Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the day I tested positive for covid for the first time. All things considered I thought I had done well to avoid it for three years though it obviously also involves a lot of luck and privilege (of not having kids, having to work in an office, or needing a lot of social contact). On hindsight I could have done better: I trusted my loosely fitted kf94 too much and didn’t run for my life even when people around me were sniffing and coughing in a library, and had even stayed there for an hour around those clearly sick people. These days we don’t take any chances. N95s for all public transport, kf94s for all indoor spaces including our family’s apartments, and we run from sick people. I know some covid cautious people who don’t venture out of their homes at all so our measures could have been more extreme, but I had to find a balance between what I could do sustainably versus what would make me lose my desire to live. In the past year we also went on four international flights which we safely completed with 3m Auras fitted with sip valves and strictly no eating.
Why go to such extremes when it is mild and just a cold, one may ask if they are new to me. My infection had extremely mild respiratory symptoms and my fever hardly broke 38 degrees celsius, but I felt like my whole life had been drained out of me. I mean, why not when the virus attacks every cell and vessel of our body. I am lucky enough to not develop any visible neurological symptoms like brain fog or loss of smell and taste, and the debilitating fatigue I felt eventually went away after a few weeks. I even got back to running after a few months and now I am lifting weights. But till now I am not in a good place neurologically – depression, anxiety are all known post covid symptoms – and my heart rate goes berserk every now and then. My last episode was just a couple of weeks ago. My heart rate variability never recovered to pre-covid numbers.
But yes, call it a cold.
It is my belief that people think it is mild because they don’t monitor their biometrics. Perhaps with each infection their resting heart rate is permanently elevated by at least 10 beats but they see no cause for alarm. We can’t see DNA damage or easily test for immune system damage. People are suddenly developing chronic conditions like diabetes or thyroid disease but nope it is not covid.
I can’t tell how much of my depression is caused by my self, the neurological effects of the infection, or that this pandemic has really exposed how self-sabotaging we really are as a species.
My social ties with the people around me are now permanently altered, since no one around us is covid cautious we cannot unmask around anybody. I haven’t had coffee with a friend since the omicron variant arrived. I am pretty anti-social and I like being alone, but it would have been nice to grab a drink with someone once in a while, especially with those who are visiting from abroad.
This is my new reality, as long as I value my health. I have to choose having all my bodily and mental functions, or being human.
I wonder if I would have cared this much of my health if I didn’t spend the last 8 years trying to recover from a chronic illness which I may never recover from. If I was still healthy I would perhaps believe “it wouldn’t happen to me” when it comes to long covid. Like many others I would have blind faith in my immune system and trust that it would do its job like what the governments say. Don’t be like me and read too many books, and learn how fragile homeostasis can be. Just one hormone here and one neurotransmitter there stops functioning, and everything can cascade into a giant dtysfunctioning mess. Ask me how I know.
Nevertheless I celebrate passing one year without getting reinfected. In this day and age I think it is an incredible feat – I seldom pat myself on the back since you probably know how self-deprecating I am. But even Singapore has stopped reporting numbers though we held out much longer than others. I have no idea whether we are going through waves now, except for the cluster of positive tests that pop up on my ig stories sometimes.
I developed some ptsd from my infection too, and now every time I feel slightly weird in my throat or if my heart rate is elevated I go into a panic. I had gotten it shortly after my birthday last year, so this year my birthday made me feel impending doom, as though the same thing was going to happen again. I tell people I am afraid to get covid again and they look at me funny, telling me it is just flu what (singlish). I guess they don’t know flu viruses are carcinogenic too, do they?
I felt such a sense of relief that yesterday went by without much drama. I know it is irrational and arbitrary, I could get infected today or tomorrow. But it just seemed so hard to get through one year unscathed.
I guess I left out the most important factor to stay covid free apart from work and kids – one must survive a non-existent social life. Since a lot of the spread is caused by close contact and some of it is asymptomatic, it is virtually impossible to hang out with people since it is also virtually impossible to expect anyone to wear any mask, much less n95s. It is uncomfortable and awkward masked and trying to have a good conversation. In some other countries people form covid cautious bubbles so they can all go mask-free and have a good time. Here, I am fortunate to find a covid-cautious chat group that shares research, fears and anxieties. It really helped a lot, especially with my mental health.
