I Would Prefer A Wet Cold Over a Dry Heat: Donation Request

Okay. This was written in a slightly different form on my main/fandom tumblr blog. The original post was addressing someone attempting to dissuade me from getting out of what is an increasingly untenable situation. (For which they decided to block me, which is fair. I was attempting to be forthright and informative. This was taken badly. Most likely because my attempting to be forthright is kind of blunt and mean-spirited even when I don’t intend to be. Particularly when I have been sick/under a lot of stress/starving because at the time, I was fasting for a lab test I needed to take, and therefore had never actually gone to sleep/to bed the previous night.)

Warning: I get a little shouty and angry. Also note that the dates may not be entirely accurate as I do not remember dates or times very well. So you’re going to get a pretty vague timeline. And there will probably also be a lot of drifting up and down said timeline because I was writing off the top of my head.

First: I need to move. I am attempting to raise the money I need to move to another state. (Specifically to Minnesota. Yes, even though it will cold and might be snowing when I get there.) We were moved to Arizona from Indiana back in the early 90s. I do not like living here. It’s too hot, the political climate is too conservative, and the current social services situation is very much a disaster, and may head toward me getting evicted because of the BS the company that handles my housing voucher /pays most of the rent is putting me through.

Being homeless in AZ at any time of the year is extremely terrible. It’s bad during the summer months but not much better during “winter.” Social services is generally unhelpful and the general attitude is, “have you considered not being poor, homeless and disabled?” I did not have a great time being homeless, and it was extremely difficult–nearly impossible to get the behavioral health people to listen to me or give me the references I needed for services/screening/what have you.

Now, I was initially diagnosed as Bi-polar. (I would tend to disagree, but I am not a psychiatric professional. Most of my anxiety/depression is due to Autism and possible C-PTSD.) I am in fact SMI due to a variety of factors, including the Autism that went undiagnosed with for most of my life. (It took 10+ years to get the referral to be screened. It was an entire Thing. It took even longer to get a clinic that wasn’t pretty much gaslighting me over the diagnoses. ) I say “gaslighting” because they wouldn’t include it in my treatment plan, and generally refused to keep the diagnosis on file. This made getting any further referrals for autism-specific groups nearly impossible, because again, they weren’t keeping it on file.

(“But you communicate so well!” Yeah. Mostly in writing. I am much less good at processing information in day to day interactions, or unexpected situations. I have a verbal tic that shows up when I’m stressed and interacting in person/in a public place is always stressful. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I have had get angry with me because I was not able to process what they were saying because too much was happening in the background, or due to my not responding quickly enough to something like a greeting.)

I became homeless in roughly 2012. I was living for about a year or so with my toxic, abusive parents! They initially were willing to have me stay with them, and while I thought that my pets at the time (a cat and cockatiel) would be welcome/my parents would be able to keep them in food and cat litter, I found that this was not the case. There were other additional problems most of them centering around my being liberal, and their being incredibly conservative and also kind of racist! A great time was not had by all, and mom eventually kicked me out due to irreconcilable differences.

(I was going crazy trying to find work, and my parents thought I wasn’t trying hard enough. The pressure came to a head when I had a meltdown because Dad chose to make a snide comment about how I was on my computer all the time instead of looking for work…when I was on the computer most of the day because I was in fact looking for work/filling out applications.)

Living with my parents resulted in two (2) suicide attempts and two trips to a resource center for the homeless/mentally ill. My decision to go along with the offered help was a pretty bad one, actually!

In 2013, I end up in a group home, but this does not go well for me, as it’s basically a different variation of “get a job. No, you aren’t trying hard enough. Any job. Just get a job,” that my parents had put me through that had resulted in the suicide attempts. Then in 2014 I end up getting kicked out because no job and a meltdown got me sent to a mental hospital for maybe a month or so. When I got back, they’d gathered up some of my stuff and insisted I had to go. (They stole/kept a bunch of my stuff though.) From there I went to a homeless shelter that would drop you off at a down town resource center for the homeless. I made an effort to find a way to get a job, and services, AND disability, which was not easy the first time nor the second time.

Note: THIS is why I do not want to go through being homeless in AZ again. The first time around drove me near around the bend. Next, lets have a speed run over the next seven years.

