I am asking for help because long-term coercive control and intimate partner violence have left me in a desperate and precarious financial position. My summer course fees remain outstanding because I did not have enough money to pay them, for example, and I will very soon lack the money to pay for basic daily expenses, let alone rent and bills. I am also in a situation in which I am still living with my abuser, and intend to move out, most likely to a new city.

For approximately the last eight years I have been in a relationship characterised by escalating and systematic coercive control. In part this was fuelled by financial dependence that allowed it to further escalate even once my spouse ended the relationship romantically speaking. It included extreme and regularly occurring verbal, psychological, and emotional abuse, and the state of dependence was itself cultivated through financial abuse, including employment sabotage and other means of preventing me from being able to reach financial independence. This included things such as being forbidden from seeking full-time work for most of this period, along with an enforced expectation that I would do all of the domestic labour for the household by myself on top of whatever work or schooling I was doing.

This, alongside other factors (such as an ACL and meniscus tear that prevented me from doing many kinds of work, ultimately requiring surgery) has severely disrupted my ability to achieve any level of financial stability that may have allowed me to leave. It has, alongside my already economically marginalized position as a visibly trans woman, made it even more difficult to find stable work by disrupting my employment history. This situation of chronic desperation and precarity cultivated an environment where I have been forced to pick whatever course of action will keep me going in the short-term at the cost of being able to make good long-term life/financial/employment decisions.

It has, unsurprisingly, left me in a position of incredible burnout, in which I have no savings (quite the opposite). I am currently just finishing my MA thesis, and the part-time job I managed to find over the summer (which paid less than a quarter of what is necessary for me to live on) is ending, and I do not have family in a position to help. I will most likely not have the chance to get what I probably actually need after this—a period of extended rest and recovery—but being able to finish my degree, leave here, and have the time to find stable employment would be an excellent start.

I am looking for:

- 2k for outstanding course fees from the summer and other currently unpaid/overdue bills.

- 10k for ~3-4m of rent, bills, and other ordinary expenses while I finish my thesis, find work, and move.

- 2k for first, last, and moving expenses, which in combination with the previous amounts would allow me to move out rather than just stay afloat.