<div>Dear friends:
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<div><strong>First:</strong> I don’t know if I’m doing this right. I’m sorry to be in the position of having to ask for help again. I'm sorry the figure is so big.
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<div>What follows is long, so I’m putting a tl;dr summary version up top (which a friend helped me write): 
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<div>"I don't want to ask anyone to support me indefinitely. This GoFundMe is approximately what I need to live on for the next six months. During this time, I have plans to delve deeper in therapy, present at several conferences where I hope to make professional connections, and try to make an actually sustainable plan for the future so I can once again support myself. I don't know if it will work - I continue to experience the effects of years of instability, struggle through trauma and trauma responses, and worry deeply about my ability to actually become stable. I may need to ask for help again. But I am more well than I was the first time I reached out for help, and I have more ideas about what the future can look like, and I am grateful that you are all part of it."
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<div><strong>Second:</strong> thank you all. I am so, so, so, so grateful to you, and for you. Thank you.
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<div><strong>Third:</strong>
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<div>... I've been trying to write this for a while. (About seven weeks, to be specific.) It remains <em>very</em> difficult for me.
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<div>(I’m sitting here with a friend right now, which turns out to help me regulate my somatic responses, which makes everything easier. Which is great! I've been learning lots of valuable things.)
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<div>I want to thank you very much. I will never stop being grateful. None of you owe me anything, but because of your kindness and your generosity, I've been able to live with less fear and with something close to stability during this spring and summer.
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<div>I am <em>intensely</em> grateful. I will never be able to sufficiently thank any of you.
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<div><strong>As of right now: </strong>
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<div>I still don't have my life together. I'm trying, but I'm not there. (I have some progress, and some ideas, and some plans--which is better than I was five months ago!)
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<div>Some of you have asked if I still need help, and asked how you can help me. <strong><em>Thank you.</em></strong>
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<div>... Here's a fun fact I lately learned: did you know that it's possible to have a condition that makes it excruciatingly difficult / painful / close to impossible <em>to ask anyone else for help?</em> That's so clever it's horrible! It's almost funny, right?
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<div>I am practicing, now. I'm literally practicing. It's close to the hardest thing I've ever done.
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<div><strong>How I'm doing right now:</strong>
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<div>Because of your support, I've had a quiet, private, comfortable place to live this summer.
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<div>I've been doing a <em>lot</em> of therapy. I've been trying to sort out a lot of... stuff.
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<div>Some days, and weeks I am (relatively) upbeat, and functional. This is good! This is actually better than before!
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<div>On these days, I try to do reading, writing, and other things that fall under the general rubric of self-care or therapy; I try to figure out short-term and longer-term possibilities for continuing medical care and supporting myself; and--this is somewhat surprising--I have started crystallizing and developing writing projects, which I think I will actually be able to finish. (I am very optimistic, some days! And some parts of my brain still work!)
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<div>Other days--or weeks--weeks I am not really able to do, or "produce," anything. That is... difficult. But that is what ongoing treatment and therapy is for.
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<div><strong>What I've done with your previous donations:</strong>
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<li>Sublet a quiet room in a house for the summer (I can see lots of trees out the windows!!!)
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<li>Paid off over $600 in parking tickets I had accumulated while staying in South Philadelphia (for the curious, there's a whole reality show on this subject: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_Wars" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_Wars" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_Wars</a></a> )
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<li>Paid my monthly credit card bills, and a small amount of the balance (I have accumulated debt since I ran out of savings in 2020. It currently stands at about $22,000.)
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<li>Paid my phone bills
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<li>Paid my car insurance
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<li>Paid for gas, for driving
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<li>Paid for food when food stamps fell short (benefits were cut across the board in April by 30%)
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<li>Paid to replace my 7-year-old laptop, when its battery finally died, with a newer (refurbished) one
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<li>Paid for aspirin, sunscreen, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, socks, a replacement for a broken Bluetooth headset, a replacement backup hard drive, ACE bandages, new sneakers (I had been wearing the last pair more or less daily for two years)—all the things you don't think about until you need them and don't have them
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<li>Paid to buy three books not available in the library
