Support Elegies' Journey to Independence and Healing

Hi, and welcome to my fundraiser! I’m Elegies, a trans, disabled fan creator of color, mainly an artist atm but also a writer! I’m looking to get some help with a pretty tough situation I’ve been in for…basically my entire life. I know times right now especially have been unforgiving for a lot of us, especially those of you who are probably even reading this as I know my audience is mostly marginalized people. But getting some real support right now would save my life.

Here is my story:

Warning: mentions of domestic violence, child abuse, death threats, childhood sexual abuse, threats of assault, and suicidal ideation

As a few folks know, I’ve been caretaking for my mom since she was disabled in her 40s. She’s been very sick since before then though, and I was raised in an abusive household with two other older siblings. At one point we did live with our father as well, who was (you guessed it!) also mentally ill and rather violent, and who would abuse our mother. She eventually was able to file for a restraining order, and got a divorce long after the separation. I have barely any memories of my father living with me, only visiting him, but both my siblings remember his presence in the house and the abuse itself. Even after he was forced out of the house, while my dad never physically abused us, he did often threaten our and our mother’s lives, and used my older siblings especially to attempt to pressure my mother into giving him the house and dropping her restraining order.

My mother didn’t give in, but was still deeply affected by the threats and behaved physically and psychologically violent towards us. Unable to cope with the stress on their own, both of my siblings had also used me as their outlet to function the same way my mother had done to us. I was the last recipient through the horrid line of our family traumas and dysfunction, and bore it from every angle and in every way—emotionally, psychologically, physically, and sexually—I did not belong to myself, I was the receptacle of their pains. Even my most earliest memories are of me on my back being assaulted, and the assaults continued the entirety of my childhood, my adolescence, and even well into my years of higher education.

During my first college winter break, my brother had had the worst episode to that date, (I would later learn he was a single step away from attempted murder in the domestic violence risk assessment—something that even after years of therapy I don’t even know how to comprehend, let alone make peace with.) I had called the authorities and filed for a restraining order against him, and he was escorted out of the house. I was closer to the other sibling, my sister, despite the abusive nature of our relationship, which I’ve come to recognize more clearly as Stockholm Syndrome. She had been the one person in my family to show me the closest thing to affection, and I had held onto it with all of me. Still I found myself bursting with upset, continuously being triggered. I had done all I could to support her despite that, including begging an ex who’s family had adored me to house my sister and her boyfriend when the boyfriend had been homeless and my sister confessed to having suicidal feelings. (My sister having suicidal ideation was something I had never thought possible at the time, as she was the golden child in our abusive family dynamic, and who’s emotional wellness had been supported the most, though that doesn’t stretch far in a family as fucked up as ours.)

I was now the only one in the house with my mother, who was at this point permanently disabled after being assaulted at her job. My mother’s frustration towards her declining health and her lack of control over my sister, her golden child, and the child who was now dating someone she had disapproved of, was a dark cloud in the house. She’d spent every day yelling into the phone, venting to friends, telling them my sister deserved to die. At the time I was struggling to get a job, struggling to understand my own disabilities, (neither suspected, nor diagnosed on my part) and trying to understand why my mental health was rapidly declining after returning back home from college. Needing a place to put her anger, my mother frequently had controlling fits with me.

She’d been so obsessed with the fact that my sister had been dating someone without her knowledge that on several occasions she had followed me when I would leave the house to make sure I wasn’t doing the same. (I only know this because she later confessed to it during one of her episodes. I stopped intentionally trying to date after this.) She would also threaten to kick me out of the house if I upset her in some way, did something wrong, was busy or incapable in some way I could not understand. (An example: she requested I drive her across our state and into another, specifically during rush hour, so she could attend a religious ceremony. While I was not aware I had ADHD at the time, I knew how poorly I kept up with an overload of stimuli, and how exhausting and frustrating it was to be driving during peak hours, through the city especially, and felt I was unfit to do such a demanding task. She immediately angered, compared me to my sister who would’ve done it with no problem, and then threatened to evict and disown me.) I would frequently be in my friend's DMs panicking about homelessness. It felt like I was always on the verge of being on the street.

