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Freedom Phoenix Farm

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                       About Freedom Phoenix Organic Acres                                                              Farm:

 

That farm is my entire world, it is my true life's passion project. It has been proven numerous times that spending just 15 minutes outside can drastically reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, bipolar, & so many more disease. Imagine what days outside can do, imagine what working on a farm & seeing your hard work paying off can do.

I got the idea for the farm many years ago, after one of my many stints within another terrible psych hospital. Psych hospitals & programs such as them (outpatient programs and the like) are incredibly & inherently flawed for so many reasons.  Rather than teaching us how to truly deal with our diseases out in the real world amongst normys (my word for those who do not suffer from mental illness) they isolate behind barred windows and locked doors. They pump our bodies full of toxic chemically laden pills that are only band-aids, rather than helping us address the root problem or using exponentially betters alternatives (with far less detrimental side effects) such as CBD oil. They lack the funding & the resources available to truly help people. Most times when I come out of the hospital or programs for outpatient, I feel worse than when I went it. I come out a zombie who is still unable to socialize within the worlds outside of those walls. This farm is my answer to those flaws because at the end of the day, many of us wind up back in the hospitals many times before we finally succeed in taking our own lives. These programs do not truly help people, they’re no more than an expensive glorified temporary fix.  

Seeing the plethora of issues within this, I came up with the idea for Phoenix Freedom Organic Acres Farm which will solves many of these problems in an exponentially better manner. Through my farm people will learn to farm the land from sowing the seeds, to harvesting their bounty, and even saving seeds. This will give them skills that they can use when they leave the farm to get a job. We will teach them how to do everything on the farm including raising the livestock, repairing & maintain tractors, bailing hay, crop rotations, & much more. More than that though, we will have art programs, music programs, sport programs, as well as all sorts of other activities for them. We will have them prepare their own meals, wash their clothes, clean up after themselves, balance a checkbook, sew items such as clothing, learn basic first aid, & so much more. Through my program they will gain essential life skills they wouldn’t otherwise have gained. This program will teach them how to not just exist in the world, to not just scrape by, but to truly learn to live, to find the balance between illness and functioning. It will teach them how to work around their unique set of struggles so they can not only get through each day but they can rock the fuck out of it.

Beyond offering them life skills, social skills, and job skills, this farm will also provide them with housing. For it is our plan to build a community of tiny houses, the goal is to have about 25 which will be able to house anywhere from 2-5 people at a time. One of the most difficult things about battling mental health, is finding a stable home, which the lack of only ends up exacerbating the symptoms of said diseases. By providing them with a safe & stable shelter over their heads, we will dramatically reduce the numbers of suicide, homelessness, and the numbers of people in hospitals. By giving them a house, we give them hope, we give them a real fighting chance to not just exist but to truly overcome these diseases, because rather than worrying about where they will lay their head down, or where their next meal will come from they will finally & truly be able to focus on their recovery. These tiny houses will give them hope. Hope is one of the most powerful things in this entire world. More than housing these tiny houses will give them a community of like-minded people who understand them & their struggles. This community will give them the balance between living life amidst those who have many of the same disease as them, while also teaching them how to socialize and coexist within the outside world. As the farm will be open to the public, will host weekly events, have festivals, & much more. I want to help not just break down, but fully shatter the stigmas surrounding mental health and those who live everyday with it. I want to use this to educate normys on our lives, our struggles, on the fact that we are still human, that we are worthy, amazing, & much more.

 

Basically, this farm will provide everything they need to succeed, to truly recover, to truly live their lives fully. It will be available to those who live with debilitating mental health diseases as well as veterans.  
                                                                                                  
                           

                                  
          Why this is a cause you can feel right about                                                getting  behind:
                                      

Please know that any money you donate to this cause will not be in vain for I refuse to rest until I have made this farm a reality. We live a terrifying world these days, but it is my goal in life to bring a heck of a lot of positivity and light to the entire world. Please help me raise this money now so that I may be able to help others in the future!
                                         
        
                            
                          

  COURTNEY'S Introduction:









