Help Alessi Get Back on Their Feet

Support for Alessi and JoJo Marmalade

My name is Alessi, and I urgently need your support so I can buy food and keep the lights on for me, my partner, and our betta fish–JoJo Marmalade. We’ve fallen on hard times and currently have £37 to our names. Asking for help has never come easily to me, but I can’t let my pride get in the way of the safety and care of my family.

(This fundraiser is in my partner, Storm’s, name because I don’t want to take the risk of abusive family finding me.)

My life started with significant challenges

My life started with significant challenges. My caregivers neglected and abused me. They ignored my deformed ankles and clicky hips that caused a lot of pain and injuries that only worsened as I got older. They certainly didn’t bother to look into the obvious indicators of me being on the autism spectrum.

The sustained trauma of their other abuses led to me having Dissociative Identity Disorder. (This used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder, and please do not believe Hollywood’s portrayals of this disorder.) I’m proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in my life despite these difficulties; I fought tooth and claw to build up a successful copywriting business that’s supported me, my partner, and our emotional support betta fishes (if you’ve never had one, you might not know they are the absolute loveliest companions) over the years. Many of my clients have been people who’ve had similar stories, and I helped them tell their stories which helped them heal.

In 2019, I was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer

In 2019, my partner and I were making our way in the world when I was diagnosed with Stage III aggressive breast cancer, and had to have an emergency mastectomy and lymph node clearance. While the surgery cured my cancer, it unfortunately aggravated an existing injury due to a whiplash injury in my teens. I’ve been unable to cook or clean without severe pain in my arms and shoulders. I’m so grateful to my partner for taking over those household activities while I shifted into becoming the main breadwinner.

We’ve never been rich by any means, but we’ve always been able to pay our bills. Even through the pandemic we were able to stay afloat. Wearing a mask and seeing people wearing masks triggered some terrifying memories, but I worked hard to overcome these fears so I could help keep myself, my family, and the public at large safe by wearing a mask even when it was hard.

However, things fell apart in 2022

At the start of 2022, my life became a living hell.

You see, having DID means your one self consists of lots of parts, or alters, that hold various traumatic memories. Most people have treatment with a therapist over a decade or more, but due to NHS funding I could only do six months. (Private treatment was simply not an option due to the cost.) My therapist was awesome. In just 12 sessions in 2017 we were able to devise a system for managing daily life where the different parts of me learned to communicate and collaborate well.

In February, however, I had a significant setback that meant I had to process many of those memories all at once. This is really hard for me to talk about. Let me just say that there’s a very good reason why my brain chose DID as its coping strategy in the first place–what had happened to me was simply too much for any one person to know about. To suddenly have every part know everything that had happened to me in childhood, all at once, was an unspeakable hell. For several weeks I could barely sleep let alone much else because of the flashbacks. My partner was amazing during this time, providing round-the-clock emotional support.

I did my best to keep working. I was able to finish the projects I had, but it was nearly impossible to cope with the added pressure of advertising my business and finding new clients. I did find leads, but they kept falling through. My cashflow simply dried up.

My partner and I are currently in serious financial straits. We only have £37 to our names. As you might imagine, I have no family available who can help us. Neither does my partner. We’re already part of a social support program here, but it only provides limited support and we are ineligible for other government aid. So we’ve been racking up significant credit card debt to pay for our living expenses, and we’re about to hit our limit.

It’s hard for me to ask for help after a lifetime of finding ways to manage against the odds, but we are currently out of funds for:

Our current monthly outgoings, including paying down our credit card debt, are £2500. Right now we’re out of cash, which means we’re racking up more debt just to eat and pay rent.

The stress of not having money, on top of the trauma processing, has hampered my ability to build my business back up so I can turn this situation around. I’m asking for help to give us enough breathing room to get over this terrifying experience and get myself back on an even keel while I find more work.

A 3-month buffer would take the pressure off so I could heal from the trauma processing and build my business back up so I can get back to paying my way. My plan is to reach out to previous clients and build up my network of new clients. I also plan to apply for freelancing jobs, and advertise my services.

If you choose to lend a hand, you won’t only be helping a neurodivergent and disabled person and their family survive and eventually thrive. I have a dream of starting a business where I use my experiences to help others who are struggling with trauma and mental health issues, by providing free and low cost courses and resources. If I can get back on my feet and be stable, I’ll have the time and energy I need to do that. I know there are lots of people out there suffering from PTSD, depression and anxiety, who could be helped by my story of how I survived. I deeply appreciate any help you feel moved to give, for me and my family’s sake, and for those people.