hope will be found (fundraising request)
Sunday, July 28th, 2013 04:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erikaI HAVE BEEN FUNDED. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH.
Despite my best efforts, Josh and I are going to have a shortfall we can't fix on Friday. See, I planned for everything I could think of (and that my social worker could think of, and that my mother could think of), every bill that we might have while starting a new place together and even down to cleaning supplies and restocking grocery cabinets. I even priced renter's insurance and set it to start August 1st, because I am fucking neurotic.
What I didn't think to plan for, and how could I, was the bill I got on Wednesday from the local magnet hospital, which contains charges from my horrific IUD insertion combined with the bills from my physical therapy both of which were rejected and not paid for. (As far as I'm aware, I have not yet been sent the notices from my insurance for the procedures in question, so I can't appeal them yet——that is, if it's actually the insurance's fault, which in this case, it's probably not, because the local hospital's billing department is run by a crack team of idiots who like to threaten me and not bother to tell me which diagnoses were on the bills which are, in all likelihood, probably why they were rejected.)
Plus, of course, the fact that the charges for the utilities for the city are twice as much as I was expecting. Instead of 75 dollars, which is probably twice the amount of a water bill for two people, it's 150. And instead of 200 dollars for the electricity deposit, it's 350. This is my fault entirely (I probably should've browbeaten people more over the phone and not accepted reassurances), but that doesn't eliminate the need for support.
I've been on the phone with the hospital billing department for the last few days and:
what it comes down to is that we need about 300 dollars to make a 'good faith' start on the hospital bill to prevent it from going to collections* and also to fix the utilities problem.
*anything I pay towards the bill now will supposedly be repaid if hell freezes over and the hospital and/or insurance cleans up their act
In addition, because of money that's been sucked up thanks to this shit, we need about 200 dollars over the rest of August.
I'm on Social Security disability and thus a fixed income, and Josh is already working 40 hours a week. He's trying to get a second job, but there's almost no chance he'll be able to find something soon enough to help, and if we can just get past this one time expense, I have run the numbers enough to KNOW it'll be smooth sailing from here, with a good chunk of money put aside in an emergency fund every month.
Total Requested In Donations: 500 dollars. I've already gotten a loan from a good friend for 200, so much of the emergency costs in the next week are covered. Any donations past 300 dollars will go directly into paying my friend back.
I'm Erika, I'm 27ish (I think), bisexual, kinky, a sexual assault and abuse survivor, a Buddhist, and in a long term relationship with my partner, Josh. I'm Latina, a giant geek, and I love to write.
I have also recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia as of last month. Literally, last month.
Before that, I was diagnosed with depression when I was 16, panic disorder and PTSD when I was 18, and agoraphobia when I was 22. The PTSD and agoraphobia are in remission most of the time.
Frankly, I'm asking for help because the stress from this sudden fuckup right before we're about to move has been so bad that literally the only reason I am not inpatient in the hospital right now is that there's no way Josh would be able to pull anything together to fix this. We've already borrowed money from my mother for the security deposit, my sister is moving as well, my younger brother's in New Zealand, and Josh has no reliable family members, unfortunately.
I need to get out of this house. I need to be away from my parents because I'm realizing how much they contributed to my abuse over the years (possibly in ignorance, quite probably intentionally, at least on the part of my father). I need to be in a healthy environment to get a handle on my newly diagnosed fibromyalgia, and to be able to spend energy on the relationships that actually give AND take from me, and not the relationships that just take.
I have two dogs and I can't leave them here, which is why it took us so long to find a place to begin with. If we back out of the lease, we lose almost a thousand dollars; if we stay here and cancel the utility set up to save another paycheck before we move, I'm probably going to end up in the hospital as of August 5th and Josh may lose his mind having to be in the same house, without me, with people who saw me being abused for 15 years and did nothing.
I need to continue to pay nice with the hospital or what little progress I've made on getting a handle on my physical ailments will go down the fucking tubes.
I'm between a rock and a hard place, here, guys. If you can help me, I swear I'll pay it forward (or possibly back, if necessary). If you can't, I totally understand. Please signal boost.
[edited]I'm [no longer] accepting donations, as thanks to the generosity of friends and strangers, my needs are fully met.