While I was going through this, I often tried to visit my sister (who was now on her feet and had her own apartment) to get some space from the house and my mother, sometimes sleeping overnight on the couch. My sister’s boyfriend was unfortunately quite troubled himself, and time and time again had periodic episodes of abuse, many of which I increasingly became the target of just as much as my sister. When I turned 24, with the support of a college friend who’d been getting their masters in social work at the time, I was beginning to realize how dysfunctional my relationship with my sister actually was. Eventually I asked my sister to attend therapy with me so we could properly repair our relationship, and also address the dynamics between her boyfriend, her, and me. My sister declined, and I made the painful decision to excommunicate.

My mother had strangely become more amicable towards me after that. I found the more I was separated from others, including my own siblings, the less suspicious and threatened she was of me. If I didn’t have friends, if I didn’t have partners, if I didn’t have anything, there was peace in the house. Eventually, I grew closer to my college friend who grew to become my partner, and my mother’s episodes started up again. There was constant criticism of my partner, someone my mother had thought was still only a friend (neither of us were out,) and again threats of eviction. All of this stress was amplified as the pandemic had set in, as I was incredibly worried about my ill mother when there was an unknown virus running rampant and taking thousands, and then my partner suddenly became physically ill with an unknown illness on top of that. My depression and anxiety grew, my CPTSD was splitting my mind open, I was developing symptoms of psychosis under the stress, and the strain on the relationship and my life was making us both suicidal—to the point where my partner, who was a licensed social worker at this point, had even suggested we make a suicide pact. My mother’s physical health was continuing to decline and I saw myself being stretched even more thin in needing to do everyday tasks for her that she no longer couldn’t. Being forced in her proximity as she was so hostile had been overbearing, trying to keep myself afloat while ill, and also hold my partner as best I could through their illness simply wasn’t possible. While there were a lot of reasons I suspect the relationship wouldn’t have lasted beyond my mother sabotaging it, I left my partner in order to reduce the mental strain of dealing with my mother.

Since then my father has been diagnosed with cancer, I’ve been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD, autism, and ADHD. I’ve become my mother’s full time caretaker, who refuses to acknowledge this in any form that could have me reimbursed for my efforts, through government programs or otherwise. The groceries, the bills, all of her miscellaneous needs are done on my credit card, and she pays me back for these bills at her leisure, and increasingly she has not been doing so at all, despite having the funds to do so, which she often shares and brags about with her friends on the phone.

As I’ve been making efforts to rebuild myself through therapy, through friends who are standing by me, making real efforts to integrate me into their lives and the world at large, my mother is again becoming increasingly violent. Last month she called the authorities on me, lying and said I stole her car and keys, (I did not hand her the keys on one occasion, as she was just recently told by her physician that she was unfit to drive due to age and disability.) She was again threatening to evict me, and then an hour afterwards demanding I pick up fruits for her from the grocery store. She tells me my friends are bad, my therapist and psychiatrist are lying, and I’m making up my illnesses. She calls all her friends on speaker and loudly exclaims into the phone all the horrible things she thinks of me, venting to them. Her last phone call, she had been venting to my brother, who had promised to commit battery on her behalf and beat me if I disobeyed her again—a wildly alarming thing to hear from someone who I’ve previously gotten a restraining order against for doing exactly that.

I can see my illness responding to her episodes, despite my best efforts in and out of therapy. She has an episode, and I think to give her what she wants. The pile of pills on her nightstand.The knives in the kitchen. The pole in front of the car. The tallest bridge in our state—the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge—only an hour drive away; just enough time to say goodbye.

It takes time and dedication to snap myself out of that terrible need to disappear. It’s only through practiced coping mechanisms, and reassurance from friends, reaching out to my therapist that helps me resurface from the hurt of it all. By the time I feel like myself again, my mother has another episode, often triggered by the sheer signs of my functioning and growing independence from her, and the cycle repeats.

