Thanks, I have done DataAnnotation already a few months back. It's true that it's difficult to get assignments there after you finish the first one or two. They supposedly have tons of work for people who specialize in certain tech roles, but that obviously won't apply to most people. There is also virtually no way to contact anyone who works at DataAnnotation if you have questions. But I have made a few dollars there.
It is not that high here, but this is something I will look into if we can get to Seattle. But does this not require a license?
To be honest, I downplayed much of my situation in my post. After all, it is my first post. I have contributed nothing to this community so far. I feel it's irresponsible and sort of entitled to hose people down with the full weight of my very negative and emotionally draining circumstances as an introductory post. It's not charming. I kept thinking, while writing this post, "do I really want this to be the first thing I say to these people?" I respect this community more than any other one and understand that it can only absorb so many posts that essentially "take" (or seek to take) more than they offer before the quality standards that set LW apart begin to suffer. I feel a sense of duty to be an interesting conversationalist and add value here, and I hate to be tiresome.
I posted anyway for a couple reasons. For one thing, I have read LW for years. It nourishes something in me that I don't get anywhere else in my life - the inquisitive, slow-thinking, human-oriented, analytical, diplomatic part of me that I am constantly forced by my life circumstances to suppress in view of the fact that these qualities are considered unfortunate in the world I inhabit.
In other words, I feel very strongly that I "belong" here and can therefore justify asking the community to afford me the luxury of venting and soliciting its assistance without tweaking people's noses too much. I feel like I can signal in-group membership and long-standing familiarity with LW strongly enough to justify doing this, because it really is my respect for this community's collective excellence that sets it apart for me as the ideal place to seek advice and insight.
I also figure this could be useful to someone else at some point, so it may also pull its weight in that sense.
But yes, you're right. There's more to my circumstances. Of course there is. They're much worse than I can justify disclosing.
Reaching out to startups on sites like ycombinator is a great idea. It never occurred to me to market to them. Thank you for suggesting it. Your consideration means a lot to me.
Thank you for this. I'm not eligible for it but I will send it to my sister who is. She needs emergency dental work but the health insurance plan offered through her employer doesn't cover it so she's just been suffering through the pain. So really, thank you. She will be so glad.
Thank you for the thoughtful suggestions. Aella is exemplary but camgirling strikes me as a nightmare.
I have considered making stuff, like custom glasses/premium drinkware, and selling on Etsy but the market seems saturated and I've never had the money to buy the equipment to learn the skills required to do this kind of thing.
I am certified in Salesforce and could probably get hired helping to manage the Salesforce org for my tribe (Cherokee Nation) but would have to move to Oklahoma.
I've applied for every grant I can find that I'm eligible for, but there's not much out there and the competition is stiff.
We will figure out something, I'm sure. If we don't, there's nothing standing between us and homelessness and that reality fills me with anger and despair.
I feel like there's nothing society wants from me, so there's no way for me to convince society that I deserve anything from it.
It's so hard out here.
Thank you for your response. I probably should have given a more exhaustive list of things I have already tried. Other than a couple things you mentioned, I have already tried the rest.
Before becoming a stay-at-home parent, I was a writer. I wasn't well paid but was starting to earn professional rates when I got pregnant with my second child and that took over my life. I have found it difficult to start writing again since then. The industry has changed so much and is changing still, and so am I. My life is so different now. I'm less sure of what I write - no longer young enough to know everything, as Oscar Wilde said. I feel like I'm trying to leap onto a speeding train from the ground, like I'm watching for an open doorway or a platform I can grab onto as the train roars past me at 100mph.
My children -- yes, I have children. They are with their dad most of the time. It was his mother's house we were living in when the domestic violence situation got so severe that the courts got involved and separated us, and when that happened it was I who had to leave. His mother was not about to turn out her son and let me stay in her house, especially since he was the breadwinner and the one paying rent to her. And I was not going to drag my children into a precarious housing situation. There are no emergency housing resources where I live aside from shelters which are known for being miserable, overcrowded, prison-like, and difficult to get into anyway. So my children have stayed in the safety of their dad's home. His mother came from across the state to help, and while I'm relieved to see that she is taking the responsibility of caring for them seriously, she is also tenaciously possessive over them. This is still very painful for me to talk about.
Thank you for your response. Yes, I've done these things. The unfortunate reality is that my state is not very charitable. The decision makers here fund the Department of Child Safety with federal money intended for social safety net programs.
The TANF benefit, for instance, is like $200 per month per family but requires recipients to spend a certain amount of hours every week in an office doing stupid busy work as punishment for not being employed, thus reducing the time/energy they could otherwise be using to find some income generating activity to do for more than $200 per month.
Consequently, no one bothers signing up to get TANF, and the state shrugs and says "no one is signing up for this program, therefore we will spend the money on more important things like separating poor families by force for being plagued with problems we have criminalized."
There are nonprofits and stuff, but they are constantly swamped here since they are effectively all there is. The need in AZ is enormous and festering. Any attempt to address it socially, however, tends to be met with overwhelming contempt.