Help me start my studio

My name is Michael Webb. I have been disabled for many years, but I wanted very badly to get a job. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, though I feel they made the wrong diagnosis.

Whenever I worked around crowds of people it became impossible for me to control my emotions, and I became increasingly unable to remember things while this happened. After I was left for awhile my moods would stabilize and I would get my memory back.

Eventually I decided to become a medical transcriptionist, because most medical transcriptionists work from home. It took me two years to get help paying for it. I found it very difficult to concentrate, and it went slowly, but I got through it. Unfortunately, the first school closed and all the students lost their money.

I wasn’t willing to quit at that point. I had moved out of my group home so I could study and work on a computer. I took out credit cards and used them to pay for equipment and go to another school for medical transcription.

When you study transcription you work with real medical records with the personal data bleeped out. One day I reviewed the case of a child whose medical history sounded exactly like my own childhood. He hoarded food, had explosive rages, and couldn’t listen in school. He was given a medication which worked, so I asked my doctor to give me his prescription.

Unlike the other fifteen medications I had taken, the medication worked immediately. I could feel its effects on the first day. I remember walking outside and looking up at the sky about an hour after I took it, and then walking down to the corner to take the bus. Normally I hated going anywhere on the bus and avoided it compulsively.

That day was the first time I ever made small talk with anyone on the bus. Usually every sound and conversation bothered me, but that time I was able to deal with it all.

Suddenly, the medical transcription work became much easier. Every month that went by, I began to learn faster.

I finally graduated many years after I started. After I began looking for work, I found that it was almost impossible to find a job. Nine months later I finally got one as an “independent contractor.” That means I was paid less than four dollars an hour. I also had to buy a foot pedal, maintain a high speed internet connection, and occasionally buy software. Medical transcription had been outsourced to India.

I realized I would not be able to support myself at that job, and I looked around for any sort of other work I could. I had no car, and had been unemployed for years. I made a database of 1200 potential employers, and tracked all my applications. I never found another job.

While I was looking I continued to teach myself new skills on the computer. I had sketched and drawn pictures for a long time, but eventually I found a tool called Blender that allowed you to make models, and pictures.

I began writing a story which I would use Blender to tell. I wanted to use it to make animated movies, so I taught myself all the skills needed. Normally when Pixar does a movie, an entire crew of people works on it. This includes modelers, texture artists, riggers, animators, and very likely scripters.

I have learned how to do all of those things. I had to learn it on my own, without books or teachers, because my loans for medical transcription had gone into default. (No, vocational assistance won’t help me, because they helped me with the first school. Yes I already asked. It would be insane for me not to have gone to anyone I could for help going to school. There is no help. None.)

I made a preview video which isn’t very good, as it was my first attempted. I burned out my video card and had to go buy a new one after doing it, but the link is here .

I continued working with my computer as it was, and realized that making fully animated movies wasn’t realistic with my system. I decided that I would tell the story I began four years ago, but tell it in text, illustrations, and occasionally animations. The launch date was the 20th of this month, and I was probably going to make it.

Last Monday, my computer died. It appears to be the motherboard. I don’t know how I will ever buy another one.

I am still unemployed, and have not been able to get a job in about ten years, besides a brief stint as a medical transcriptionist where I made a few hundred a month.

I badly wish to contribute to society, but I can’t do that without the basic tools of the profession I’m trying to enter. I’ve done a lot working only with open source software, and entirely by having taught myself over a period of four years. If it ends here, everything I ever did was a waste of time.

Please follow me on facebook  and vote up my link, if you would like to help. I'm sorry to ask for help, I really didn't want to.