I'm Keke, though I'm known to most more casually as Moth, an autistic queer woman currently in Appalachia. I had a tough upbringing and even adjustment into independent adulthood due to being disabled. This has led me to a lot of trauma, social isolation, and mental illness, as well as the worsening physical chronic illnesses that are left a mystery to me as I haven't had the means, time, or money to seek treatment without it impacting my financial stability and ability to care for myself and my two cats at home. Often even leaving the house leaves me in a worse state than when I left unable to recover enough to go out again or make the next steps towards any treatment or socializing as I don't have anyone to come visit or help me with small tasks either.

I initially moved to Pittsburgh in 2023 with the intents for it to be my start, to meet friends and make a community and find my place but things didn't go to plan. I discovered I have severe social phobias that make it hard to even leave the house, had my apartment's cooling system fail while also being in a building that made me discover I had awful exertion asthma having debilitating asthma attacks with no inhaler yet every time I'd go downstairs for the mail. I moved, using the last of my savings to another part of town but this apartment has no cooling at all so I'm left suffering from different harsh health factors and relying even more on delivery as I'm unable to walk anywhere leading to me still never leaving the house.

Currently my mental health has hit some disastrous lows and I got freshly re-traumatized last fall in 2024 in an abusive relationship of sorts with the first "friend" I was able to make in town that opened many new wounds and reopened a lot of old ones. It's made me scared to interact with my local queer and furry scenes and try to make friends here anymore. But I thankfully have had a few groups of my online friends that have been able to give a small hand and say they'd help and welcome me if I moved closer, that would also give me the security to not be scared to go to events and get out of the house for the risk of being preyed on again.

There's also the fallout of not managing to ask for help earlier and focus as much on treatment as possible that has caused a lot of harm to myself and those close to me damaging my relationships with my peers. Trying to work full-time while also working on trauma recovery with a lot of untreated mental illness on top is a near impossible task for someone even the greatest support system, it's just not feasible to make a dent in the impact my mental health and chronic illness has had on my life on my own where I currently am. Being able to move, take time off work, and potentially re-enroll in Intensive Outpatient or at least consistently return to individual therapy and even physical therapy would be life-changing for me.

I want to finally be able to heal and live a more successful and fulfilling life not constantly fighting to survive and stop suffering alone. I've calculated up the costs of outstanding debts I have currently that are making it harder to afford basic daily living and prevent me from continuing and seeking farther treatment that if they're alleviated will continue to make it easier for me to keep pursuing self improvement, any funds that don't go directly to outstanding medical and credit card debts will go into a separate account for savings that won't be touched so that I'm able to take my planned first steps towards improving my situation and getting back to how they were before they got out of control.

The current first step after clearing my debts so I can begin to rebuild my savings is moving to another state where I already have support that will help me escape the fear/trauma of encountering my former abuser to be able to remove some of the greatest impacts that social isolation has put on me, including poor coping mechanisms to deal with being alone all the time. Allowing me a bit of balance between treatment and casual life as well as being able to actually put into practice any tips/homework my health team would give me. This will also allow me to live in housing that isn't harmful on my health as without air conditioning my body's inability to regulate my temperature causes intense health issues and the inability to do any housework without risk of collapse regardless of If I leave the house in the summer months as well by moving someplace that fits my needs within my budget as well as a regional climate that isn't as harsh for me half the year.

Thank you for your time in reading and potentially helping me, it is hard for me to ask for help, especially financial, but I want to reach the day that I can look forward to and imagine having a future and get back to helping others again.