What you are about to read is not easy; it is the truth of what my daughter and I have lived through, and it may bring up memories and emotions for anyone who has survived domestic abuse. Please read with caution. I am sharing this because we have run out of safe choices, and we need help. We will start with the good things and then move on to the reason why we are here.
Why This Is Long (and Exactly What We’re Facing)
I’m truly sorry this is so long, and I appreciate your patience and the time you are taking to read it. Fundraising pages often get abused or misused and donors are right to be skeptical about whom they donate to, so I’m laying everything out clearly and out in the open—not to overwhelm you, but to be transparent about what we are truly facing, what we need, and exactly how funds will be used. I’m not hiding anything. I have documentation to back this up—police reports, evidence logs, text messages, videos, and supporting records—and I’m prepared to share whatever you need to verify our reality. I’d rather over-explain than leave room for doubt. We genuinely need help, and you deserve a full, honest picture before deciding.
Our Financial Reality (No Public Assistance)
We do not qualify for public assistance: I earn just over the income limit, which disqualifies us from receiving assistance, but it’s still not enough to cover everything on time. That “in-between” gap is putting us at real risk—of losing our storage unit, falling behind on rent, losing access to my phone (which is a lifeline for work, safety, and emergencies), and having very little left for food. We are doing everything we can, but we are on the edge.
Why this fundraiser was created:
We finally escaped a home filled with violence, yet we are still being punished every day through financial control, legal manipulation, and continuous cruelty from our abuser that seeps into our financial stability, general stability, my mental stability, our housing, health, and my ability to work. There are official records that show what he did and what the State of Minnesota charged him with, including a criminal complaint documenting the physical assault, a judge’s order legally preventing him from contacting us, and release conditions proving this case is still active. I am blacking out case numbers to protect our safety. Even with these orders in place, he continues to contact us, abuse us, violating his release conditions repeatedly without accountability, and he uses the trauma to manipulate not only me through a cycle of fear and control but the justice system by using his recent physical condition multiple sclerosis diagnosed shortly before the time of this incident.
The night he stabbed me will be a night I will never forget, the person I had spent six years of my life with became unrecognizable to me. He injured me so violently, with our baby shower knife to the back of my head, that I still struggle to accept that it even happened. Processing this ongoing nightmare has been extremely challenging for me but I am doing everything I can to heal and start moving on from this horrible experience. If it weren’t for my daughter being there, I wholeheartedly believe he would not have stopped that night. The look in his eyes that night was completely empty, it was blank, and it was hollow—like he had no soul—and the rage pouring out of him was something I had never seen before. I have seen him angry but this time it felt so different. It was as though he wasn’t himself, but someone else entirely.
He chased me throughout the house, trying to rip the phone from my blood-soaked hands while I fought to call 911—minutes stretching into what felt like a lifetime. As I struggled to keep him away from me and from our baby, only fourteen months old at the time and screaming in absolute terror. The only reason he stopped was not remorse for what he had just done, but the single flicker of humanity that made him pause when I continued to scream that he was doing this in front of our daughter and he realized our daughter was watching. I was bleeding everywhere, clutching my phone because I knew if I let go, I would lose any chance of getting help—and while speaking up has cost me so much, staying silent has cost me far more.