In 2019:

1. I have housing where I pay a reduced rent
2. I have foodstamps/EBT/SNAP
3. I am getting closer to my end goal of Finally Getting Disability and/or SSI
4. I have AHCCCS (medicaid in AZ)

2020:

1. Covid happens, but I am mostly not affected because I don’t go outside very often anyway.
2. I move to a bigger apartment with my Emotional Support Dog Roy.
3. I am doing okay, though I’m extremely annoyed with my parents who a)broke my fan b) left my damn bookcases outside to get rained on and c) got pissy that I was annoyed about both.

2021-2024:

1. Things start going down hill, though I get a lot of stuff done and I manage to get the clinic I wanted to go to, that had some pretty good groups and services for Autistics. (They were starting to expand outward to include Adult Autistics instead of having the focus being totally on children-teens.)
2. The thing that start going down hill mostly involved my housing situation. The previous owners had it in for me and kept giving me three day notices for everything from “unit is unlivable.” (No, I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning it yet.) And claiming that I was breaking the lease terms because of my dog. (The dog I had a letter from my doctor about. That they mysteriously misplaced.)

2025-2026:

1. Things go absolutely to hell with my housing specialists/the subsidized housing contractors who pay most of the rent. My complex changed hands. So far so good. I am pretty sure I was told that the contractor-company paid my rent to the new owners. HOWEVER the ledger shows that this was not actually the case.
2. I might or might not be required to pay off that rent, depending on if the housing company decides to recognize the debt or not. (They are not going to. They won’t answer my phone calls. They won’t reply to my emails. THEY WON’T FUCKING RESPOND TO MY CASE MANAGER’S CALLS OR EMAILS.) I decided to add this to my itemized list of stuff I’d need/how much it would cost.
3. I have numerous family problems! First: Youngest Sister plays the same kind of mind games Mom used to pull, and is racist, homophobic, and transphobic. It is extremely uncomfortable for me to talk to her.
4. Brother is…MAGA. He is also homophobic, transphobic, racist and ableist. (Actually I can repeat all those points for most of the family.) He also believes in “alternative” medicine and keeps pushing his alternative medicine bullshit on me. Last fight was in 2024, and he called me IIRC a “Feminazi Commie Liberal Lemming Harpy,” though not all at once. TBF, I did pretend I’d watched one of the conspiracy videos he sent me, and that now I agreed with him completely.
5. Parents: Can’t be relied on for much of anything except driving me up the wall.
6. Roy, my emotional support dog turned out to have lymphoma and I had to have him put down.
7. (I do manage to acquire a new friend: A Chihuahua puppy named Honey.)

So, I have decided that I need to not be in AZ anymore. I have wanted to leave AZ for a very, very long time, but couldn’t find a way to do this. But with the current housing situation being what it is, and the part where MN seems to have some pretty great social services, I found that I really, really wanted to find a way. (I am not exaggerating the greatness of the MN disability website. I got a very useful form letter explaining what I needed, and then I was able to go on chat to a live person. Or very, very convincing actually sapient AI. AZ’s Department of Economic Security only has phone trees, and if there are a lot of callers, you get hung up on. Also, the general attitude toward the poor, disabled or homeless is very much “have you tried not being poor and disabled?”

Another aspect of wanting to move further north/to another state is because Minnesota is pretty close to Younger Sister and Bro-in-Law’s migratory path. (They like to travel a lot. A LOT. They visit friends and family all over the country and I kind of want to be closer to the route because they don’t really head down to AZ very often. Usually during the winter, because Sister hates the heat. As do we all.)

My goal is 15,280, with a move out date somewhere near the end or November, but hopefully not too close to the holiday rush.

My PayPal is here (For folks who do not have US American banking accounts/live outside the US. Able Account won’t let people outside the US make donations/give gifts. Please note that when you pay via PayPal, they take a cut, and then take another cut when I transfer. Also, they appear to have put me on hold)

Link to Stable Account Gift Page. (Able/Stable Account: a government banking account so the disabled can save up money past the usual $2000 limit set by Social Security. I did not previously have one, because I wasn’t sure if I qualified, but it turns out that I do, so I made one.)