For everyone, this is a taxing time. Perhaps it’s why COVID-19 blindsided me— I’m still managing the roller coaster of emotions that is my anxiety.
Unfortunately, I didn’t expect to feel gaslit and alienated during my bout with Coronavirus.
Waking up and feeling disoriented on a Monday morning isn’t anything new. However, this particular August morning was different. I peeled myself out of bed and felt something was off.
It’s as if a bus ran me over while under a dizzying spell. The fatigue is acute; I felt fifty times more tired than my nights spent dancing until the sun comes up (followed by working an eight-hour shift the next day).
Suddenly, as if a thunderbolt of impending doom hit me, I could barely stand during my shower. Mustering the strength to finish my fifteen-minute shower left me depleted, so I went back to bed.
After my shower, I slept for hours. That kind of deep slumber that occurs when arriving back home after a long trip, but instead of waking up refreshed and rested, I awoke to damp sheets due to a fever sweat and cold chills.
As the week progressed, so did my symptoms, which mostly occurred at the same time. Sometimes just getting out of bed was painful; mobilizing my energy and strength to do something like walk to the bathroom seemed like a triathlon. My most persistent symptoms were extreme fatigue, painful body aches (arms and legs heavy like lead), severe nausea (couldn’t even keep down water), and vomiting. Other symptoms also included an inability to stay awake, chills, daily headaches (that felt as if someone tightened a clamp on my head). Also, there were on/off fevers, cold sweats, lightheadedness, tachycardia (a racing heart), delirium, and cognitive difficulties (brain fog).
The fatigue was so intense that the brightness peeking through the top of my blackout curtains hurt my eyes. I barely had the energy to hold and use my dimly lit phone in my hand while I was lying down.
The accompanying COVID-19 anxiety is more profound than the social anxiety I experience. Scared to sleep due to “deterioration” yet feeling so tired that slowly walking to get a glass of water left me feeling like the Drake lyric, I’m really too young to be feeling this old.
Along with this, I could sense that perhaps my family didn’t fully grasp just how awful I felt.
As helpful as they were (while maintaining quarantine), they’d ask, “what’s wrong?” and I’d explain my feelings and symptoms but the dismissal was fervent, no one was actually listening to me. With the multitude of symptoms— it’s hard to believe that there’s so much going on at once. It got to the point where I thought it was just me being dramatic, the gaslighting around me made it worse. Not only did I feel horrendous, but I also felt so alienated, so I kept it all to myself.
Around the fourth day of feeling like trash, I had a complete mental breakdown. I felt voiceless, all alone, and tired of being ill with no one listening to what I was saying.
My vomiting and inability to keep water down dehydrated me; then my fever returned all the while I had a pressure headache so awful that I could feel the heat radiate around my scalp. As luck would have it, I could still breathe on my own, a silver lining within my symptoms.
At this point, I just laid down in a fetal position like the film cliché I am. The tears swelled, and I began to weep; the feeling of giving up was imminent. That’s how low and sick I felt.
At this moment is when I came to terms that my symptoms were undeniable, and finding COVID-19 testing around me is vital.
Sadly, my symptoms weren’t grave enough in need of a respirator, so I continued to self isolate at home. It wasn’t a tough decision considering hospitalization would bankrupt me due to my lack of health insurance.
By the end of the third week, my most severe symptoms finally started to dissipate. Subsequently, flare-ups occurred but it in no way felt like my first week with COVID-19.
While on my recovery trajectory, the continuing feeling of loneliness was palpable. The isolation for health is known. It’s the estrangement from anyone else that understood the pain I was experiencing. Sickly and miserable on no man’s land all alone.
The lingering symptoms didn’t help. Anxiety, inability to concentrate, cough/congestion (which I still have), and worst of all, hair loss.
With every stroke of my detangler hairbrush, small clumps of my hair fell out. The shock of seeing so much hair on my brush shook me to my core; the mere feeling of losing so much hair overwhelmed me that I broke down crying again. This surreal moment left me feeling insecure and selfish for caring about a vanity issue when people die from this illness. Upon further research, my new recovery symptom included telogen effluvium.
Undoubtedly, the hair loss terrified me. Yet I still kept the scary feelings to myself, mainly because of the frustration of explaining met with a lack of understanding particularly, since I couldn’t even understand my own physical and mental symptoms.
Nevertheless, I’m still grappling with my post-viral infection after all progress isn’t linear. Recovery is gradually slow, at least for me. Allowing myself to enter back into the world is scary; the sheer fear of possibly getting COVID-19 again plays into my mind a lot that it can be borderline agoraphobic. Already experienced with dissociation due to my depression, however, this new level gets amplified.
COVID-19 ingests your physical health and mental health. Welcoming in depersonalization and derealisation into the mix, which is when I discovered an ugly truth.
A common occurrence amongst friends and family is their struggle with listening to someone’s bout with Coronavirus. Sharing with my parents, sisters, and a few friends left me feeling confused and full of grief.
Thankfully others like myself are finding solace within an online community; there is a collective frustration due to the reckless and pitiful pandemic policies— or lack thereof at the hands of the state and federal level. Not only are Americans dying every single day, but many others are also unable to receive the help they deserve. Additionally, finding testing is challenging since it isn’t free or available just anywhere.
Woefully, I found a post-COVID-19 community online two months too late. Yet reading through similar stories gave me a comfort I craved. Now I know that I wasn’t truly alone in my symptoms or muddled feelings. These support groups can help COVID-19 long-haulers and those not ill enough to be hospitalized (like myself).
Now, exactly two months later, I still have an annoying cough and some congestion. Mercifully, I feel incredibly fortunate to survive. I feel like myself again except with a newfound appreciation for life during a pandemic that continues to rock the world; this is why, as someone who’s experienced this debilitating virus with unknown long-lasting effects, I ask two things.
First is the importance of wearing a mask while maintaining a social distance of six feet. The second is to believe those who are trusting you with their divulged symptoms. Especially during these cloudy and uncertain times, if someone is expressing concern with Coronavirus symptoms— listen and believe them. Something so minuscule can be comforting to someone who’s struggling to understand their emotions and physical symptoms.
