Taking Responsibility When It’s Not Your Fault: How a tribe of people on the internet stepped up to help me heal when the organization that should have stepped up stepped away

Back in June of this year, I got a message from a Twitter/Facebook friend, small-town pastor in Iowa, Eric Schumacher, someone I’ve never met in real life. He asked if I reached the end of my options trying to get my $50,000 of accident-related expenses reimbursed. (If you missed it, while I was in residential therapy trying to heal from the trauma that came from reporting my sexual abuse, I was hit in the face by a bat that slipped out of someone’s hands during a recreational therapy. I had to go into emergency traumatic surgery, be hospitalized a while, get a bunch of screws and a few plates, and after having my jaw wired shut for 2 months, had to have a few other surgeries, braces, bone grafts, and a tooth implant.) This happened at a place called Milestones in Tennessee. As of today, they have refused to help me with any expenses that happened while I was in their care.)

Out of Options

After getting dropped by the only attorney who would take my case (we realized the medical negligence cap in Tennessee wouldn’t result in any helpful damage recovery), emailing Milestones many times over the last year to try and get help, applying for various grants, and reaching the statute of limitations for any civil suit against Milestones and/or the guy who accidentally swung the bat, even asking within the Southern Baptist Convention (because after all, if Mark Aderholt would have been reported to law enforcement in 2007 when they knew about the abuse, I wouldn’t have needed to go to Milestones in 2018 after I reported him and experienced retraumatization).

I was, in fact, at the end of any options I knew of. Outside of nursing school, I work at my job at a hospital whenever I get called in, I write when I can, and we try to earn money in creative/freelance ways. In May, my husband (along with a few hundred others), was laid off from the company he worked for. Those layoffs were so extreme and shocking, they made the news. We were discouraged, a little scared, but tried to remain hopeful.

I emailed Milestones once again through their attorney I was told to contact and sent them everything: medical bills, attorney statements, insurance EOBs. I’ve touched base a few times and was told several weeks ago they are waiting for their insurance company to respond (the same insurance company, I assume, who said they wouldn’t cover the accident when I first asked about it.)

Eric asked if he could start a GoFundMe for the medical expenses, which landed at about $30,000 now (an expected $6,000 in the future, and another $14,000 in related, non-medical expenses like travel and boarding for three weeks in Nashville while I waited to have various surgeries).

I sent him everything I sent Milestones, and he launched the GoFundMe this weekend. As of today, 39 people have generously donated around $4700. I was able to pay a recent bill of almost $2000, and I hope to put the next deposit toward the outstanding $5600 bill from the trauma oral surgeon (who was out of network but has worked over the last year with me to get the bill from ~$15k down to under $6k.)

Promising to Show Up vs. Actually Showing Up

Eric and 39 other people-some strangers-have stepped up to take responsibility for helping my family be made financially whole so that I can focus on recovering from the trauma of both reporting my abuse and the trauma of getting pegged in the face by a bat. They have the compassion to walk alongside someone during an incredibly tough time, even though they are entirely removed from the situation. This is unconditional love, support, and in many ways, like family. They are shining light and hope, helping us find joy in knowing we are not alone.

What’s crazy about this is Milestones actually promises to be there for their “clients” (patients) unconditionally. Their mission is to be family and “show up for you.” They promise to help you “discover joy.”

From their website:

At Milestones at Onsite, we want you to know that we stand behind you one hundred percent. We want to support you and walk with you into your recovery. We believe in unconditional love and when you come to Milestones at Onsite, you become family. We are here to help and we’d be honored to have the opportunity to show up for you and help you discover joy in your life.

Onsite at Milestones :: Link Here

In reviewing my notes from my time at Milestones (which, admittedly while I was there, was incredibly healing and shaping; the people there are really quite wonderful, which makes this all the more confusing), my primary therapist actually wrote that while visiting me in the hospital, she asked me to let them know if they could do anything to help me.

I made my ask, and they 100% refused.

Milestones is a profitable and well-respected company. From all appearances, they have amazing facilities, pay their staff well, and the cost of the average stay is typical for most residential facilities: between $25,000 and $50,000. One would assume they have insurance and because of their reason for existing: to unconditionally help people heal from traumatic events, helping a client simply pay her co-pays, a client who was traumatically harmed while in their care, would be the natural thing to expect.

But instead, everyday people with everyday rent payments, daycare, utilities, back-to-school costs…these are the people picking up where Milestones dropped the ball.

Being in a position to ask for help is awkward, especially when I log in to GoFundMe to post updates. I see babies in ICU, burn victims, cancer survivors fighting. Asking for money when there is such a great need everywhere feels wrong. And maybe it is. We have a roof over our head. We have food in the pantry. We have a savings account and a credit card from which we could take care of a lot of these expenses before they went into collections. Who are we to ask? Who are we to accept?

Please Help (Each Other)

There is so much hurt and brokenness and need in this world. If I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that we need to do a much better job at taking care of each other: person-to-person. We can’t rely on empty promises from elected officials, churches, Christian organizations or other companies to even do what they promise they’re going to do.

The only thing we can do is look around and when we feel that urge to help, no matter how perceivably small…whether it’s opening a door for someone, paying for that next car’s coffee in the Starbucks line, making a donation to a cause you care about or even anonymously blessing someone in some way…these are the things that will carry us through in the uncertainties of broken promises.

If you feel like making a donation to us, you can do that here. I’ll even send you my new book (and most any of my other books) for free as a thank you.

But more importantly, I urge you to explore other causes on GoFundMe too, and if you don’t feel led to help with our medical expenses, that is totally (totally!) fine. Please just give somewhere, to someone.

If you’re the person who needs to ask for help, please ask. There will be somebody there to help you out, no matter how many people (or places) have let you down before. I promise you that.

We get to carry one another.