Support Jami Juetten's Journey to Healing

Hello, my name is Jami Juetten and I am writing to ask for help. Help I hoped I’d never have to ask for, but cannot pretend that I don’t genuinely need. To recap my story for those who remember, and give a brief summary for those who may not know my story or the extent of it; My husband Travis and I lived a very peaceful, quiet life. Both introverted homebodies, we worked quiet jobs we enjoyed, spent our nights playing games or watching movies together and weekends making a tradition of driving to our favorite comic shop about an hour away on Saturday, and spending Sundays reading them. We had animals, and a foster animal. We had plans, hopes, dreams.. love.

On August 13, 2021, the night before we were set to leave on a trip we’d spent months planning and saving for, we were forced to meet a type of evil I’ll never be able to understand as a masked, knife wielding intruder entered our home, came directly to our bedroom and began attacking us with clear intent to kill. I know there are still a lot of questions about the attack itself, and though they are difficult to answer in some cases due to the investigation still being an open case as well as the dread that still fills me to this day when I have to explain how I’ve become so physically and emotionally scarred, I plan to release videos at some point in the near future talking about what I experienced that night, and what I am still experiencing 3.5 years later. Some of these things are easier to talk about than others due to intensive trauma and ptsd therapy sessions I took immediately after being released from the hospital, and others are more difficult, causing extremely intrusive thoughts and memories long after I’ve talked about it. In an attempt to be mindful of what makes my day to day living harder and what helps, I will likely talk about some things out of order, but I plan to try my best to answer the biggest and most asked questions.

Going back to my plea for help; I have spent the better part of 3 years now trying to come to terms with this new body that I have and its limitations. It has been a very hard fact to accept, but I am not the same as I used to be. I am not the same person inside after losing Travis. I am not the same person on the outside since I had my life, strength and talents stabbed apart. I know that it is not my fault that I have not lived a single day since Aug 13, 2021 without debilitating chronic pain and mental illnesses. That my inability to find work, especially work I can do on the long term is not a result of any decision I made, or any kind of willful desire to not work. It is because for a reason I’ll never be able to comprehend, and now know I will never get to ask, someone decided to take our quiet lives into their hands and steal them away.

After being attacked, I spent so much time and energy trying to wear the mask of the old me, that I have worn out the body and the mind of who I actually am now. I built up a hollow shell of that person I used to be to stop those around me from worrying, and now the shell has cracked and revealed how empty and broken I feel when trying to be that same person. I have so much more work to do in therapy that I thought I’d already checked off my list, only for now in the current day to realize how flimsy and thin that foundational layer of healing that I’d done is. There is so much more work I need to do in order to build a better mental health foundation, and that just isn’t something I can do when so overwhelmed and at a constant ‘severe’ stress level. I want to better myself and be able to care for myself more. I want to be able to build up the strength both mentally and physically to be able to explore this new person that I am, rather than trying to mimic who I used to be. And hopefully during that period, I will also have the opportunity to build a new school career path that will allow me to find a career that I can do for the long term. I plan to go to school for a career that I will be able to do without constant pain. That I can do from home or from within an office with the right equipment.

Until then, I ask for help out of desperation and grief, sadness and a hope for a reprieve from having to struggle through every single bill - every single month. I have financially struggled for so long and have finally reached a point where I can’t continue without help. And the government doesn’t want to help (in a never ending cycle of appeals and denials with SS). I don’t know if it would ever get there, but I put the asking donation goal at $20,000 because that amount would be enough to cover 6 mo worth of living expenses, as well as fully cover the debt I have from being forced into by living only off my credit card due to the denials and my inability to find compatible work.

I do not want anyone to feel obligated to donate but if you are able to whatsoever, through any platform, I genuinely cannot find words to thank you enough. If you would also like to donate, but don’t want to do so via the GFM platform for any reason at all, my Venmo is @MrsPots. I am genuinely unable to express the extent of my thanks to you, whether you are able to donate, share, or both. Thank you for reading.

-Jami Juetten