What I can do for people who donate is very little, unfortunately. Metta meditation specifically naming you (which, I'll be honest, I generally do anyway for everyone I interact with online). Write a 'guest entry' in your journal or in mine on a topic of your choice, no shorter than 300 words. Make you a playlist of 10-20 songs around a concept. Take pictures of myself (and maybe Josh) looking REALLY HAPPY and send them to you. These are things I can reasonably commit to, and seriously, I know it's not a lot.
I also know you guys have other stuff to do with your money. But for the price of a latte (or, you know, 100 of them), I can have a place to live with the love of my life——one that isn't filled with bad memories, anguish, pain, and current bitchiness. That's worth enough to me that making this post begging for money is the least of my worries right now.
Thank you just for reading. Comments are not screened here, but you can PM me or email me via my email address above if you need to do that.
Pictures:
My entire bedroom is roughly 8x12. We've been in it together with 3 dogs for 95+% of the time we spend at home because my parents are pretty erratic to interact with. (Link is to larger picture.)
This is the house we're moving into. It's small, but it's ours and also, larger than our damn bedroom. Josh has already made arrangements to put in a fence at a rental place (landlord's paying for materials, he's doing ALL the labor), that's how serious we are about leaving here.
And these are the loves of my life--in the right top is Aidyn, Teyla is on the bottom right, Ronon is on the middle left, and in the center is Josh.
[Edited to add] a little over 48 hours later, FUNDRAISING IS OVER.
You guys, I've been totally 'funded' (to steal a term from Kickstarter). Those of you who've had severe financial worries understand how much relief this is and for anyone who doesn't, let's just say I've cried in joy more than a few times over the last 24 hours.
Thank you all so very very much. Longer entry to follow.
Despite my best efforts, Josh and I are going to have a shortfall we can't fix on Friday. See, I planned for everything I could think of (and that my social worker could think of, and that my mother could think of), every bill that we might have while starting a new place together and even down to cleaning supplies and restocking grocery cabinets. I even priced renter's insurance and set it to start August 1st, because I am fucking neurotic.
What I didn't think to plan for, and how could I, was the bill I got on Wednesday from the local magnet hospital, which contains charges from my horrific IUD insertion combined with the bills from my physical therapy both of which were rejected and not paid for. (As far as I'm aware, I have not yet been sent the notices from my insurance for the procedures in question, so I can't appeal them yet——that is, if it's actually the insurance's fault, which in this case, it's probably not, because the local hospital's billing department is run by a crack team of idiots who like to threaten me and not bother to tell me which diagnoses were on the bills which are, in all likelihood, probably why they were rejected.)
Plus, of course, the fact that the charges for the utilities for the city are twice as much as I was expecting. Instead of 75 dollars, which is probably twice the amount of a water bill for two people, it's 150. And instead of 200 dollars for the electricity deposit, it's 350. This is my fault entirely (I probably should've browbeaten people more over the phone and not accepted reassurances), but that doesn't eliminate the need for support.
I've been on the phone with the hospital billing department for the last few days and:
what it comes down to is that we need about 300 dollars to make a 'good faith' start on the hospital bill to prevent it from going to collections* and also to fix the utilities problem.
*anything I pay towards the bill now will supposedly be repaid if hell freezes over and the hospital and/or insurance cleans up their act
In addition, because of money that's been sucked up thanks to this shit, we need about 200 dollars over the rest of August.
I'm on Social Security disability and thus a fixed income, and Josh is already working 40 hours a week. He's trying to get a second job, but there's almost no chance he'll be able to find something soon enough to help, and if we can just get past this one time expense, I have run the numbers enough to KNOW it'll be smooth sailing from here, with a good chunk of money put aside in an emergency fund every month.
Total Requested In Donations: 500 dollars. I've already gotten a loan from a good friend for 200, so much of the emergency costs in the next week are covered. Any donations past 300 dollars will go directly into paying my friend back.
I'm Erika, I'm 27ish (I think), bisexual, kinky, a sexual assault and abuse survivor, a Buddhist, and in a long term relationship with my partner, Josh. I'm Latina, a giant geek, and I love to write.
I have also recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia as of last month. Literally, last month.
Before that, I was diagnosed with depression when I was 16, panic disorder and PTSD when I was 18, and agoraphobia when I was 22. The PTSD and agoraphobia are in remission most of the time.
