A dear, courageous activist friend from Gaza is still trying after months to raise enough money to get his parents out of Gaza and getting them the medications they need. If you could please share or donate I’d appreciate it so much. He’s been an incredible advocate for years, and his family deserves our support!
You would if you were tired enough. You would if you were hungry enough. You would if your mind and body had been worn down enough, through pain or disease or toil or violent struggle. You might if you were put on the wrong medicine, or you got the wrong kind of head injury, or you were forced to choose between someone else and yourself. You might if your livelihood was staked on it, or all your hopes and dreams. You might if you didn't know what else to do, if it's what you were taught or if nobody taught you anything else.
I have not been worn down in most of these ways. I have lived a remarkably privileged life. But I have been worn down in some ways. And they were enough to teach me that in the wrong circumstances, any of us can become someone we don't want to be. It's worth keeping that in mind.
we've gone beyond driving a dead horse into the ground we're partaking in some kind of ritual meme sacrifice and i am all for it. mass-scale meme purge. the blood raining down on our faces and we're dancing and laughing
if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.
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no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.
I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.
I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.
If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.