This is the text of the "Thank You" email that I, and I'm assuming every other supporter, received:
"Two months ago I stood by a dead van in the middle of the night on a windy French highway after leaving behind the life I had lived in the United Kingdom for the past six years. Freezing, sleep deprived and dead-broke, a terrifying realization dawned on me as I looked at my partner and our three cats waiting in the van: I put us all in this horrible situation and I really don't know what to do next. Fiasko after fiasko that led to this moment crossed my mind and filled me with the kind of cold fear I thought only accessible to children. The fear of being helpless and small. This was the absolute low point of my life since I can remember. I came very close to regretting standing up to the mighty and the corrupt, since it was now my most beloved who were paying the price.
I will never forget that moment cause without it I would've never experienced the love and the support you wonderful people have shown me. We don't ask for help in the Wild Wild North. It's easier to just curl up and die than to admit that I am not enough. It's not strength, it's fear that isolates us from love.
This morning I woke up to a notification that the fundraiser had reached its goal. It feels surreal. Unbelievable. In less than two months?! Get outta here, it can't be...
Thank all of you generous, compassionate people who have not only saved me and my family from financial ruin but also given us the means to continue the fight I came close to abandoning on the side of that highway in France. I cannot even begin to tell you how moved I am seeing how people who themselves have almost nothing still find it in their hearts to help someone they've never even met. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for your donations, both small and large! Thank you for the love and the support, your kind words and the time you have given me! Thank you for restoring my faith and resolve! I'm not scared anymore, I know what I have to do."
I'm trying very, VERY hard to pound the correct knowledge into my brain to be able to switch my freelance business services away from Google to something like Proton Unlimited.
Leaving the Google ecosystem will literally make me lose work, but man, this shit has gotta stop