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<li>Paid (more than once, but fewer than--twelve times?)--for overpriced coffee. IT WAS GOOD.
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<div><strong>What I am asking now:</strong>
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<div>... Gosh. OK. (This is still very hard.)
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<div>Again: I know none of you owe me anything. Some of you have asked if I still need help. I am more grateful than I can tell you.
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<div>(--Here is what my friend helped me write when I hit a wall and lost the ability to write, so she helped me to summarize:
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<div>"I don't want to ask anyone to support me indefinitely. This GoFundMe is approximately what I need to live on for the next six months. During this time, I have plans to delve deeper in therapy, present at several conferences where I hope to make professional connections, and try to make an actually sustainable plan for the future so I can once again support myself. I don't know if it will work - I continue to experience the effects of years of instability, struggle through trauma and trauma responses, and worry deeply about my ability to actually become stable. I may need to ask for help again. But I am more well than I was the first time I reached out for help, and I have more ideas about what the future can look like, and I am grateful that you are all part of it."
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<div>This is all true! And everything really is so much easier when I reach out to other people, and I am truly, truly sorry that it is so often so difficult for me to do so. )
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<div><strong>More details:</strong>
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<li>Living expenses are at the top of my mind--probably not surprisingly. then, too:
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<li>I would be very, very happy if I were able to pay down some of my credit-card debt (about $22,000). The monthly bills are very anxiety-provoking, and the interest keeps accumulating.
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<div><strong>Other needs:</strong>
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<li>In late spring, my 2007 Prius was swiped by another driver. There were no serious injuries, and I was not at fault, but my insurer decided the car wasn't worth repairing; they gave me "market value." I am anxious to replace it; I have been temporarily borrowing a car from a kind friend's family, but they will need it back soon.
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<li>My backup laptop, as well as my primary one, also started to die. -- Not truly surprising, since I acquired them both during the same period (before 2020, when I was last fully employed), but still a strain.
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<div><strong>The conference-presentation thing:</strong>
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<div>This is also true! There is an academic side of my brain that is working [and working much better when I'm less immediately afraid]. Even to me, this seems kind of weird--why would part of me function more or less reliably, when other parts don't <em>at all?</em> But the therapist says it's not a cause for concern, and I might as well lean into it.
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<div>I presented at two conferences this spring. I'm also engaging cautiously with a possible plan that, if it works out, might open some helpful doors. Please feel free to ask me personally if you're interested, and/or interested in talking about academia and the social humanities in general.
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<div><strong>Other notes:</strong>
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<li>Please feel free to reach out to me if you'd like--if you have any questions, if you want to communicate. I want to be open. I think it's important.
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<div>I also... set up other options. In case anyone finds them easier?
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<li>Paypal: i.hate.this.srm.phl at gmail
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<li>Zelle: same as above
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<div>I guess I might make a Patreon, too, in case anyone wants to contribute monthly
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<li>[ done: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/SRMKeepsWorkingOnIt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/SRMKeepsWorkingOnIt" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.patreon.com/SRMKeepsWorkingOnIt</a></a> ]
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<div>[ Interesting fact: did you know that GFM censors out links to other donation platforms? I guess they view them as competition that cuts into their profit margin? Thanks for your consistent charitable-mindedness and moral high-groundedness, GFM! ]
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<div>Thank you all so much. I am so grateful for all of you.
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<div>(One final note: I find it challenging and confusing to try to explain, in words, even to myself, why I tend to hide and disappear as often as I do—even from people I don’t necessarily <em>want</em> to be hiding from; even from people who care about me. I think this page maybe explains some of the issues in accessible terms(?):
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<div><a href="https://sevenstonesmentalhealth.com/why-people-with-complex-ptsd-tend-to-isolate-themselves/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://sevenstonesmentalhealth.com/why-people-with-complex-ptsd-tend-to-isolate-themselves/" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://sevenstonesmentalhealth.com/why-people-with-complex-ptsd-tend-to-isolate-themselves/</a></a> )
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Dylan Thurston

Sam Barbash-Riley

Erin Read

Erin Petrie

E Tan

Anonymous

Kristina Nygaard

Jonathan Gruenhut

Barbara Strom

Charlie Hersh

P Harvey

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SRM's Ongoing Efforts To Achieve Stability

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