          My name is Courtney and I have several debilitating mental health illnesses which include: PTSD, Bipolar, Borderline Personality, and Anxiety in all its forms. For me my diseases started a quite a young age as I was molested by my father when I was 9 years old, this along with the fact that during that time and for several years after my stepfather at the time was incredibly abusive physically, mentally, and emotionally. My stepfather always made me feel like I was a mistake, like I should have been aborted, like the world was better off without me, and he made a point to tell me that as often as he could. To this day, I still deal with the aftermath of their words and their actions. There are many nights where I don’t sleep at all, or nights where even when I do sleep it is less than 4 hours of very fitful sleep filled with ferocious night terrors. I still suffer from extreme abandonment issues, and have very big issues with trust especially when it comes to males. My father was supposed to the one who protected me but rather he was the one who showed me just what kind of monsters exist in this world.  After my father, had done what we did to me, I started going to my grandparents’ house for the summers, as I was obviously no longer going to my dad’s. My grandfather was the main reason I got through that first summer.  Especially since it was during that summer that all the legal stuff, the trials and such was happening with my father. I was not there because when we drove all the way to Danbury, Connecticut from our house in South Bound Brook, New Jersey for me to give my statement I freaked out. They had to pull a female officer so that we could file the report of what happened to me. This affected her so much that she had to leave several times during this time to recollect herself. It was deiced after that incident that it would be best for me if I wasn’t present at the trial because it would only do more harm to me, and they weren’t willing to put me through that. Plus, there was no way that I could recount those horrific days in front of all those people. The only caveat to that was my father was allowed to plea down since I wasn’t present and my mom used what is called a victim’s letter.  From that summer forward until I graduated from high school I spend every summer with my grandfather. He and I were always incredibly close, but this brought us so much closer. He was my entire world. He had a long career in the US Navy which of course meant I wanted to have a long career in the US Navy. My family jokes that my first words were Go Navy, and if you’re lucky enough to find pictures of me as a kid I am usually almost always standing at attention. It was no surprise that I enlisted in the US Navy as soon as I could. I signed up for 8 years right away as I wanted to be a career sailor just like him. However, that dream would never fully come to fruition as I would never make it past basic training. I enlisted knowing that I had some demons, however, I thought that I could overcome those demons. The fallout from what my father and stepfather had done to me caused my mental health ailments.






       Like many kids, I to dealt with being bullied, but this was so vicious and horrendous I would come home crying daily begging my mom to pull me out of school. The only thing I wanted to do was die every day. During middle school, the kids would say such horrible things as “have fun getting raped by your dad this weekend,” they would tell me that I should kill myself, there was even a hit list written and signed by over 100 kids of all the kids who wanted me to dead. At one point a girl slapped me in front of a teacher in the lunch room and the teacher did nothing. During my 8-grade year, my first boyfriend was hit and killed by a car. It got so bad my mom made the decision that we were going to leave that town so that I didn’t have to go to high school with those horrible kids. However, high school wasn’t much better as there was a point where I tried to kill myself everyday 3 times a day for 6 months straight.






        During most of my high school years I battled those diseases, and even did a small stint in a psychiatric hospital.  Despite my struggles, I managed to graduate early and went to spend one last summer with my grandparents before I left for the military. I came home about 2 months before my ship out date for my mom’s wedding to my current stepfather, who is amazing by the way. It was in the nights leading up to her wedding that I once again learned how cruel the world truly was as my cousin raped me. This wasn’t the first time he had done something to me either, and like last time I didn’t say anything to anyone because honestly, I just wanted to forget that it happened. I didn’t want anything to delay my ship out date, I didn’t want to start anything with my family, or create unrest. So, I bottled it up, celebrated my mom’s wedding with her and left for the Navy.  On the third day of basic I had sustained a gnarly injury to my ankle, which I didn’t tell anyone about and did my PT test despite my severely injured ankle. It was until later that night that the female RDC saw my incredibly swollen ankle that night as I was climbing into my bunk and she made me go to the hospital on base the next morning. This injury kept me out of PT and drill for about 2 weeks (I pushed through the pain despite still being injured), then right when I finally got medically cleared I got incredibly sick which put me on bed rest for another 2 weeks. At this point I was 4 weeks behind everyone else in PT and drill which was painfully obvious when it came to marches more than anything. PT wise I was still pretty on par with everyone, but when it came to drills I was dreadfully behind.  The 4th Sunday during our free time the stress of the being halfway through basic and being so far behind, my past, and the fact that I received a letter that something had happened to my grandfather (I believe he injured his leg or got sick) I snapped. I had a complete nervous meltdown, it was so bad I was convulsing on the ground when the corpsmen came and it took them several hours to calm me down.

