I've always found it near-impossible to ask for help; now, despite my situation, is no different.

It feels wrong - there is always an exceptional amount of guilt when it comes to asking for money, and I have never been good at asking for anytthing - but I won't pretend that I'm not struggling.

My name's Lisa.

I work in a primary school, in a school and job that I love, and have lived in this town for the last seven years. I've worked hard to build a life here, make friends - something I've always found difficult as a neurodivergent woman - and generally create happiness for myself.

I haven't lived here, nor built any of these things, alone; I lived with my best friend, my favourite person in the world, and for the last eight years she has been what equates to my life partner, with everything shared, halved - joys, sorrows, life changes. She has been my world for those eight years.

Steph ended her own life on Wednesday 15th January. She was 36 years old. I was the one to find her.

She had been struggling for a long time. Too long. We've spent years together, trying to find a way up and out of her awful pain, but she suffered under the weight of an unkind world to the degree where she was filled with nothing but agony, hopelessness and a sense of increasing isolation. I shaped my life around her, doing everything I could to support, fulfil and love her with everything I had in order to try and ensure that she could move forward in life with as much ease as was possible for her. It was worth it - she was worth it. Steph was a vibrant, charismatic, intelligent, funny and beautiful woman, the most interesting woman I've ever met and one who deserved so much more than life (and the world) gave her.

I am simultaneously experiencing intense grief and incredible anger that the world drove her to feel that life was no longer worth living, and that the love I gave wasn't - and could never have been - enough. And yet, whilst living with this - not even a week later - I have to face the fact that I cannot afford to live in our home... my home... on my own.

(Not just on my own, actually - our beloved cat, Millie, who seems to be a local celebrity in our area, has a home here too.)

I do, to some extent, have options. I could move into a different house with other housemates, but the idea of trying to grieve for Steph, trying to process and deal with the trauma of it all whilst living with strangers, is something I can hardly comprehend. I could, of course, move back home to live with my wonderful and supportive family, but that would mean leaving behind the life I've made here, a life I value so highly and have worked so hard to build. I would end up needing to grieve twice over, for the person I've shared a huge part of my life with and the life itself.

Renting costs in this area are ridiculous. A single person on an education-based salary can't afford to live alone - not with rent, bills and living costs. I know that I'm not alone in that struggle, know that so many people are struggling to live whilst trying to take care of more than just themselves - this isn't, genuinely, about me getting help with costs just for the sake of it, when there are so many other people struggling.

This is about being able to be in mine and Steph's home whilst I grieve, without having to leave my job, completely throwing the life I've built away, in the process.

I know that there's every possibility that I can't stay here forever, and I'm not asking for forever. I just need a year - a year to get through this, a year to continue the life that I need to cling to, a year to try to pick up all of the pieces and work my way through what will now likely be one of the most difficult of my life.

It is indescribably awful to have to think about this now. The panic. The overwhelm. It's so, so much, on top of everything.

I do still have some pride, but not enough right now to feel ashamed for asking for help. I've worked hard to keep my own mental health above breaking point - am still determined to keep it going, despite everything - and I want to do whatever it takes to try and give myself as few reasons as possible for that to change.

Please don't judge me for asking for monetary support. I could just cut my losses - all of them, and there are many right now - and try to 'keep on keeping on' whilst my life continues to turn itself upside down, but all I am trying to do is keep a hold of something I am not ready to leave. I'm not ready to leave our home. I'm not ready to leave my job. I'm not ready to leave my life.

I'm not ready to leave her.

If you can help in any way, small or big, it would be significant. I have never been good at asking for help, and asking for help with money is even more uncomfortable, but what do I have to lose by asking?

I have so many details I could share - about Steph, about myself, about our life - but I'm exhausted. This is the best I can do, and it's not nearly enough... but it'll have to do.

Thank you, if you've made it to the end.

Love, Lisa. x