A New Life for Elisabeth

My name is Elisabeth, and I'm not a newcomer here. Around a year and a half ago now, I found myself crushed under the weight of near daily panic attacks and a profound depression that had knocked the wind out of me as soon as I had put a name to the trauma and abuse I had faced as a child, and then later as I came out affirming my identity as a transgender woman. The support I received here allowed me to start looking at this trauma for the first time in therapy, and kept me from sinking, which, though all I could manage at the time, was better than the alternative.

Now, all these months later, I find myself moving forward to the life I told myself I would make this time, and so I want to ask for support once more.

I realize that I can never truly heal from the trauma I have faced while in the very house I endured it as a child. I am grateful to have my physical safety now, but the final steps in my healing can never occur as long as I stay. Furthermore, the societal and political climate in the United States is becoming more and more devastating each day, and I am in fear for my safety as the current administration and everyone complicit continues to undermine and attack the rights I am entitled to as a trans woman and a human being. It's taking all I have to keep standing under the continued pressure of my anxiety, my depression, and the trauma at their root, but I am standing, and I am moving forward.

While this is a medical fundraiser, it is not for immediate medical treatment. It will go toward funding for all the logistical obstacles I face as I start to put together my new life in order to heal and escape an increasingly dangerous emotional, physical, and social climate. I would not be where I am without the support of my girlfriend, and as such, funds will go toward my move to Ontario next summer where she lives, in order to start realizing a life entirely our own, where as Elisabeth, I will finally be removed from a lingering past of abuse, and in what I hope will continue to be a country where I am welcomed and protected as part of the LGBTQIA community. We intend to marry eventually. It's a life I have often feared I would never have, and one I've often in my depression told myself I do not deserve, but it is finally in reach - by next August in time for the next academic year.

In order to ensure I can enter Canada for an extended period of time, I am applying to graduate programs in Ontario. Funds will also go toward the application fees required (estimated $300 total for four schools after conversion) and toward the $10k per year of study required by a student visa in Canada. Department funding and scholarships count toward this requirement, so this is a lower priority than what I need for the move and getting settled: funds for the move itself, enough money for at least a month of living expenses before school funding, and more to contribute to current savings in case of need. I have a part-time job, but due to my mental and physical condition, have only been able to work limited hours, since I have been let go from two other jobs due to frequent anxiety attacks.

This is to heal, and to realize a life for myself, fully as Elisabeth, where I can be more than my trauma, more than just what I see of myself in my depression. It is a life where I will not be alone, with my wonderful girlfriend and in reach of other dear friends who live up there who have seen me through these years of pain. I hope that, in just nine months now, I will be able to say that I am there, that I have started to live, and that I will be okay. Anything helps, even encouragement and positive energy.

Thank you,
Elisabeth