Frankly, I'm asking for help because the stress from this sudden fuckup right before we're about to move has been so bad that literally the only reason I am not inpatient in the hospital right now is that there's no way Josh would be able to pull anything together to fix this. We've already borrowed money from my mother for the security deposit, my sister is moving as well, my younger brother's in New Zealand, and Josh has no reliable family members, unfortunately.
I need to get out of this house. I need to be away from my parents because I'm realizing how much they contributed to my abuse over the years (possibly in ignorance, quite probably intentionally, at least on the part of my father). I need to be in a healthy environment to get a handle on my newly diagnosed fibromyalgia, and to be able to spend energy on the relationships that actually give AND take from me, and not the relationships that just take.
I have two dogs and I can't leave them here, which is why it took us so long to find a place to begin with. If we back out of the lease, we lose almost a thousand dollars; if we stay here and cancel the utility set up to save another paycheck before we move, I'm probably going to end up in the hospital as of August 5th and Josh may lose his mind having to be in the same house, without me, with people who saw me being abused for 15 years and did nothing.
I need to continue to pay nice with the hospital or what little progress I've made on getting a handle on my physical ailments will go down the fucking tubes.
I'm between a rock and a hard place, here, guys. If you can help me, I swear I'll pay it forward (or possibly back, if necessary). If you can't, I totally understand. Please signal boost.
[edited]I'm [no longer] accepting donations, as thanks to the generosity of friends and strangers, my needs are fully met.
What I can do for people who donate is very little, unfortunately. Metta meditation specifically naming you (which, I'll be honest, I generally do anyway for everyone I interact with online). Write a 'guest entry' in your journal or in mine on a topic of your choice, no shorter than 300 words. Make you a playlist of 10-20 songs around a concept. Take pictures of myself (and maybe Josh) looking REALLY HAPPY and send them to you. These are things I can reasonably commit to, and seriously, I know it's not a lot.
I also know you guys have other stuff to do with your money. But for the price of a latte (or, you know, 100 of them), I can have a place to live with the love of my life——one that isn't filled with bad memories, anguish, pain, and current bitchiness. That's worth enough to me that making this post begging for money is the least of my worries right now.
Thank you just for reading. Comments are not screened here, but you can PM me or email me via my email address above if you need to do that.
Pictures:
My entire bedroom is roughly 8x12. We've been in it together with 3 dogs for 95+% of the time we spend at home because my parents are pretty erratic to interact with. (Link is to larger picture.)
This is the house we're moving into. It's small, but it's ours and also, larger than our damn bedroom. Josh has already made arrangements to put in a fence at a rental place (landlord's paying for materials, he's doing ALL the labor), that's how serious we are about leaving here.
And these are the loves of my life--in the right top is Aidyn, Teyla is on the bottom right, Ronon is on the middle left, and in the center is Josh.
[Edited to add] a little over 48 hours later, FUNDRAISING IS OVER.
You guys, I've been totally 'funded' (to steal a term from Kickstarter). Those of you who've had severe financial worries understand how much relief this is and for anyone who doesn't, let's just say I've cried in joy more than a few times over the last 24 hours.
Thank you all so very very much. Longer entry to follow.
no subject
on Sunday, July 28th, 2013 09:47 am (UTC)Good luck with everything.
no subject
on Sunday, July 28th, 2013 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
on Sunday, July 28th, 2013 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
on Sunday, July 28th, 2013 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
on Sunday, July 28th, 2013 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
on Sunday, July 28th, 2013 07:08 pm (UTC)ETA: I sent you something, but you don't have to pay it back. You don't have to do playlists or fic or notes or anything (though pictures of the new place and/or the dogs playing in their new yard would be, of course, awesome). All you have to do is pay it forward. I've been in rough spots and people have helped me. I'm now in a place where I can be the one helping. Five, ten, however many years from now, do it for someone else and you'll have paid me back ten times by that alone.
no subject
on Monday, July 29th, 2013 07:07 am (UTC)If/when you have time, I'd love to hear someone else's take on healing music. :)
no subject
on Monday, July 29th, 2013 01:02 pm (UTC)I've got my fingers crossed that everything works out. The house you want to move into looks adorable (so do Josh and the assorted dogs)
I hope you don't mind but I've also signal boosted to
No need to worry about anything in return - just pay forward when you get the chance whenever that may be *G*
Good luck!