UPDATE 2: I was cart pusher this evening at work. We had two call-outs tonight so I am utterly and completely exhausted from picking up the slack.

However, there was one silver lining to this I guess; a co-worker needed tomorrow off and traded shifts. So I work tomorrow rather than Saturday, which would allow me to use the funds from *that* shift towards rent. It'll be less than $100 but that's still money that would otherwise not be available until next week, which would obviously be too late.

EDIT/UPDATE 1: Having gotten some rest and can think a little more clearly and actually calculate things (as closely as I can given the circumstances), I am somewhat alarmed to discover I wildly underestimated how much we would need, and now am embarrassed to announce that the goal necessary for us to make rent in time is.. more than double my original guessing. 🤦‍♂️

I knew our accounts were low, but I didn't realize just *how* low.

We've already received a massive donation from an incredibly generous donor (thank you) that already meets my original $500 goal so we're already nearly halfway there which is fantastic.

I then planned to increase the goal to $1,200, but on second thought, that amount would probably cut it far too closely. Even $1,400 may be a tad optimistic.

So, to pick a number that is both sort of a halfway point between the two numbers and also incorporate a bit of mild whimsy, I'm now setting the goal to $1,333. Because why the hell not. (I thought about $1333.33, but that's just being pedantic.)

We have this apartment solely thanks to our community here on the #Fediverse. We would like to continue to enjoy this incredible living space you've so kindly given us.

Therefore, I shall continue to clown around, to dutifully shitpost, and otherwise try to earn your support.

Please read on below for an excessive and unreasonably long explanation of the situation.

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Dammit.. I should have posted this sooner; I don't know why I do this.

Actually, I do know: I hate doing it. And lord knows I will procrastinate until the last possible second if it's an activity I dislike.

To be clear, it isn't the interaction that I loathe. I actually *do* enjoy that. When we meet fundraising goals, it's like Christmas morning every single time. You know the scene in the movie where the Grinch returns the gifts to the citizens of Whoville? It's like that. It feels like a miracle every. damned. time.

Actually, it *is* a miracle every single time.

The begposts also give me a chance to infodump to all of you. Sort of like a newsletter or blogpost. A "State of the Goofballs" address, if you will. It's as if I open up the firehose of my mind and just vomit words until I run out of inner monologue.

I always feel compelled to try and show that we're trying to get our shit together, in a feeble attempt to demonstrate that we're "worth" helping. I think I tend to make them so long (longer than even my standard verbosity) to (hopefully) illustrate that I'm sincere. I'm not trying to scam anyone, and if I learned that I ever made anyone feel taken advantage of I would feel utterly heartbroken.

On the other hand, I think I hate making begposts because.. well, primarily it's embarrassing. It's surprisingly difficult to allow myself the same grace that I would grant anyone else. But it's also extremely scary because our options are quite limited. And with current (gesticulates wildly at everything on the planet) events, it's downright terrifying because I'm afraid there's going to be a *lot* more people in similar circumstances, and the double-whammy is it could easily be our donors also joining us in poverty.

In other words, I'm afraid that not only could this cause an exponential strain on the Mutual Aid community, the funds available could simultaneously begin to dry up, further diluting our chances of avoiding disaster.

Anyway.. I'm babbling and doomering unnecessarily again so I will attempt to place the focus back on the primary matter at hand, which is that regrettably we have failed to become self-sufficient yet again over the course the previous calendar month.

Hours at work still remain low enough to doom us financially yet high enough to drain me of the will to live or even bother performing basic hygiene, let alone look for a second job and by extension try to once again figure out how to juggle two menial entry-level jobs who both expect you to be available from Open to Close, seven days a week. Further altering my availability risks even *less* hours at my current job, which makes the monumental hassle of securing a second job seem less than ideal.

I had to drop a shift because my allergies were so bad I was basically sedated by Benadryl for two days straight. My partner had to drop a couple of shifts when his father was hospitalized again due to complications from a fall and head injury some months ago, and my partner was far too emotionally fragile with that happening to be at work.

Of course the loss of these shifts has not been kind to our bank account. I truly, truly wish we didn't have to keep doing this. Yet I must for my partner and our codependent border collie. Not to mention I think our little clan sort of owe it to the Mutual Aid community to not give up, and to make it seem like the staggering amounts of generosity were a worthwhile investment to help us. I've disappointed far too many people in my life. I want to start doing the opposite of that.

