I am facing a crisis that I have been trying to resolve on my own for three months, but everything I have attempted has failed. I am an autistic ADHDer, and I am in a profound burnout and suffering from physical disabilities. I am also losing the vision in my left eye. This complicates my ability to do things on my own anymore. I need support and care.
The Situation
My passport expired back in March of this year. I need a valid passport to keep my bank account open. I need my bank account so I can actually earn money from the small amount of activities my disabilities allow. Mostly this is earning money from the art I make and sell. It's not a steady income, and it's a very small income. Every three months or so, I can take some of my earnings and mix it with my welfare check ($90USD every month) that must (by some kind of leprechaun logic) accommodate myself and the two people who depend on me.
I was born in Trinidad & Tobago, but for the most part I grew up in Barbados. I have been moving back and forth between Barbados and Trinidad since I was 15 months old. I am currently living in Barbados (but more on that in a moment).
Aside from one passport I got processed in Barbados back in 1991, before the fight over flying fish closed down the T&T High Commission in Bridgetown, and the one time I got it extended while living in London, every single time I have had to get my passport renewed I was either living in Trinidad or had to fly back to Trinidad to process the paperwork.
This sounds relatively easy, but it is not. Getting my passport out of the Trinidad government has generally been a bit of a clusterfuck almost every single time. Trinidad does not provide a system for Trinidadians living anywhere in the Caribbean to renew their passports digitally, and no system to post in the paperwork and returned via the same.
The system locally is Byzantine, and woe betide ya if you’re trying to do this in Port of Spain.
At any rate, in order to get my passport, I must fly back to Trinidad and go through an arduous process that my auDHD self is absolutely dreading.
Back in February 2023, I got word that my mother was in a nursing home. Stunned, I packed up my house, shoved it all in a storage unit, and within four days was on a plane to Barbados.
Some of my people are aware of the sheer level of stress (following a previous stretch, two solid years years long, of stress and increasing burnout between Dec. 2021 and Jan. 2023. Indeed, I had just been through a traumatic event involving a landlady from hell, so mentally and financially I was already struggling) that I have been going through since I got to Barbados.
As soon as I arrived, I had to deal with members of my mother’s family whose morals have consistently been shit, and I was fighting to see my mother and protect her from any further abuse.
As a result of chronic unemployment, profound autistic burnout, and the fight to see and protect my mother, I have not been able to travel back to Trinidad.
However, I am now right up against the wall. My bank account will be closed on August 26, if I cannot get my passport renewed by then. Then it will be extremely difficult and expensive to cash out my earnings from my art.
Currently I do not have the funds to eat regularly, far less take on the enormous expense to travel.
I am utterly dependent on my community, my village, for almost every morsel my son and I eat. My welfare cheque does not do it. Combermerians are the ones doing it. If people don’t bring groceries, or donate money for me to go to the grocery, and I don’t get paid for my tiny projects or there aren't enough art sales, Dayo and I simply don’t get to eat. This has been my life for at least five years. I hate it, but realise I cannot do better than this right now.
So this leads me to this small campaign.
The funds I am asking for cover the return ticket, the passport fees (as I must pay to expedite the process as I don’t want to spend weeks and weeks away from my mother, who has had two strokes, has dementia, and is blind and dependent on me), transport on the ground, and money to eat while I am there. In addition, I have to make sure my mother has enough diapers and such, and that my son can eat while I am away.
I have until August 26 to get my passport… this makes this campaign urgent. Extremely urgent.
I do not take the help of my community for granted. It is my hope that folks will continue to view me kindly and be moved to help, but I also don’t want to embrace hopelessness either. I still feel I should fight for my ability to maintain even a sliver of independence, and for that my bank account is crucial, which makes my passport crucial.
I have a few weeks left, and I must be on a plane by the 12th of August at the latest in order to give my passport time to be processed. So I must make this campaign short… please be sweet to me.
•• I've included pics of my art for visibility.