Why I Went On Hiatus This Last Week

[Abyssopelagic]

As a few people might have noticed, I went on an emergency hiatus this last week. I'm finally in a place where I'm comfortable talking about it.
But first I really want to apologize to those who have been left without replies: this was an issue I'd been having even before the event where I took my hiatus. I will try to slowly get to those as my mental health and irl responsibilities allow.
I'm not looking for sympathy, just wishing to fill everyone in on my life. Especially those wonderful people I consider my friends. I kind of told a few of you, but never went into details.
Heavy tw concerning real life disasters and just. It's a lot. I don't want to trigger anyone who may be uncomfortable with these topic.

 

On the 25th of May, shortly before 11PM, both my home and my place of work were hit by a category f3 tornado. No sirens went off, and I didn't even get a text warning until maybe 10 minutes before the storm was upon us.
Somewhere close to 100, perhaps even as many as 150 people were in the store, many of which were my neighbors who knew their homes were not safe. Everyone survived, and everyone left the building accounted for an hour to 2 hours later.
When the storm hit us, one of the walls was broken apart by the wind, and I was flung into a wall and hit my back. There is no damage to my spine, but I do have some muscle strain.
I've inhaled insulation, was soaked in gasoline and artificial coolant and water for 8 hours.

The events that transpired have left me with a lot of emotional baggage to deal with, as well as responsibilities. I am tentatively coming back, but will not be taking up new rps. Only trying to finish old ones.
Yes, I'm aware that my life comes before battle cats, but this is my emotional rock, and this site helps me cope in between my real help.

Our house is miraculously in tact, and everyone in my family (even our pets) have survived, but the winds did a number to power, water, and the structural integrity of the house. Filing for damages has been a pain, cleaning up debris has been a pain.
We only just got water and power back on yesterday. We had someone who was trying to bring us a generator, but he was denied entry to our road and at the time we didn't have space in our only functional car to go out of our way to get it ourselves.
Because of this, and the slow response times of our electricity company, all the food in our 3 refrigerators have spoiled. The heat of the last few days caused some of the food in our pantry to go bad as well. Replacing it all will leave a dent in our savings.
Clean up has been a slow process. We've not had many volunteers, but I am incredibly grateful to those that have helped. It's been harder to do when everyone in the house has disabilities, chronic issues, or has recently been injured.

In the end, we finally have power, we finally have water, we have a roof over our head, and we found the resources to tide us over until we can re-stock our food supply (that shouldn't have gone bad, but when someone tries to get a generator to us, the people keeping out "looters" turned him away, even when we came over to confirm YES, he's helping us, PLEASE let him through)
My car is gone, but I have job opportunities at my feet. Hopefully I can go back to work soon, to help pay for whatever insurance and assistance won't cover.
I'm glad to still be here, I'm blessed that my family is still here, and I'm thankful to be able to continue being goofy on this site and talk to everyone here.
If anyone is particularly curious, look for the Valley View, Texas tornado.
Right now, I'm just so tired, and so busy. I do plan to come back to the site before my cats go missing. I will scream if I have to reapply them after dealing with this.

Much love to all, Abyss signing off for now.