Living in the no man’s land between help and hope

Lately, I’ve been witnessing a surge of public support for someone raising money to stay alive. I wish her everything she needs, truly. But I also feel how our own silence seems to grow even deeper when the world does rise, but only for something that’s visible and easy to imagine.
I wrote this with a lump in my throat, not as a form of blame, but because part of me hopes someone, somewhere, will stop long enough to ask: why are some lives saved, and others not?

Why does the world offer generous support when someone is on the verge of dying, but not when someone is slowly being hollowed out until there is barely any life left to save?
That line keeps echoing inside me, like a backlash in my chest.
Not because I begrudge anyone their support, far from it, but because I keep wondering what it takes to be truly seen when your story can’t be captured in a single image.

These past days, I’ve seen thousands respond to a young woman raising money for surgery. A surgery that, if she doesn’t receive it, may very well cost her her life. And I understand. She’s visible. Her face speaks. Her story is clear. She lies in bed almost all the time, and her situation is urgent in a way people instantly recognize. Death is present in the room. And so they give. In large numbers. Because this is something they can grasp.

And me? I get up. I function. I inhale, exhale. I even laugh, sometimes. But I’ve been disappearing for years.

Not because of a failing vertebra, but because of a failing system. Not due to one singular medical cause, but because of a never-ending stream of sensory overload, noise, smells, stress, exclusion, bureaucracy, hopelessness, exhaustion, migraines, anxiety, suppression, dependency, and the lack of peace, privacy and anything that might resemble a life.
Because of years spent indoors, simply because the outside world is too overwhelming. Because of lying in bed most of the time, just like her, but unseen. Because of years living in a room that stopped being home a long time ago.

And now we’re asking for one thousand euros. Not ten thousand. Not a hundred thousand. Not two hundred thousand like this woman. No hospital. No vertebra.
Just a thousand to be somewhere quiet. To inhale without cigarette smoke, to rest without screaming in the background and to live without disappearing. To stop feeling like we only exist on someone else’s terms, offering nothing in return but exhausted gratitude.

And maybe that’s exactly why it doesn’t land. Because it sounds too small. Because it feels too realistic, almost modest. And people confuse “achievable” with “not that serious.”

A high amount inspires trust, as strange as that may sound. If someone needs two hundred thousand euros, then it must be urgent.
It must be real. People step in more easily when the number screams emergency. It feels big. Tragic. Cinematic. And when you donate, you get to feel like part of something significant.

But a thousand? That feels too small to become a savior. Too uncomfortable to think about. Too confronting, because it quietly asks: Why hasn’t anyone fixed this already? And most people would rather not go near that question.

We ask for a thousand euros because we know exactly what we need. Because we ask for no more than that. Because we do everything we can to carry it ourselves. But apparently that’s not enough. Apparently there’s something about our pain that fails to resonate. Or perhaps it resonates too deeply.

It’s apparently not visible enough. Too vague. Too complex. Too unsettling, perhaps, because it touches something many people don’t want to feel. Because what if it could’ve happened to them too?
What if this society is indeed so harsh that you can quietly break down without anyone noticing?

I don’t know how to carry it. That our story, our life, seems worth less in the eyes of others. That our desperation is too uncomfortable, our way of surviving too complicated, our suffering too difficult to turn into an image. And most of all, that our effort to tell it truthfully -without spectacle, without filters, without flashy edits- has made us less visible. Less believable.

I don’t want to take anything from her. I truly don’t. But I feel, so sharply, the depth of the distance between those who are saved and those who have to learn to live with the fact that no one ever came