<div>Hi, my name is Aspen. I'm a queer, Black, physically disabled/neurodivergent freelance artist and I'm struggling to recover from the past few years.
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<div>In March 2023 I left my home in Rhode Island without much of a solid plan due to years of relentless emotional and verbal abuse from my partner-at-the-time's mother and complete lack of tangible support from him in the face of it.
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<div>I would later find out from my friend who still lived there, after I had left for good, that the house was deeply infested with black mold, possibly partially explaining why in 2021, long before I left, I had been developing serious health problems including diverticulitis, an Epstein Barr virus reactivation, a stomach ulcer due to H Pylori, and severe nerve pain, fatigue and brain fog, and my migraines became extremely frequent. Something was challenging my immune system. I managed to leave temporarily for a few months and stay with a then-friend in Philadelphia, and kept working through it. I eventually had to come back to Rhode Island though, since their landlord decided to sell the property and we couldn't find anywhere else to move. Upon returning to Rhode Island I signed up for insurance and got in to physical therapy for the nerve pain, but the co-pay was still costly and the insurance was $250 a month, and that's when I started racking up debt I couldn't keep up with.
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<div>But in early 2022 the house got Covid and none of us recovered quickly. after the least amount of physical effort I would completely crash the next day. the brain fog was thick and I was not able to think clearly enough even to draw. I had to take many supplements to get to the point of working again after a lot of trial and error. In the meantime when none of us could work, we lived on my credit cards, since I was the only one who had any. The cards are now closed and I'm still in somewhere close to 20k in debt with them all. I had built a very good credit score in the mid 700s, now it's in the low 500s, possibly lower as I'm too anxious to check it in great depth while I'm currently unable to do anything about it.
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<div>When I left Rhode Island, I stayed with the same friend who was in the process of moving from Philadelphia to Ohio. I figured since my other leads were falling through I'd try to just move with them. Unfortunately (and some of you may remember) this wasn't going to work out well. Our stuff, including my work supplies were held in limbo for months by a shady moving company, a GoFundMe was started and it turns out my roommate at the time spent part of it on rent, but most of it on doordash and other luxuries. I didn't see a penny. Thank god we at least finally got our stuff--but a day after we got it back, they had left the door open coming home after borrowing my car (which they hadn't asked to do ahead of time and regularly only let me know after the fact), and my cat had escaped. I was distraught trying to find him for days inside and outside of the house, not able to eat or sleep. I thankfully found him, but they refused to take accountability even though they were the last one into the house, or tell me how they were going to make a plan not to do it again, which was all I was asking for, and in order to keep him safe since I couldn't trust them not to be negligent, and was otherwise soured with regards to the handling of the GoFundMe and other things, I had to, once again, leave without a plan.
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<div>Luckily someone I knew reached out and instead of them selling their townhouse, I'm now renting from them in Florida. This was a godsend, because as mentioned above, my credit is completely destroyed and I likely now have an eviction on record.
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<div>I stopped in Minnesota, my home state, while I was planning my move to Florida to stay with my mom for a bit in her 1 bedroom apartment and have her watch my cats while I took care of retrieving my stuff from a friend's place in Ohio and storage in Rhode Island. I had a diverticulitis flare and had to go to the hospital, thankfully that was before Minnesota ended pandemic coverage which I was still under so I didn't pay for it, but the antibiotic augmentin didn't seem to take very well, and I was out of options because I cannot safely take stronger antibiotics usually used as first-line for this issue, like ciprofloxacin. The only thing really holding the infection at bay during the move were probiotic foods/drinks which aren't cheap.
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<div>I got a lot of help for moving, but the trouble wasn't over as shortly after moving I would be unable to hold back the persistent infection left after antibiotics and I got another nasty flareup of my GI issues. Not wanting the debt from the ER in Florida or to further provoke antibiotic resistance, I decided to ride it out with supplements until and unless I felt like my life was immediately in danger. I got through and finally cleared the acute infection but was basically incapacitated for months from the inflammation, and am left with a lot of food sensitivities. At this point I was offered a paypal capital loan for 9000, I accepted hoping this would buy me some stock for my shop and some time to finish my commission queue, but I was barely able to pull myself out of bed and commission progress was incredibly slow on the days that I managed.
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<div>In the meantime throughout all of this I've also been accumulating taxes I can't keep up with over the past several years, especially now because I've been living hand to mouth essentially. I can't pinpoint exactly how much but this moves my total debt into the <strong>high 10s of thousands of dollars</strong>. Needless to say <strong>this in particular is an extreme priority to get ahead of</strong>, but I really just haven't been able to due to the challenges of basic survival.
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<div><strong>Due to my health I can't get another job</strong>, and the jobs I'd qualify for would likely pay less than or the same as what I'm already making while also physically endangering me considering how much Covid worsened my health. Meanwhile I don't make little enough to qualify for disability, and would have to stop covering my expenses for the months or years it takes to<em> possibly</em> obtain it, which I just can't do, let alone convincing the system it is something I need with many aspects of my chronic illness remaining unnamed. I'd rather get to a point where I can support myself again, ultimately, and I think I can do so, but in the meantime I need help.
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<div>I am still studying and learning to try and improve my health, I've made strides when it comes to the pain and the most extreme fatigue and brain fog especially, but my digestion is still struggling, if I stop expensive supplementation I backslide, and it's such a time consuming recovery process. I'm still trying to fight H Pylori as it's still an issue and recently I have symptoms where my digestion just seems to shut down and cause intense stabbing pain which derails me for days at a time. I do not have insurance, cannot afford it, and make too much for state insurance.
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<div>I'm extremely backlogged and honestly burnt out with commissions and while I'm steadily working on them, I am trying to shift over to pay more attention to my store as this would be more sustainable for me to lean on as an income source, but thus far half of my profits, after production and shipping costs, have gone towards paying back the Paypal loan I was living on for a few months. I'm afraid I'm in a hole it's impossible to get out of and will have to take on more commissions before I'm done or even down to a reasonable amount. I can imagine people are understandably frustrated with the long wait times and I just want to catch up and be able to breathe again as my ability to maintain self care is really suffering, I'm either in a flare or working and there's very little time or energy for the other important aspects of life, like getting outside or staying on top of housework.
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<div>The rental in Florida has been a godsend, but I'm so far away from anyone I'm close to and completely lack a local support system. I don't have time to go out and build that support system. I'm afraid that if I need to, I won't be able to rent from anyone else for many years to come because of how my credit has been obliterated and the longer I take to get a hold on these debts the longer it will be before I can get my score to a reasonable place. As implied above my mom is also struggling and renting herself, so I can't lean on family for help. I debated on making this for months because it's not an acute emergency as of now--but I feel like with any more bad luck this ongoing health and financial instability could easily become one.
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<div><strong>I'm not expecting anywhere near the goal I set</strong> but if anyone can spare anything to help me breathe again and catch up to at least the point where I even have a chance of starting to pay my debt off myself, it would be so appreciated, as has been all the help I've received up to this point. All funds will go to Food, Rent, Utilities, Medical needs and Debt payments while I finish my queue. I will update with screenshots of the debt being paid whenever possible.
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<div>Thank you so much for reading. <strong>If you don't want to donate directly and would understandably rather have something for your money</strong> I have a <a href="https://shop.aspeney.es/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">shop</a>, also mirrored on <a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/AspenEyesDesigns" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Etsy</a>, and <a href="https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/aspeneyes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">prints</a> available as well. And of course shares are always appreciated.
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Help a disabled artist recover after escaping abuse

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