This week, Paul performed his last ever orchestra concert with his students. He did it exhausted, grieving his job, grieving his little sister, running completely on fumes. He came home to a water shutoff (it’s been paid now), a bank account in the negative, a mortgage payment due, and a physical therapy bill higher than we expected. Rachel is struggling to get out of bed for even part of each day. We are not okay.

What just happened?

Paul has been laid off from Waite High School, where he has been a band and orchestra teacher. The layoffs are district-wide. He will finish out the school year, but he will not return in the fall. We don't yet know exactly when his pay will stop, as his salary is distributed throughout the year rather than tied directly to the school calendar. That uncertainty alone is terrifying.

Paul is putting his resume out, there are a few positions available within the district (though far more people laid off than positions are available for). We are hopeful that a teacher with his experience will find work soon, however, we don't exactly how this will change his salary and benefits.

At home, the house has fallen into a state that is actively affecting Rachel's physical and mental health; beyond what one exhausted weekend can fix. There is no in-home support. Paul does what he can, but he is running on empty. Laundry has piled up. The washer and dryer aren't hooked up, so we rely on the laundromat (which is expensive and time-consuming). Clean clothes have become a rare thing.

Rachel reached her goal weight this year after being heavily emaciated from chronic illness (a huge milestone!). But there is no money for clothing that fits. She has been borrowing Paul's clothes just to have something to wear, which adds to the laundry burden and to the daily weight of an already impossible situation.

Rachel's EMDR sessions have been paused because life is too chaotic to be excavating trauma right now; even though she is experiencing nightmares and flashbacks multiple times every day, and EMDR is the primary treatment for that. Her psychiatrist is waiting to assess and treat for autism until the active crisis settles. Her primary therapist is actively searching for resources and is deeply worried about her quality of life.

We did find a car after our previous one broke down entirely; a $400 down payment went toward it, raised here (Thank you!). We are grateful for that. We are also terrified, because we have now added a car payment to an already impossible list.

Why are we ALWAYS asking for help?

We know that question is in the back of some minds, and we want to answer it honestly. We have been reliant on community support for years; specifically because of Rachel's disability. Surviving on a teacher's salary alone in this economy is not realistic, and yet we have been denied disability benefits multiple times because of the very specific ways our situation falls through the cracks.

Paul's income has consistently landed just above the eligibility threshold. Meanwhile, the other paths to benefits have been blocked: Rachel has no personal work history because she has been disabled since she was 15. Benefits through a parent's work history are also complicated; her father was a pastor who did whatever odd jobs it took to stay with churches that couldn't afford to pay him, leaving behind a work history that is sporadic and complex. He is no longer alive.

We have applied with the help of a social worker. We have consulted legal aid. We have been rejected. We are gathering information to try again with a lawyer, but that process cannot happen quickly, and it cannot happen while we are in constant crisis mode. We need to reach stable enough ground so that we have the capacity to fight that battle again.

In the meantime, community support has been getting smaller (understandably). We ask as little as we can and it’s hard to admit that we are rarely met with what we actually need. The fundraisers we have done for ourselves over the last two years have barely brought any funds in.

We have lost a significant portion of our community due to being excommunicated from the church in 2022, speaking openly about past abuse, and distancing ourselves from abusive people in our lives. Living without a community safety net has been a very scary experience as such a vulnerable couple.

Rachel's Story (for those who don't know us).

Rachel has hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, and Mast Cell Activation Disorder; conditions she'd unknowingly lived with her whole life, but that weren't fully diagnosed until 2022. She became severely debilitated in 2010 with no answers. By 2018, she couldn't sit up or stand without passing out. She spent years in a darkened room, too sensitive to light, sound, and scent to function; surviving on three safe foods, communicating mostly through hand taps. Despite finally starting the treatments that would save her life, a severe bleed from a surgery in 2022 left her body weaker and even more malnourished than before. She temporarily lost her vision from the severity of it.

