No One Helps Me Anymore, So I’m Giving Up | by Higgor Araújo de Souza | Nov, 2025

October has been one of the hardest months of my life.

I did not receive a single donation. Not one. Every week I opened PayPal and Ko-fi, hoping to see even a small sign that someone was still listening, that my work still mattered, that the dream I have been building piece by piece was not dying quietly in front of me.

Each time the result was the same. Zero. Silence.

It is strange how silence can begin to sound heavier than noise. How the absence of something can echo louder than the thing itself.

Last month was different. Back then, people helped. I remember when donations used to come from readers who said my words touched them, from strangers who believed in my dream. They were never large amounts, but each one meant everything. It was not about the number. It was the feeling of being seen. The proof that I was not shouting into the void.

But this month, it was like the world forgot I existed.

The last bit of hope

One person helped me recently. A friend. She donated one thousand reais, and that gesture gave me a spark of energy I had not felt in a long time. For a few days, I started to believe again that I could actually make it.

I am still two thousand two hundred reais away from my goal. That is the exact amount I need to finally buy the computer that would allow me to continue my work, to write, to create, to rebuild my life into something stable.

When she helped me, I thought it was a sign that maybe people still cared. I told myself that kindness always comes back when you keep believing in it. But then October passed, and nothing else came. Not one donation. Not one message.

And that small light started to fade again.

Now, I am sitting here wondering if I am the only one who still cares about this dream.

Losing faith in the noise

Medium was supposed to be a place of connection. A place where words built bridges instead of walls. I came here full of hope. I thought if I shared my truth, if I spoke openly about struggle, about autism, about trying to build a life from art, people would understand.

At first, they did. I met wonderful readers who reached out, who left comments that made me believe that empathy was still real. For a short while, this space felt alive.

But lately, it feels like a ghost town.

I post and the silence feels louder than ever. No claps. No words. No signs of life. I read other writers talking about growth, engagement, success, while I keep sinking into invisibility.

The truth is, I do not know how much longer I can keep doing this.

Writing was supposed to give me purpose. Now it feels like it is taking something from me.

I find myself staring at the screen for hours, trying to write words that no one will ever read, trying to convince myself that this still matters, that someone out there will care enough to help me reach the end of this goal.

But every time the silence answers, a part of me starts believing that maybe I was never meant to be heard.

The exhaustion of waiting

There is a specific kind of tiredness that comes from waiting.

You wake up every morning hoping for something small — a message, a donation, a simple sign that you still exist in someone’s mind. You keep refreshing the page, keep checking the total, keep pretending that the lack of change does not hurt.

But it does.

Every day that passes without progress feels like a reminder that maybe people have already moved on.

It is hard to describe how lonely it feels to try to build something meaningful when no one stands beside you. You keep showing up because you believe that hard work eventually leads somewhere. You tell yourself that persistence is strength. But strength does not feel like this. It does not feel like fighting alone against gravity.

I am tired of pretending that the silence does not hurt.

Gratitude mixed with emptiness

I want to make it clear that I am still grateful. Deeply grateful. To everyone who has ever supported me, read me, encouraged me. To that one person who helped me this month. Your kindness means more than you know.

But gratitude does not erase loneliness.

It does not fix the feeling that I am slowly disappearing.

I think that is the cruelest part — when you start to feel like you are fading, like your words are floating in a space where no one is listening anymore.

It is not about money anymore. It is about connection, about knowing that what you do still matters to someone other than yourself.

And right now, I do not know if it does.

The dream that is fading

I can still remember when I first wrote about my dream here — to buy a computer, to build a career, to keep creating something meaningful. It felt possible back then. I could almost see it, the desk, the light, the feeling of finally having the tools to create without limits.

Now that dream feels further away than ever.

It is like watching a reflection fade on water. You reach for it and your hand only finds ripples.

Sometimes I wonder if I was foolish for believing that writing could change my life. Maybe it was naive to think that sincerity alone could keep people interested, that telling the truth about struggle would inspire support.

But I do not know how to be anything other than sincere.

That is the problem with honesty — it does not sell well.

Thinking about leaving Medium

For weeks now, I have been thinking about leaving Medium.

Not because I want to, but because it hurts too much to stay. I do not want to keep begging for attention, for help, for proof that I still matter. That is not the writer I wanted to become.

I wanted to write stories that made people feel seen, that gave voice to others who live in the quiet corners of the world. I wanted to believe that words could still connect people in a way that algorithms never could.

But connection requires two sides. And lately, I feel like I am writing from inside a glass room. Everyone can see me, but no one hears me.

If I do leave, it will not be out of anger. It will be out of silence. Out of the exhaustion that comes from asking the world to care and being met with indifference.

What I really want to say

I do not want pity. I do not want empty sympathy. I just want people to remember that behind every post, behind every dream, there is a real person trying to survive.

I am not a faceless creator. I am someone sitting behind an old computer that can barely stay on, someone who has been saving every coin, hoping that kindness could finish what hard work started.

I am two thousand two hundred reais away from that goal.

It does not sound like much when you say it out loud, but from where I am standing, it feels impossible.

That one thousand reais my friend gave me meant everything. It made me believe again for a moment. But now, after a month of silence, I feel that belief slipping away.

I do not want to give up completely, but the truth is, I am close. I am tired of waiting for signs that never come. I am tired of speaking into a space that used to feel alive and now only echoes back emptiness.

Maybe people do not realize that for some of us, this dream is not just about money. It is about meaning.

It is about not disappearing.

What keeps me writing

If you are reading this, maybe you are one of the few who still care. Maybe you found this by accident or curiosity. Either way, thank you for staying long enough to hear me.

I am not writing this to guilt anyone. I am writing because sometimes honesty is all that is left.

I have spent months trying to stay positive, to keep believing that consistency and effort are enough. But hope without connection starts to rot. It becomes heavy to carry.

Still, I am here, typing these words on a machine that might die any day now, hoping someone out there will understand how much this means to me.

Maybe this is not a story about giving up. Maybe it is just a story about being tired.

About a person who has given everything and still has a small piece of belief left, too stubborn to die.

If this is the end

If this is the last thing I write on Medium, I want it to be honest.

I am not sure what will happen next. Maybe nothing. Maybe this post will vanish like all the others. But if even one person reads it and understands how hard it is to keep chasing something when the world stops caring, then it was worth writing.

I am still two thousand two hundred reais away from my goal.

If I ever reach it, maybe I will finally be able to breathe again. To create again. To live with a little less fear.

But right now, it feels like the dream is slowly drowning under silence.

And silence can be the heaviest thing in the world.

A last quiet hope

If you made it this far, thank you. You did not have to. But you did.

I do not know if this article will change anything. I do not know if anyone will donate or care. But writing this, even in exhaustion, feels like leaving one last candle burning in a dark room.

Maybe someone will see the light.

Maybe someone will understand.

Maybe kindness still exists somewhere, waiting quietly to be noticed.

That is all I am hoping for. Just to be noticed. Just to be heard. Just to keep the dream alive for one more month.

If you want to help, the links are in the author notes below.

And if you cannot help, that is okay too. Just remember that there is someone here, behind these words, still trying to believe that people care.

Even now.