would prefer cashapp or Venmo since won’t get charged a fee as I would on here.

Anything helps thanks :)

@classysassylass - Venmo

$sassypup - Cashapp

@monikakunat - PayPal 

With gratitude,

Monika Kunat