Hopefully I haven't disappointed you too much, my dear pocket friends.

I'm up way past my bedtime and the letters are starting to swirl around. Unfortunately since I'm once again just siphoning everything I possibly can from my daily pay advances, I don't know for certain what those amounts will be until the day after my shift. Plus I'm chronically disorganized and trying to adjust to having a legit bank account instead of just venmo or the like. I fucked up and accumulated a couple of overdraft fees because I lost track of pending charges.

At the moment, I'm confident we're at least $500 in the red for rent and sadly that's an amount that might need to be revised upwards. I'm struggling not to just mentally shut down thinking about how *much* upwards.

Please forgive me for once again asking for help.

If you're willing AND able, please boost and if possible donate. If you can't donate, *do NOT feel guilty* for being in the same boat as us. Your feelings about it are valid but rest assured you needn't feel bad.

Venmo: https://venmo.com/thegizmotwins
Cashapp: https://cash.app/$thegizmotwins
PP: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/gizmo1982
GFM: https://gofund.me/12171be3

#Solidarity #BPD #PTSD #Poverty #MentalIllness @mutualaid

All Hail Alfred Kubin’s Rather Macabre Art ⬛

A BLEAK TOPIC TODAY! Don’t worry, though, there’s an upbeat post tomorrow.

Some artists have an uncanny ability to make paintings hellish disturbing. You think of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son and you’re along the right lines.

Then there’s the case of Austrain artist Alfred Kubin (1877-1959). Very big on Expressionism and Symbolism, tragic early life experiences shape the disturbed, bleak, fearful, terrifying nature of his artistic work. That’s what we’re exploring across his largely black and white hellscapes.

The Gloriously Disturbed Artwork of Alfred Kubin

Kubin’s life was dominated by the death of his mother, which occurred in May 1887 when he was 10. She died of tuberculosis, which was deeply traumatic for the young Kubin.

Her death massively influenced the morbid themes he’d explore creatively for the next 70 years, including the one and only novel he wrote called The Other Side (1909). This book influenced Franz Kafka and other writers such as author and WWI memoirist Ernst Jünger. Written after the death of his father, a brief excerpt below highlights where Kubin’s frame of mind was often at:

“I had a black coffee and came to the conclusion I was fit for neither life nor suicide. ‘I’ll just vegetate somewhere between the two, waiting for the final blow like an ox at the slaughterhouse. It won’t be long coming.”

Suffering from anxiety and severe depression, in 1896 he attempted suicide at the site of his mother’s grave. His rusty pistol didn’t fire, so he decided to try and impress his strict gather. Kubin went into the Austrian army, which resulted in a nervous breakdown after 18 days.

A very personal demise was on his mind, but his creative efforts hadn’t shaped his deathly obsession. A few more disastrous life experiences would occur before helping him shape imagery like The Hour of Death.

His father sent him off to a private art academy after that, realising his son’s efforts were better suited in creative environments. He went to study at Munich Academy of Art in 1899. He later noted:

“Here a new art was thrown open to me, which offered free play for the imaginative expression of every conceivable world of feeling. Before putting the engravings away, I swore that I would dedicate my life to the creation of similar works.”

He was inspired by Edvard Munch, Odilon Redon, and Max Klinger. It was the latter’s work that inspired in Kubin:

“A torrent of black-and-white images.”

With further inspiration from philosophical geniuses Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Kubin was all set to start scaring the living bejeezus out of everyone with stuff like this.

Kubin was stunningly prolific, creating over 3,400 pieces across his life.

He perfectly fits the concept of a tortured artistic genius withdrawn from society. From 1906 onward, he had an isolated existence living in a 12th century estate in Zwickledt, Austria. When the Nazis annexed the country in March 1938, his work was declared Entartete Kunst (meaning “degenerate art”) by the Nazi Party.

It’s interesting Hitler, Goebbels and his cronies looked at this stuff and got upset. Given a lot of these images would be fitting symbolism for what the political party would go on to do.

He was successful during his lifetime, winning various awards and holding exhibitions across Europe.