       After that I made the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my entire life, I decided to leave the one thing I worked for my entire life, I decided to walk away from my lifelong dream of being in the military. I didn’t take this decision lightly and I still haven’t fully come to terms with it 11 years later. I didn’t make this decision because I was giving up on myself, but because I wasn’t willing to have another meltdown and possibly cost the lives of my fellow Sailors, that wasn’t a price I was willing to pay.  Fast forward a few years to my 26th birthday and I received a call that my cousin had had a meltdown and confessed to what he had done to me, mind you I had broken down and told my mom a few years before this. They wanted to pursue a case and bring up charges against him, which I was onboard for because I have always regretted allowing my father to plea bargain as he spent less than six month in jail for what he did to me. Since, I no longer had to worry about my military career I was willing to finally tell my story and to seek justice. Justice wasn’t something I was ever going to receive, as he kept changing his story and delaying the trial, he kept using his mental health to delay the process until I finally gave up on it and he now walks free like my father. However, the thing that kills me most about this is the fact that because I was in the middle of my trial with him and my mom didn’t want my family to attack me, I wasn’t allowed to go to the Celebration of Life for my Grandfather. For years, it has killed me that I had to miss the passing of one of the single most important people in my life because of my cousin. Since then I have been in and out of hospitals, moved multiple times, and have never really had much stability in my life.


      Now there are days where I am terrified to even leave my house. Then there are days where I feel like I can take on the world. However, even on those days that feeling doesn't last long. I find it very hard to socialize, as my anxiety kicks in the moment I even think of leaving my house. When I am finally coaxed into leaving my house, I must have someone near me that I trust always, otherwise I start to panic. I can usually only spend maybe 2-4 hours out max, and this is only if it is a good day if it is one of the dark days I will be lucky to even go outside. The more people there are the harder is it for me and that time decreases drastically. Having an invisible illness brings struggles few will ever understand. My life is a war filled with daily battles with my mind, my body, and the world around me.  Every day is a new adventure with its own set of struggles. I have spent years battling my diseases, and have tried to commit suicide many many times.  Now I just want to live. I want to live my life to the fullest each day.  These diseases have tried to rob me of my hope, my dreams, my soul, my love, my identity, and most importantly my independence. I will not allow it to do that to me, for I will fight back, I will overcome. I will become better than everyone expects me to be.





     For over 4 years now I have been battling to win my SSDI case so that I may have some sort of income coming in. During this time, I have relied heavily on the generosity of my friends, their families, my husband, his family, and my family as I have had ZERO income coming in during these last few years. Trying to win a disability case for mental health diseases such as mine is so dang difficult I have debating on giving up many times. But, I know I am sick and I have sent them all the doctors notes and hospital stays to show it. The ADA recognizes bipolar as a lifelong disability, and yet it has taken me this long just to finally get a hearing in the next few months (hopefully… That also doesn’t mean I will even win my case). Yet, according to every test I have taken to prove it I have always ranked quite high into the disabled category.




    Apparently, despite all that I still don't look sick enough to be using food stamps, or to win my case. However, what does sick look like?  Despite my illnesses, I plan on enrolling in school hopefully in fall so long as I can find the funding, but I can’t afford an apartment to be close to my school, which means I may not be able to go. I will be attending Delaware Valley University to study Organic Gardening, so that I can learn to be even more self-sufficient. I have worked incredibly hard over these last few years to get a handle on myself and my diseases, and while I am not where I want to be I know I am on the way to getting there. While I fully understand, I am not ready to work, I know I must plan for some sort of future. I picked Organic Farming because I love the idea of growing my own food, the idea of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. I want to get back to our roots, to know where my food is coming from. Plus, for me, when I am outside in the garden or even in nature in general it is the only time my mind is ever truly close to being quiet and calm. This tiny house is the first step in that massive dream. When we reach this goal, I know we can achieve so much more. I am not looking for a handout, but rather a hand up. If y’all help us reach our goal it is my solemn promise to you that I will never stop fighting, that I will use this tiny house as the catalyst for the rest of my life. I have always been a head in the clouds, dreaming amongst the stars kind of a girl, but I firmly believe we are only limited by the depths of our imagination.

Organizer

Courtney Polak
Organizer
Lambertville, NJ

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