On October 31st, 2023, Paul loaded Rachel's limp body into the back of their car and drove several hours to the Cleveland Clinic. She came home with an NJ tube. In March 2024, it became a g-tube. She slowly rebuilt from 90 lbs at 5'9".

Today she is 140 lbs. She still primarily uses her wheelchair and is lucky to leave the house once a week; but she can speak, she can sit up for hours, she can walk in small sessions. She can participate in the parts of life she missed most. She is working to care for her mind and body in ways her upbringing never allowed for.

She is someone who fought her way back from the edge of survival, and who is still fighting, every single day.

What has this year looked like?

At the end of last year, we had to ask our housemates to leave. The connection had grown toxic for everyone involved, but the core reality was financial: we could no longer afford to house them without compensation. We were regularly dealing with utility shut-offs and negative bank balances. When they left, they left behind a serious mess. One that required specialized cleaning supplies to make the space safe again for Rachel's health and for our pets. We did not have the energy or the money for that. We did it anyway.

We gave no gifts over the holidays, not to each other, not for our birthdays, not for our 10-year wedding anniversary.

March began with a family emergency that required a lengthy road trip and unexpected hotel costs. Then on March 21st, Paul's little sister Dezianne passed away unexpectedly in her sleep (SUDEP). We fundraised specifically for funeral costs at that time; everything raised went to her family. Her death brought additional costs, the way family emergencies always do, on top of the grief and trauma. Throughout March, we continued to face utility shut-offs and negative balances.

April brought car repairs, and then the plumbing broke. The repair ended up costing $1,100. We raised support for that and got through it, but the stress by that point had both of us oscillating between freeze and function. As a neurodivergent couple (Paul is AuDHD; Rachel has OCD, CPTSD, and suspected autism), that is a reality of our lives even in calm times. Under this much pressure, it becomes harder to manage.

Within a week of the plumbing being fixed, the car broke down entirely. After towing and diagnostic costs, it became clear that it needed to be replaced. We started searching for a replacement, and then got the news about Paul's layoff.

We have tried to give something back in the meantime. Rachel has been working on crochet items to sell. But the relentless wave of crises keeps knocking us down before we can get traction, and we keep falling further behind. We haven't given up on it; we just haven't been able to make it work yet.

What we need.

We want to be fully transparent about what we're up against. Here is our best accounting of the costs we're facing:

Immediate and one-time costs:

- Water bill (already paid to restore service, now reflected as negative in our account): $136.44

- Physical therapy debt: $405 (money previously donated for this went to turning the water back on and covering part of the mortgage payment)

- Cleaning costs: $500

- Clothing for Rachel: $500

- Yard care: $150

- Electric bill arrears (currently on a payment plan, but paying it off would be a significant relief): $600

- Sewage cleanup from the plumbing break (quote still TBD): unknown

- Mortgage payment (due now; amount omitted for privacy): coming out of an already negative account

Ongoing costs we need support with for the next 6 months, while we work toward stability:

- Rachel's medication: $400/month ($2,400 total)

- Rachel's nutritional formula: $200/month ($1,200 total)

- In-home care: $400/month ($2,400 total)

The car we just purchased totals $16,000; paid in monthly installments (exact payment TBD). This is not a want; it is how Paul gets to work and how we access anything outside our home.

We've set our goal at $15,000. That does not cover everything above; but it gets us to a place where we can breathe, stabilize, and begin to work on the longer-term solutions (including Rachel's disability case) that we simply do not have the capacity to pursue right now.

We want to be clear about something: we are not asking for this and walking away. Over the summer, we intend to work hard to raise the remainder of what we need through our own efforts; things like crochet items as donation perks, and other creative avenues we're developing. We want to give back to the people who show up for us. But right now we are so far underwater that we cannot get traction on any of that. If we could reach even $4-5,000 through this campaign, it would go a long way toward getting us caught up and cared for in this immediate moment; and that stability is exactly what we need to be able to do the work of raising the rest. One makes the other possible.

Every dollar helps us breathe. Every share reaches someone who might be able to help. We are grateful for this community, even when asking feels impossibly hard.

Thank you for reading all of this. Thank you for being here.