Dear loved ones, of now or once before:

I am out of touch with you I am sure. I have been out of touch with everyone. While you may have received one of these from me before, I have never fundraised for myself. There are many many people with more need right now and forever, and if you have finite money to give, please give it to them.

I am attempting this because many of you have offered me help over the last few years and I have been unable to process it. I am infinitely more comfortable care-taking, helping and allowing myself to be used by the collective. I want to help you clean your room or rearrange your living room. I want to give you a ride or put up your friend, or even be the asshole saying the thing that no one else will say. It is confusing for me to truly need help and more confusing to ask for it. This is my attempt to try something else, as that old method got us here. Thank you for your grace.

WHAT HAPPENED

As you know, I have been a social worker/therapist for the past 14 years, and it is an incredibly emotionally athletic job. In 2022, my mental health was beginning to fray, and I saved enough money to take my first true three month break off work since I was 16. A luxury many never get, and I was on such an attitude of gratitude. When I returned to work in the fall, I attempted to engage with new passion - was networking with new groups and was attempting to expand my knowledge in the field. Unfortunately, a series of incredibly traumatic events (both intimately and globally) provoked a severe mental breakdown, and by January of 2024, I was very unwell.

Since I did not know how to ask for help, I pushed away everyone I knew because I did not want to just yell at everyone and act crazy. I'm here for love and the pressure what I was experiencing was making me very reactive - it was hard to watch and I felt fully out of control. I put all of my energy into being functional enough to work in my work hours and keep the crazy in the off time (which was also foolishly athletic), in hopes that I could save up and close my therapy practice and give my 30+ clients support in getting new care, since it's hard to find a trans-competent therapist.

It has also been a time of heightened anti-trans rhetoric and legislation. I am a trans person who makes their living supporting trans clients. In these years, many of my colleagues were moving states/leaving the US because their agencies had been shut down or their positions had suddenly been criminalized. The anxiety about the state and surveillance in my community was also very inflamed.

I was proud of this work. It gave me a real sense of purpose. I saw my last client at 8pm on 12/31/24.

It has taken a year of almost no work for me to be reasonable enough to send a Merry Christmas text to loved ones without rage or paranoia. It has been humbling. After so many years of containing my feelings in the face of pain, the pitcher just shattered.

I had built my life in service to my ideals. In 2020, I made more money than I had made in my life, and I gave all of it away because so many folks were out of work. I saw clients for free, paid other peoples rent, offered sliding scale and was truly just trying to model and be the world I wanted to live in. I tried with everything to be the most good, and it ultimately left me broke, isolated and in psychological crisis.

I am finally in a position where I feel like I might be able to make choices again. I have started exploring new types of work and feel like I can likely be back on my feet in a few months. I had been paying my bills this year with a personal loan I had been able to acquire and it has now run out. I am asking for support to help pay off this loan and cover my bills til March.

If you have it to share, I would be so grateful for your help. And if not, I hope that this can just be a little starting amends for my actions in the recent years.

Sending love however

<3

theo aka ali

(lka Allison Harris)