But his work circa 1900 certainly shows a tormented mind, one entirely preoccupied with death. Despite his early life issues, Kubin lived through two World Wars and right up to the age of 82. But this excerpt from his one and only book again hints at how he muddled through it all with poor mental health:

“When it comes down to it, no one can deny their own temperament, it will always determine everything you do. In mine, a decidedly melancholy one, pleasure and misery lie quite close together. I have always been subject to the most abrupt changes of mood. This particular disposition, a psychological legacy from my mother, has been the source of both great joy and bitter torment.”

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8b7cjxY/

“Jaden Ivey, myself, and 2.6 billion Christians around the world love the Lord, love God, and love Jesus. That faith is part of who we are—it gives us strength, purpose, and direction.

So for people to turn around and say that loving God or loving Jesus means we have a mental illness is completely out of line. What kind of thinking is that?

Respect people’s beliefs the same way you expect yours to be respected.”

#JadenIvey #Christian #God #Jesus #MentalIllness

Today is World Bipolar Day, so I thought I would share my journey to a diagnosis and beyond.

I grew up with the shadow of an absent, manic father. His condition was only ever brought up when I acted out of line, used as a way to explain what was "wrong" with me. By the time I was about ten, I was seeing psychiatric professionals and being told I had a "chemical imbalance."

Into my teen years, I knew something wasn't right. I had a lot of rage for no apparent reason. But my step-father decided there was nothing wrong with me and took me off my medication. That led to a dark spiral. I was thrown out of the house, experienced homelessness, and dropped out of school before eventually getting my GED and going to college. For a long time, I was just lost, drifting through a brief marriage and divorce by the time I was 20.

Everything shifted when I met my partner in my late 20s. Even when I was deeply upset and far from kind, she met me with patience and acceptance. She helped me advocate for myself, which led to a real diagnosis: Bipolar 1, characterized by extreme highs of mania and extreme lows. This period in my life I associate with learning empathy and kindness.

Having a name for what I was experiencing changed my life. For a long time, I carried a heavy shame about my diagnosis. It has taken me a decade to finally let that go. The diagnosis explained why I would obsess about some things and then drop them to move on to another subject. Because of my condition, I know a lot about a lot of things because at some point my attention latched on and would not let go of the subject for a while. For instance, I went to college for North American Indian History, but I can tell you a lot about Linux, computers, phones, and numerous other little things.

Since before Covid, I have been on numerous medications. Sometimes I would have to change because a medication was working ok, but I wasn't allowed to go past a limit. Other times, medications would give me terrible side effects, like psychosis.

I have been on my current medication, Seroquel, for about a year now, and it seems to be working well. I know that could change at any time, though, and this dance with different medications will probably go on for the rest of my life.

Typically, the thing that interrupts my mental health is a change to my insurance. It is hard enough for bipolar people to take medication regularly, but when you add interruptions to pharmacy and mental health benefits, it can make it extremely hard to get back into a habit after being knocked out of it. Some of my lowest moments have been when I have lost my healthcare because of an inability to keep a job (due to the illness) and not being able to afford refills or doctor visits.

I tell you all of this hoping that you understand that people aren't just "crazy" and bipolar is not an adjective. Good people are born with and develop these conditions in our brains. No one really completely understands it. The best thing you can ever do for another person is to show them kindness and love. And to anyone out there who is still lost in the dark or struggling with a new diagnosis: your life isn't over. It takes work, and it can be exhausting, but it is absolutely possible to build a beautiful, meaningful life.

#WorldBipolarDay #BipolarDisorder #MentalHealthAwareness #EndTheStigma #Bipolar1 #MentalHealth #ActuallyBipolar #MentalIllness #MentalHealthMatters

What it’s like living in a household of spoonies. Pills, pills and more pills. 💊

Actually, you’re a good person, and you’re creating a safe space and music for people to dance to.

#depression #mentalhealthawareness #mentalillness #mentalhealthmatters #selfcare #therapy #mentalhealthsupport #ymhc

I actually have things that are chemically imbalanced in my brain, and I need to understand what that is, take care of it, and nurture it.

By Selena Gomez

#depression #mentalhealthawareness #mentalillness #mentalhealthmatters #selfcare #therapy #mentalhealthsupport #ymhc

At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of.

By Carrie Fisher

#depression #mentalhealthawareness #mentalillness #mentalhealthmatters #mentalhealthsupport #therapy #selfcare #ymhc