I don't have a driver's license because there is nobody in my family who has a car I can use to practice for the driving portion of the test.

Instead, I got my driver's permit after passing the written test, and was able to use it to drive an Italian electric scooter for a year. I got this scooter using a tax return from a blue collar factory job, which I had quit due to extremely strenuous working conditions (48 hr work weeks in a warehouse with no climate control reaching 110°F) as well as sexual harassment, as I am a gender minority. Retail is more bearable, working two jobs part-time, but I barely scrape by.

However, after a year, the throttle and ignition on this scooter broke after cracking on the asphalt when I slipped in the rain at a stop light. I bought a new set, and installed it all to specification, but it still doesn't work, and I don't know why. There is nobody else who can service this scooter.

So, I took out a loan for an emergency purchase of an electric bicycle, about $400 including $100 shipping. But, to cut a long story short, it's now been stolen.

I desperately want to buy what is essentially a golf cart that is built with an enclosed cabin, so that I get to practice driving in my own vehicle, with a permit but not a license, and get myself between work and home, and never get caught exposed in the rain again. What is known in China as "grandpa's joy" is the perfect fit for me, often used to shuttle grandkids to soccer practice.

I decided to take a risk, hearing that there may be a financing option from Electric Import Motors, a trusted dealership that can even service the car if needed. I had put down the down payment on this car with the promise of financing it, just for the financier to only offer 1/8th of what I need because of a short credit history, and the down payment is non-refundable.

I have a bachelor's in graphic design, but my career plans were interrupted when I had a stress-induced psychotic breakdown in April of 2021 during COVID lockdowns during my final semester, and was diagnosed with depressive schizoaffective disorder and autism. I was very surprised to get my degree in the mail, but ever since then, I've been forced to support myself, with no free time to pursue the arts anymore. I was even warned to keep my stress levels low, or another breakdown could happen. And my life has been nothing but stress. Sometimes I do feel a slip.

I reached out to Kentucky state occupational therapy, and after months of hard work, they were only able to get me these stressful, severely underpaid jobs in retail. If I ask for more work hours, they say they can't afford it. I assume they couldn't afford to give me a raise, either. And I'm supposed to be chilling out. It feels like a cruel joke at my expense. I don't know how much longer my brain can hold out. Somehow this world can't afford to have me exist in it. It makes me want to disappear back into madness forever, or just not wake up one day. I even want to become a lawyer one day and help keep other mentally ill people out of the punitive carceral system, arguing from my own indispensable and rare perspective, but there's no path. My family has been working class for generations.

Having a car would give me so much less to worry about how I'm going to get home every day and where I'm going to sleep if I can't, and much less time commuting. This is time and energy I could use to get some kind of life together after being on a hamster wheel for 4 grueling years. And all I need is $8k.

Please just give me a break.