Help Colette Quit One of Her Jobs

Hello,

My name is Colette Arrand. Odds are that if you're here you know me from writing about wrestling or calling into the Best Show or tweeting about Columbo. I also work at the local record store, but it is time for me to go, and to do it I need some help.

While I love and am very proud of my work at the shop, I am simply no longer able to handle the strain of working two mentally demanding jobs. In July, I was hospitalized for mental health reasons before undergoing a month and a half of outpatient care. Something I was told over and over again in outpatient was that it was a bad idea to try to work through the process of recovery. They were right. Keeping yourself together when you emerge from such a thing is a full-time job in its own right, and while I am feeling much better than I was, I come home from work so tired that I can't read, write, cook, clean, or otherwise take care of myself.

To be up front, the $3500 I am asking for covers the entirety of my credit card debt. I have had an internal debate about launching a GFM for personal debt since I got out of the hospital, but it was and has been a constant presence in my head. My monthly credit card bill is essentially the line between being able to get through the month on what I make as a freelance editor and being stuck in my current situation.

I want to reiterate that this is request is being made to better my mental health. I can't split myself between two tasks the way I used to, and everything I used to do to get by in situations like this—making shirts and zines—just adds more work. I haven't taken a real day off since I got out of the hospital, and while I'm managing, I think I deserve to do more than just manage. I want to start working out again. I want to take my dog for long walks. I want to relaunch my newsletter. I want to write without being panicked for time. I want to try different kinds of therapy for what I'm going through. There's just so much I could be doing to really process and heal from what happened if I wasn't spending most of my time selling Eagles records.

It's a big ask, but thank you for allowing me to ask anyway.

xoxo,

Colette