Rachel, a person with Moderate-Severe ME, as well as her only caregiver, Julian, are both living in a room in an abusive and unsafe home. Rachel is fully dependent on Julian for her basic needs. Julian works a full time job but still can’t make enough money for them to afford an apartment or a room, as well as pay for the specialized medical care that Rachel needs.

Their abusers are currently holding funding for Rachel’s medical care over their heads, making it so that in order to access the medical care she needs to live, they are forced to stay there and keep quiet about the abuse.

Both Rachel and Julian are in their early 20s. Since last year, their abusers have forced Julian to live in the room with Rachel, telling him that otherwise they will end her life. Now, they are both trapped and being subjected to extreme abuse.

In their current living situation, they’re both being subjected to extreme psychological abuse, including sleep deprivation, gaslighting, threats to their life, extreme degradation and humiliation (sometimes sexually). In addition to the psychological abuse, they don’t have access to a kitchen or any means of cooking, and they’re often restricted from accessing their very small food supply. They’re forced to live in extreme temperatures, which is dangerous for Rachel’s health, and aren’t permitted to have any sort of temperature control, such as a heater. They’re often locked inside or outside of the house, only being permitted to leave at certain times, and they are constantly being monitored and filmed with security cameras.

Their living situation is making it very hard for Rachel to maintain her current ME baseline, which makes it so that she can survive on around 6-8 hours of care per day, which enables Julian to keep his full time job and still care for her. If her condition deteriorates and becomes more severe again, Julian will be unable to keep his job and have to stay home to take care of her around the clock again, which was their situation for most of 2025.

If Rachel and Julian had enough money to rent an apartment, and pay for Rachel’s necessary medical care on their own, they could escape their abusers. But it’s not possible for them to do this entirely on their own, and they don’t have much time. It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to survive much longer like this.

This GoFundMe has been started on their behalf in order to raise enough money for them to be able to escape by summer 2026, which would include the move-in fees and security deposit for an apartment, 2-3 months worth of rent saved up in case of an emergency, the cost of renting a moving truck, the packing and moving supplies they’ll need, and essential items for their apartment.

They will also need ongoing support after they move to continue to cover the costs of Rachel’s medical care, replacement cell phones (because their calls, texts, and location are being monitored on their current phones by their abusers), potential legal fees if they need to involve the legal system to protect their safety and privacy, etc.

It is important that their identities remain anonymous until after they escape for their safety.

Rachel and Julian have already survived 2 years of this. Before the past 2 years, Rachel was forced to be homeless in order to escape the abuse, until she became too sick to continue to survive that way. They both are very young, and have no friends or family that are able or willing to help them.

About M.E. and Rachel’s other conditions:

ME (short for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), is a complex multi-systemic neuroimmunological disease that causes a lot of different severe symptoms which are exacerbated by minor exertion of any kind (cognitive, physical, orthostatic, etc) or environmental and sensory stimulus, which can lead to permanent decline and increase in severity.

In addition to having Moderate-Severe ME, Rachel also has several other conditions, such as MCAS, hEDS, POTS, severe respiratory issues, a skeletal deformity, and more, making accessing care much more complex.

ME is a very underfunded and under-recognized disease, making it very difficult to access specialists who are knowledgeable on it and are willing to treat patients. Because of this, all of Rachel’s medical care must be paid for out of pocket, because insurance and Medicaid will not cover it.

Support from the public is the only way that Rachel and Julian have a chance of survival at this point. All other options have been exhausted by now.

They both are very thankful for any help that can get them closer to a chance at a life free from abuse.