Help The Carters: Battling Disabilities Together

We are The Carters, a disabled single-parent and a disabled teenager. Between the two of us we have about 20 different disabilities (including autism, ADHD, diabetes, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (which affects skin, bone, joints, organs, teeth and more) , fibromyalgia, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, asthma, PTSD, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, Long COVID) and almost as many concurrent medical conditions that severely affect our daily lives.

I (Kara) have been a single parent almost all of my child’s life. He just turned 18 this year. Child support was half what the state originally wanted and was never consistent (and ceased when he turned 18 earlier this year, though he was still in school), and as such, and with a growing litany of medical costs between the two of us, I was often forced to charge basics like food, medical bills and supplies, gas, clothes and utilities to my credit card to survive and avoid collections. I was also without medical insurance for a number of years compounding the issue, to the tune of over $11,000 at this point.

I have been diligently trying to pay this debt off, on top of all my other debt (six figures worth, mostly due to student loans) but it is strangling us, making it difficult to put food on the table, but we don’t qualify for any assistance and while we did frequent the foodbank and gleaning groups for a long time, the food we were receiving started making us sicker, so that is no longer an option.

We live frugally, buy second hand where possible, and I stretch every single dollar and item of food we ARE able to purchase as far as possible. I am extremely hardworking, work full-time (though recently had to decrease work hours a bit on doctor’s orders due to medical issues), and I even attempt to sell my belongings, make gifts to sell and hold garage sales to make ends meet, which is like a second full-time job without the pay, but I feel like I’m failing. We are still struggling so badly, even though I’ve been fighting this battle for years. We are constantly in survival mode (which does not help the PTSD), the bills are mounting and I am literally worrying myself sick, constantly having to make some very difficult choices (like not filling prescriptions, buying prescribed supplements, recommended foods or pursuing necessary treatments) to try to get by, and make sure I can make minimum payments on existing debt, but it’s only making things worse and all the debt I managed to pay down has returned and increased, on top of 4 new diagnoses for me in the last two months and 2 for my son, plus he needs immediate oral surgery, which, even with insurance, is a significant out of pocket expense ($800-$1200). The upcoming holidays are just giant question marks at this point so we are just taking it a day at a time, though most days feel like an unending trudge uphill but we are trying. Endlessly trying.

So, it was recommended to me, even though this is incredibly difficult and I feel like I am opening myself up to negative judgment, to make this GoFundMe to try to pay down/pay off that debt, in an effort to help ease the burden, and get us onto a little bit surer footing, where perhaps buying all our medications and food regularly might be possible.

This isn’t an effort to get people to correct my poor fiscal decisions for me. I’ve been very responsible. (We don’t travel…yeah that’s not even an idea we entertain. We don’t have an entertainment budget like some people do. I have no savings.) It’s a request for help to mitigate the severe effects of trying to survive as a 100% single-parent disabled family in a world that, as my friend puts it “is set up to watch you fail and do nothing.”

I have been homeless. I have been hungry. I have been without crucial medical care. I have suffered domestic abuse and I will do anything to make sure that my son never has to go through that.

Rest assured, we are still working tirelessly, as we have been for years, to get through this, but they say it takes a village, so, we are asking ours for help.

Thank you so much for reading. Your understanding and compassion is appreciated even more.

Happy Holidays.