Hey friends, I’m a disabled artist who has become a lot more disabled and lost both my workspace and my day job over the last few years. I’m currently struggling a lot to pay my bills by doing odd jobs and occasional commissions. My partner helps me out as much as he can and I’ve received a lot of help from friends and family too. My health doesn’t allow for me to work any more than I already am and frankly, the 3ish days a week I am working is often too much. My mother has early onset dementia and I am helping my sister care for her as much as I can while trying to stay afloat.

Edit: For those curious about my health problems, my major issues are MCAS, EDS, Crohn’s, and most likely POTS. I am doing my best to manage my conditions and take care of myself without access to healthcare, so mainly using OTC drugs and supplements.

A large financial hurdle is I’m facing late fees and fines from city taxes from a city that I haven’t lived in for years. This city is an hour and a half drive from where I stay with my parents and the list of documents they want and the amount of money they want just keep growing. I am at my wits end, I don’t want to end up with a court summons and don’t know what to do besides pay what they’re asking. I’ve attached the amount I owe for one of the years, I will be dealing with four or five years in total. The kicker is I hardly owed any tax to begin with this is mostly late fees and fines. I expect to owe over $1000 by the end of this.

I also have some hospital bills in collections that I have not even had the energy to look at. I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to get on medicaid.

I finally paid off my used car this year which was wonderful, I do however need about $1000 of maintenance done on it that I absolutely cannot afford.

All of my income goes to bills and I have no savings.

I am also in need of a passport for emergencies as my partner is Hispanic-American and is pursuing his dual citizenship in Mexico due to some of the current events happening. I don’t know exactly how much this will cost but I’ve been trying to save up about $250 for it and so far have been unsuccessful as more expenses just keep popping up.

I’ve accumulated a lot of debt these past few years just trying to survive and I’m no longer able to tread water. I am drowning. $3,000 would allow me to at least get the passport, the car repairs, and the city tax out of the way, and maybe get a little ahead on a couple bills. I hate asking for financial help and I know so many others are also struggling. If you are unable to help financially but want to support me as an artist you can find me @brierspire on Instagram. I’m not taking commissions at the moment because the last one took me 6+ months with how exhausted I’ve been. If you’ve read this far, thank you for caring. I hope we all make it out of this.