Hi. I don’t know if submitting this is a dumb thing to do, but I am at a rock bottom of sorts and am looking everywhere for help.
My name is Katie. I am 31 years old, and I am late-diagnosed Autistic and ADHD. I have PTSD and CPTSD. I also have Persistent Depressive Disorder, and have recently been experiencing increasing migraines, arm and head tremors, and peripheral neuropathy. I do not have insurance. My mother is bedridden with a neurological condition that was never diagnosed, and I fear that it may be hereditary. She is married to someone that can afford all of the bills, but I am not. I cannot afford to be sick, let alone bedridden. I am nowhere near that condition now, but I have the beginnings of what she went through, and I am terrified.
I was raised to be a people-pleaser. Most of the decisions I have made in my life, up until the past year, have been to make other people “proud”. This has caused me to be on a career path that is not mine. I was once in a doctoral school program and was on track to make significant amounts of money, but as the years went on (and the pandemic quarantine made me realize how much I was masking and living in constant fight-or-flight), my tolerance for overstimulation and social interaction decreased significantly, and I could no longer hide my conditions. I have been hospitalized for suicidal ideation before, and I was sure that I was going to stop existing if I continued this school program. I wasn’t doing it for me. It didn’t make me comfortable. I didn’t have any peace. It was nothing but chaos and fear for me, and I was spiraling deeper and deeper.
I made the very high-stakes decision to leave the program last fall. This gave me so much fear, but also a large amount of self-respect. I was finally doing something for myself. I moved to a new state with my current partner in hopes that I could forget my old life and start fresh. I had to start a job in a related field because it was all that I had on my resume. As expected, I could not stay in that job for more than a couple months, and as soon as I found the opportunity to try something new, I left. It felt wonderful to try a new genre of work. I was in an artistic manufacturing job. I was moving my body every day, healing the stress-related inflammation in my body that had built up over the past years. I was coming home happy and still had the energy to work on art, go outside, keep my space clean, and practice self-care.
And then the fucking migraines started.
I was unable to work 40 hours a week. I had to miss at least one day per week because of these migraines. Because of the physical nature of the job, there was nothing alternative that I could do to still make money for that day. I used to get migraines maybe 5 times a year, and suddenly I was getting them every other day. They are debilitating. I cannot see properly, parts of my face and limbs go numb, and I have brain fog that makes it unsafe to drive. My arm tremor comes and goes, which makes fine motor skills difficult. And because of the lack of hours, I was unable to afford the benefit package offered by the business. I lost my health insurance.
My partner sat down with me and told me that I should quit my job. That he could work overtime while I find something that is less physically tasking. He specifically suggested remote work. We were financially suffering already because I was no longer able to work 40 hours a week, and I was scared to do this, but I did. I listened to him, and I quit. I made him promise over and over that this was actually okay with him, and that the overtime would be manageable while I tried to find, optimally, a remote job. A job that I could hopefully still perform with a migraine. I emphasized that it’s so hard to land a remote job with how saturated the market is, how many fake jobs are posted. And he insisted. So I quit.
I was approved for food stamps, but I was denied Medicaid, and was told I am being forced to wait until the enrollment period to qualify for Marketplace insurance plans. So I still have no health insurance.
It has been about five weeks since I quit. Since then, I have applied to over 90 jobs. I have received a response from less than five, and they have all ghosted me since. I have made fan art for these companies. Follow-up emails. Follow-up messages on job apps. Messages to recruitment staff on LinkedIn. Phone calls with recruiters in the area. Phone calls to HR departments. DMs to companies’ Instagrams. I am trying to change my career path, with a resume that only reflects parts of what they’re looking for, in a remote setting with high competition. I am trying So. Fucking. Hard. And the other day, my partner informed me that he “doesn’t want to leave, but that he may have to” because he can’t keep “going from crisis to crisis”.
In less than a year’s time, I have faced deep depression and suicidal ideation, changed my life track, gained happiness and peace, started showing signs of an unknown debilitating neurological illness, and lost almost everything. In the midst of beginning a new season of my life, I have been halted. And the only person that I know in this new state may be leaving me. I am accruing significant credit card debt to keep paying parts of my bills that my partner cannot cover. He is burnt out and miserable from working overtime to cover our rent. This house is not home for either of us, and it is starting to get toxic. I feel so stuck, and my soul is tired, and things feel so very bleak from top to bottom.
Money doesn’t solve everything, but god damn if it wouldn’t help me right now. I have seen a neurologist out-of-pocket, and they are holding off on important testing because I cannot afford it. I have been put on archaic, old medications because they are in my price range, and I am suffering greatly from their side effects. I am still having migraines multiple times a week. I am trying to make and sell jewelry and sell some of my photography for bits of money here and there, but it is so exhausting to function and survive right now that I am not succeeding in anything consistently. I have a phone interview today for a job, and I am hoping so much that they call me back afterwards. Please. I need an out. Please.
If you can help financially, my PayPal is paypal.me/karolinakat. If you have any referring power for a remote job, I have past experience in Prior Authorization and appeal submissions for Ophthalmology patients. I am very good with technology, a very fast typer and quick learner, and I am passionate about helping people. I have very good phone etiquette, and a lot of experience helping people through scary medical situations.
If I can get a full-time job with benefits, I can start to piece everything back together. I just cannot get an in-person job with my current health conditions. I will not be able to show up like they need me to. Hopefully in the future, after I get proper treatment, I will be able to get an in-person job again. But with the condition that my mom is in, I don’t truly know. I need to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
I just want to be my own person. I really, really hope that I didn’t waste my entire functional life trying to appease others. I really hope that I didn’t make this realization too late. I want to flourish as myself. I want to be at peace. I want to live, even if my mental illness tells me I want to die.