Urgent Help-Casey's Financial Emergency

Raw. Unfiltered. And far from any "picture perfect" life most people choose to present on social media. This is my story. By definition, VULNERABILITY is the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. I am choosing to be vulnerable in a VERY public way. And yes, it's super scary. But I can't hide or run away from it anymore, so I'm letting the cat out of the bag.

I have always been so embarrassed to speak up about mental health & addiction. I am proud to say I am sober, healthy, and discovering how to enjoy learning how to live life with mindfulness, and WITHOUT ALCOHOL, and it's beautiful. I need freedom from carrying this burden for so long. I’m proud to speak up, but I'm just 1 person trying to change the negative stigma behind mental health and addiction. I never imagined this being part of my life story, but I own it now. So if this offends anyone, I apologize in advance & you should probably stop reading this now.

I AM NOT SHARING THIS FOR PITY, but RATHER, I'M SHARING HOW DESTRUCTIVE ONE CAN BE TO THEMSELVES WITHOUT ANYONE HAVING A CLUE THAT YOU'RE SLOWLY KILLING YOURSELF. I KNOW I'VE NEVER SHARED POSTS OF MYSELF ON SOCIAL MEDIA OF ME AT MY WORST. I mean, who's going to "like" posts of me sharing, "hey, I lost my job, my passion, and so much for all the hard work I put in to get here." Or "Hey y'all, guess what? I just signed over temporary conservatorship of the person I loved more than life itself, my amazing daughter, to my brother and sister-in-law. (praise the Lord, they are phenomenal parents and have provided Emerson Grey with so much love) She didn’t need to be in the toxic environment I created." SO I CONTINUED TO PORTRAY MY LIFE AS PICTURE PERFECT AS I COULD SO NO ONE COULD SEE JUST HOW BAD MY LIFE HAD BECOME. Especially since I was still social media "friends" with so many people I grew up with. Or those I went to high school/college with. I was terrified to let them know I basically had "peaked" and was failing as an adult. Their lives: having successful careers, stable jobs, happy marriages, some of the most beautiful kids and families I have ever seen. That was always the life I wanted, and I wallowed in self-pity and was completely full of envy.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Casey Miller and I feel so guilty reaching out for help. I am in an emergency situation financially trying to get some assistance as I am rebuilding myself and understanding that addiction is a monster. I am a single parent of a five year old girl and I am currently in a civil court case for custody and child support. Long story LONG, not short (I apologize in advance for the novel). Now this all started about 10 years ago, but boy did I hide it well..until I didn’t. I made a MASSIVE mistake two years ago, and I am so remorseful for my actions, behaviors, and all the people I hurt along the way. FORTUNATELY this mistake SAVED MY LIFE! The last 2 years of my life felt so chaotic and I lived in denial: isolating, numbing the pain and guilt with BOTTLES and BOTTLES of wine and staying in bed all day watching Netflix as another way to distract myself. Gross. I had self sabotaged pretty much ALL my relationships with friends and family. I had hurt so many people, and was so oblivious to the fact that I was additionally hurting myself. It became a life or death situation. I’m just now having to deal with some of the repercussions. I’ve been a FANTASTIC teacher for 15 years in Austin, Texas. During this time, I was going through/diagnosed with major depression disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, alcohol use disorder and PTSD from my father’s death and then domestic violence. I was in an abusive relationship with someone who has 7 arrests and almost killed me. After 2 years, my principal at that time was more than compassionate and helped me get out of that situation. I had dodged the first time I subjected myself death by thinking it was okay to be treated that way.

I’ve made horrible, life threatening mistakes without any consequences or accountability. So here’s the mistake that tore me up inside, but actually saved my life. Regrettably, I made a terrible judgment call on September 6, 2022. I drank at work, and I got caught. It was the best elementary school I had ever been a part of. Tons of my friends from high school had wonderful children who went there, and I made a fool of myself and my reputation. To any of the parents that had a student in my class, I am so sorry for my actions and the effects it may have caused your family! The Texas Education Agency had to do an investigation. This investigation was closed on July 3, 2023 and my teaching license was suspended for a year.

During the 9 month investigation, my license was still valid, so even though I was fired from AISD, for the grace of God I was able to get a new job immediately with a charter school.  This is how I managed to still pay my bills. As soon as the investigation was closed out with a ruling, my school was notified that my teaching license had been suspended for a year. This is how I lost my job at that school. Since I was technically fired, I could not get unemployment benefits either and have been relying heavily on my mom. 