Maybe I can stop myself from my suicidal compulsions after my mothers episodes this time, and maybe the next after that too, and the one after that, but I don’t want to have to fight just to survive. I want a life. I want friends that don’t have to be superhuman just to know and support me. I want ordinary problems like a shitty boss and annoying coworkers. I want to build something for myself. I want to heal. I want to love. I want to make art. I want to read. I want to write. I want to learn new talents and discover things about myself and my interests that I never thought I could find. I went to an anime convention for the first time in my life this year through sheer luck in timing and the relentless persistence of a friend supporting me and it changed my damn life. I didn’t know creative spaces even existed in such a capacity. It made me hunger for the world that’s out there that I actually belong to. Ones filled with artistic talents and pursuits and quirky and queer identities just like my own. My brother dumped his cats on us after no longer being able to house them, and in a serendipitous turn of events, I found a love I did not know I could have— how much the joy and wonder and sweetness a loved little thing could give you just for being you. Something like a pet is not a form of care that I would have normally sought out for myself, not knowing if I could handle the financial and emotional responsibility of caring for something when I’m in such day to day turmoil as it is, but it’s been a discovery to realize how bad I want the agency to be able to make such a choice. There is so much this life has to offer, but I can only find scraps of it while still trapped in this house.

I want my time to be now. Please help me get out.

My Plan:

I have mentioned that I have already begun the journey in therapy to dig out the pains embedded into my brain and body, replace old habits with new ones, reprogramming my thoughts and soothing my wounds. But I have been undergoing abuse for 31 years of my life, and this is not shallow damage that I can snap my fingers out of my psyche and replace with confident tactical skills and functionality out of sheer necessity and psychiatric meds (trust me, I’ve tried.) I will be needing a lot of support while I find my footing and stabilize.

I have sought out multiple social workers’ help for my predicament and am also now working with a case manager to better understand my options. My plan is to use several federal and state programs to acquire disability income, food stamps, and reduced cost housing. The case manager and I have worked out a timeline that will maximize benefits and ease myself into independence, and concluded I will need approximately 3 years of support.

Taking my location, timeline, benefits, and all else into consideration, here are my estimated expenses:

Minimum

Costs per month

- $1000 housing

- $35 phone

- $60 wifi

- $300 food/groceries/paper towels etc. just everyday supplies

- $500 transport if no car/ubers

- $10 ABLE account

- $200 cat supplies

- $150 having an actual fucking social life lol (+200 if no transportation/ubers)

Yearly: ~$29,500

3 years: $88,500

Costs per year

- $1000 vet

3 years: $3000

Miscellaneous

- $18,000 EMERGENCY FUNDS, (6 months of rent minimum)

- $5000 moving expenses

Total: $114,500

Gofundme percentage: $3,350

TOTAL: $117,850

Ideal

Costs per month

- $1000 housing

- $35 phone

- $60 wifi

- $300 food/groceries/paper towels etc. just everyday supplies

- $10 ABLE account

- $150 having an actual fucking social life lol

- $250 cat supplies (ideal)

- $100 car registration (it’s every 2 years, but it’s around $200 total) (ideal)

- $300 car insurance (ideal)

- $120 gas (ideal)

Yearly: ~$28,000

3 years: $84,000

Costs per year

- $1000 vet

- $70 car inspection (ideal)

Yearly: ~1,100

3 years: $3,300

Miscellaneous

- $18,000 EMERGENCY FUNDS, (6 months of rent minimum)

- $5000 moving expenses

- $1000 washer/dryer (ideal)

- $20,000 used car (ideal)

Total: $131,300

Gofundme percentage: $3,900

TOTAL: $135,200

The current projected totals are based on programs and help that I currently have secured, or am certain to have access to within the year. If I manage to secure more programs or outside help, I will be reducing the fundraising goal total to reflect that. All of these numbers are somewhat overestimates to account for taxes, inflation, miscellaneous fees, etc.

For legal purposes, a dear and trusted friend, BlossomChi, will be receiving these funds and be gifting them to me, or gifting me my needs with it.

If I do not meet my goal, I will keep all raised funds in an account reserved for when I have enough saved to move out. It would take a little around a decade to raise the money I need on government programs alone, assuming I am approved for them and able to pocket every dollar I receive, but getting out when I'm in my 40s is better than never getting out at all.

Thank you for taking the time out to read this, and for all your support. I would never have had the courage to seek help or even attempt to leave this situation if it weren’t for how nurturing and empowering fandom and our creative communities have been for me. Thank you for giving me this strength and for being such a pivotal part of my journey <3

Links:

bluesky

twitter / x

tiktok

AO3

tumblr

patreon

All links can also be found on my personal site:

carrd