I'm raising money to help me create a collection of interactive short stories for queer women with mental illness as I navigate my own mental health crisis.
Recently I lost my job because I have been having such acute anxiety that leaving the house often causes me to panic. I'm pretty embarrassed about it. I'm working with a therapist and a psychiatrist, both of whom are tremendously helpful, but who I need to be able to pay. I'm living in a loving, caring home, where I am supported and held, but I need to pay my rent.
I recently applied for a Philadelphia based arts grant. I just need to make it through June, and should I get that funding, I will have enough money to be able to create art and get by while I am healing and well enough to work again. Hopefully I will be better before then, and able to work, but it is hard to see so far right now.
Part of my healing process is making shrines and writing short stories. I would love to share that work with you and I need your help to be able to do it.
More About My Project:
I am writing a collection of interactive short stories for people, specifically queer women, to read when they are experiencing high levels of anxiety.
I write science fiction stories about lesbians set inside the moon, and about homes that provide for it’s occupants, and tired women who dive into the ocean and become sea children, because these stories help me to imagine a world where there is safety and calm for people who often feel unsafe both in the external world and in our own minds.
I want to make a zine that contains those stories, and provides space for readers to create their own art or stories. The zine would also provide distractions and ideas for making it through acutely anxious times, based on my own experiences.
It is crucial that queer women do not disregard or disbelieve, their own true lived experiences of mental illness. It is a matter of life or death.
I hope that through storytelling, I can help facilitate a temporary relief in people who have learned that in order to be safe, respected and valued, they must be locked down at all times.
Mental illness makes basic self care and survival, especially as a queer person, deeply complicated and hard. The stigma and shame surrounding having atypical and sometimes drastic reactions to feeling overwhelmed has at times made me feel terrified of myself, suicidal, and paralyzed.
I want people to be able to find themselves reflected in each other, and ultimately to help chip away at oppressive, sexist, ableist cultural narratives that intensify the shame and horror of feeling crazy.
Anything helps.