Hi, I'm Coreo, Coreopsismajor in various fandom spaces, and Digitalemur back in the LiveJournal days. Since 2023 I've been healing from severe burnout and PTSD, and I can't work full-time or in an office anymore. I cannot afford my roughly $275 monthly credit card payment, many months. I amassed that debt on insurance copays, car insurance, and kitty litter to get through the last few years, and there's no wiggle room for a boiler failure or a major car repair. This is my ask: can you help me pay down this debt?
The full story:
I began to burn out in 2019 while campaign managing for a friend in addition to my full-time job. I couldn't imagine doing anything except my much-loved but demanding job at a small college, and some community organizing and politics on the side, and I couldn't make myself slow down. My work was even more intense during the remote education phase of the pandemic in 2020-2021, supporting faculty and students trying to learn online; I took a mental health leave in 2021 that helped, but only somewhat. Meanwhile, I was in intensive therapy for some past trauma, which would make it possible for me to tolerate the gender-affirming surgery I had in summer 2022. I came back from that medical leave to increasing pressure from some colleagues to pretend things were okay, and to not be seen to struggle.
None of us foresaw a complex fracture of my right humerus in a fall accident on September 25, 2022. Wait times for care that meant I spent 2 months with a complete medial humeral fracture at an oblique angle with nonunion waiting in a medical brace, not healing yet, further traumatized by the delays, the difficulty even getting paperwork for short-term disability from the first ortho practice I saw, and from attempting to go back to work for 5 days with constant pain and limited mobility, before filing a different kind of leave paperwork in order to have the permission to stay home. I finally had surgery the Monday after Thanksgiving, and I'm including an x-ray from four months after surgery, since the ones of the unrepaired break are too graphic to show here. I returned to an increasingly intolerable workplace in January 2023 and planned a quiet and graceful departure, expecting to only take a few months off starting in April 2023, before I found something else.
Life wasn't done with me: I got a PTSD diagnosis in June 2023, as the burnout and traumas refused to be ignored anymore. It took a year of struggling to just get my health under better control, and since then, I've been slowly starting to work again, in freelance and contract work. I estimate that on a good week I have about 60% of my old capacity back, if it's working from home and being my own manager, but work is not steady. There are plenty of weeks that are not so good, still.
I'm working on getting to where I can pay my own way again, but the debt is a lot of mental pressure. I have a relative who kindly covers my mortgage and health insurance each month, though she's at an age where I wish I was supporting her instead; I have a housemate who is able to pay some utility bills despite their own disabilities. I'm at 90% of my credit utilized on my single credit card, and as described above, there's just not wiggle room for an emergency.
I know that times are tight for many people right now, but friends encouraged me to set up this fundraiser. Slippy, who many of you know, will recieve the funds as the beneficiary, so that they can make credit card payments for me and I don't have to jeopardize our food benefits. If you can share this fundraiser with people who would like to help someone pay down debt, it would be a huge help. If you'd like to, you can also share my pinned post on Bluesky or my carrd pointing people to my freelance gigs and contact information. And if all you can do is send me your positive energy, best wishes, prayers or spells for abundance, those are welcome too.
