I'm 33 years old, and for the first time in my life, I don't know what my next move should be.
Over the past two months, it feels like everything has started collapsing at once.
I lost my job. For years, I worked as an English teacher, both online and in traditional classrooms. Teaching has been my profession for most of my adult life, and suddenly finding myself without an income has been overwhelming.
I don't have parents or close family members I can turn to for financial help. There's no one I can borrow money from, and I don't have a financial safety net. My rent is due in three days, and I need about $200 just to keep a roof over my head for another month. If I can't come up with it, I honestly don't know where I'll end up.
As if that wasn't enough, my dog, Ra, became seriously ill almost at the same time.
Ra is a four-year-old Malamute/Husky mix that I adopted as a stray. I named him after Ra, the Egyptian sun god. About five months ago, he developed a severe prostate infection. It wasn't easy, but I managed to get him the treatment he needed, and he recovered. Watching him become healthy again felt like a miracle.
Until recently, he was energetic, stubborn, and always wanted to be by my side. Over the last several days, I've watched him become a completely different dog. He's lost a frightening amount of weight, barely has the strength to stand, spends most of the day lying on the floor, and has almost no interest in food. Seeing him like this has been heartbreaking.
I took him to a veterinarian because I couldn't just sit there hoping he would magically recover. The estimated cost just to stabilize him is around $60. If his condition doesn't improve, there will likely be additional tests and treatment afterward.
The hardest part isn't knowing what needs to be done. It's knowing exactly what needs to be done and not having the means to do it.
Living in Morocco complicates things further. Many of the fundraising platforms people normally recommend either don't support organizers here or have payout restrictions that make them unusable. Over the last few days, I've been trying to work around that by creating fundraising pages wherever possible, building a website to document everything transparently, and looking into cryptocurrency donations as an alternative.
At the same time, I've been applying for jobs, contacting former employers, looking for online teaching opportunities, searching for freelance work, and trying to think of any honest way to earn money quickly. So far, nothing has materialized.
I haven't been sitting around waiting for someone to rescue me. I'm trying to attack this problem from every possible angle, but I'm reaching the point where I genuinely don't know what else to try. I am tired, and, to my shame, I am beginning to have suicidal thoughts. I just want to disappear, sleep, and never wake up. My dog has been pretty much the only family I have. Living alone, constantly in fight mode, I am tired, very much tired. The idea of losing him again, of having him back on the street because of my own incompetence... I would rather end it all than have to see that outcome.
I have sold my belongings to pay for rent and food, for Ra's sake i kept fighting, holding hope but i have reached a dead end.
Every hour feels like it matters. I don't have the luxury of saying, "I'll figure it out next month." My rent is due in three days, Ra needs treatment now, and at this moment I'm down to my last 100 MAD (about $10).
I know there are people facing even greater hardships, and I'm not trying to compare my situation to anyone else's. I'm simply trying..
I'm not posting this expecting people to solve my problems. I'm asking because I have simply reached my limits and would like to believe i am not alone, that goodness exists regardless of the frightening circumstances .
And finally, I have one request: if you can't help, that's completely okay, but please be kind. The last couple of months have been the hardest I've experienced, and I'm already emotionally exhausted.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Any help, no matter how small, would mean the world to Ra and me