The conditions of my getting my teaching license reinstated was to go to rehab and pass a drug/alcohol test. During that time I went to ADAAP outpatient here is Austin, and inpatient at Nexus Rehab facility in Dallas. I completed both of those programs, even won the hardest worker award. It helped me realize I was not a bad person; I had just made a ton of mistakes. These mistakes don’t define who I am. I’m so proud that I am now sober. I am working my AA program, attending meetings, and doing my step-work. After about two weeks at Nexus, I heard the song “I Smile,” by Kirk Franklin and I finally surrendered my higher power. I let God take control. I am still in that same mind frame. I will not cope by drinking again, and I will try to be as patient as possible for Him to help me.  I know now that I am on my way to being the best version of myself. A better mother, friend, aunt, sister, daughter, employee, and the list goes on. I have a lot of amends I need to make. I will be in recovery for the rest of my life. There’s no cure. However, my recovery must come 1st so everything I love in life doesn’t have to come last.

BUT, here’s the financial emergency:

* My rent is due on the first of the month and that is $1850. My mom had to help me with May and June's rent and she does not have any more funds to assist me. Bless her heart. Basically, I caused that.

* My utility bill is due and it has a past due balance so the total is $743.62. I got a notification that my service was at risk of being suspended starting tomorrow.

* I am in a civil case for child support and I just found out today that even though our mediation is set for August 23, I have to pay our mediator, Samuel Solodar $934 by Friday at noon. The reason for this is that I did not have money for a lawyer so I studied at the Texas law library for about three months, and have been representing myself pro se. with mediation fees, if you are representing yourself pro se, then you have to pay upfront, and if you don’t use the whole entire time, then he will reimburse me. The other party, her father, (who was at the hospital when Emerson Grey was born and the day I got home there was a pink post it note saying that he had moved out. So he has nothing to do with her and he doesn’t want anything to do with her), has lawyered up. 

* When the original Child Support orders were set, I felt as if he manipulated me into thinking that he was going to help raise our daughter so I didn’t ask for child support for two years and then I had to supplement the salary I get from teaching. With the original child support payments, he said he was going to try to help raise her, so I settled for $400 less than what the judge had recommended, and agreed on $500 a month. We both sent last year’s taxes to the judge. He was working at Oracle/Netsuite and was astonishingly making $220,000 a year.  The judge then ordered him to pay $1895 a month. Ironically, he got fired from his job in November and got a dwi. Therefore no money from him has been received since January 3, 2024. 

* Right now I have no gas so I can’t even do one of the side jobs that I have which is DoorDash.

* I also have enough food for the rest of the week. But I will be heading back to sunrise church tomorrow to get some food from the food pantry.

*My google fiber internet bill is $72.10.

* Finally, my current house has 15 health violations from the city of Austin code compliance. My landlord has been avoiding my and Mr. Kleinert’s (the code compliance guy) attempts to communicate with him via phone, text or email for the last nine months. Although he did call my mother the other day and told her that she needs to give them $1700 for him to fix some of the stuff. We gave him a security deposit of $1850. He told my mom that that is for “after I move out for cleaning and wear and tear.” I kid you not I have an entire binder of all the times I’ve tried to communicate with him and he just ignores me. My lease was actually up May 12, 2024. I wrote him three times about renewing it or what to do next and he never wrote me back. Just a few of the 15 violations: the dishwasher has been broken for four months now (we’ve always had issues with it) but it needed to be totally replaced and it just has mold growing inside of it. Two windows are completely broken and temporarily fixed by taping a box over them. There is a giant 6 foot by 3 foot hole in my ceiling from the attic and all the insulation is just hanging out of it. The pipes in the garage for the washing machine burst (the plumbing here is very old). My garage flooded and there was a river in my backyard, water coming out of our wall, and I had to call the firefighters. Five firefighters showed up to help me. (My landlord ignored me) There are still 10 more violations but even with these five, I cannot continue to allow this behavior to happen. 

There’s probably more I’m forgetting, but I’ve already typed you a whole book. I have all the documentation of everything that I’ve explained to you. I also have videos and pictures so please let me know if you care to see them.

My heart is in so much pain, but God (and my father, a huge Catholic church goer who I lost at 21) are giving me signs that they are working for me!

So far, 2 silver linings just came my way. 1 . I am sober today. And 2. my teaching license was just reinstated on July 10, 2024. So my last 6 days and nights I’ve been glued to my computer applying for jobs. I’m working so hard to find a teaching job here or even in other cities and pray that I get a job as soon as possible so I can pay my bills again and be financially stable family. I feel really lost and really helpless. I’ve always been able to support myself and Emmy. But cannot even support myself at this time. But with that being said, the hiring process still takes some time. Interviews,(out of a huge pool of successful teachers.  By the grace of God, hopefully some interviews will start, then I’ll just have to wait while they choose the candidate that is most qualified.  

If there is any way, you can assist me in helping in any of these categories or even just give me words of wisdom or advice, I would be so appreciative. Feel free to say what you want, even if it seems harsh, I need to hear it. I am really desperate at the moment.  Thank you for taking the time to read this. God bless you.

Casey Marie Miller

https://gofund.me/f9122179