I must not complain since I am partnered with someone on the same page as me, and I am sort of used to this – having to rely on online social contact instead of physical ones since I did spend long parts of my life pre-covid refraining from social contact due to social anxiety. But it still feels awfully alienating, and it is not fun being judged as a hypochondriac.
Even writing this post feels weird. I am weird, but I am not very good at doing weird things I suppose. Like any human I still crave for belonging and acceptance. I am not sure how many bloggers out there (who are not primarily long covid advocates because they have long covid) write about covid as much as I do. I can’t help but feel like people must tire of my constant attention on this by now. I am tired too, I too wish the pandemic is genuinely over so I can stop writing about this. Being able to stop writing means I am able to stop having it in my consciousness so much, and that would mean society has finally done something about it. I am just not that type of person who is able to ignore glaring parts of reality, which explains why I am in a poor mental state almost all the time.
The last year was spent in a somewhat hedonistic manner, partially because after getting infected and suffering from several POTS-like episodes including fainting twice with a 130+bpm heart rate, I felt like life has become too uncertain. Who knows when I’ll get reinfected again, and who knows when POTS or chronic fatigue will become a permanent part of my reality? Precautions as an individual may not work as well anymore, since the rest of society has given up. How effective is a n95 mask in a virus-laden environment? I have also spent countless time and energy worrying about my loved ones getting reinfected and not making full recoveries. It is exhausting.
To live a functioning life, I have to basically ignore reality, and become somewhat heartless since I cannot overcome people’s lack of desire to care about their own health. If they start faltering right in front of my eyes, I just have to be stoic and trudge on. Can I?
I celebrate one year of not getting reinfected. But the reality has not changed. There is some promising news about vaccine technology, but there is no longer an incentive to quickly bring it to market since no one cares anymore. I think the world is suffering from a collective trauma they are denying.
There can only be acceptance and coping. Nothing in this world says that reality has to be kind, or human beings have to be rational. I guess I have to be somewhat grateful that it is just a disabling virus that is causing me so much grief, and not bombs dropping on my apartment right now. I think life is pretty screwed up that we have to think this way. It is not a suffering competition, yet we have to minimise our own suffering in order to find some bright spot.
I wonder how did people cope during times of war and violence. Did they feel guilt too when they are able to carve out some joy in their lives when people were fighting and dying? Am I spoilt by the relative peace we’ve enjoyed in the past 50 years because most of human history is just full of destruction? Perhaps the difference is in an outright war most people are visibly suffering, whereas if not for the small covid cautious community and thousands of research papers I might seriously think I am insane.
I might as well get used to living in this sort of despair and chaos. The first 2-3 years of the pandemic felt like I was holding out for an end in sight, whereas the past year felt like I was going through the five stages of grief. The world may never feel safe anymore, or perhaps it was an illusion that it ever did. How do I live in an unsafe world, is an existential search I am going through. Maybe the damage brought by sars-cov-2 is minuscule compared to future viruses. H5N1 is already infecting cattle in the US and is found in raw milk. Viruses aside, there are ongoing wars, and the environment is getting hotter every day.
Like many others I want the life before 2020 back, and it is difficult to accept it may never come back. I have begun to read zen buddhism books again, because its entire philosophy is based on meeting life as it is. In buddhism all perceptions of solidity is an illusion, and I find that frame of mind very helpful trying to interact with a world that is threatening to fall apart any moment.
Can I survive another year without getting reinfected? I doubt it. But I will till try. Trying unfortunately means continuing to jeopardise my relationships as I continue to feel sad and disappointed every time someone minimises the virus, while they think I clearly have mental issues. I am trying not to let my ongoing sadness and grief affect the only relationship I have left – my partner – but it is hard. I have been shrinking as a person, because my world has been shrinking too. Yet ironically, to be less unhappy my world must shrink, because it is untenable to care about people who don’t want to care about themselves, or a world that is bent on self-destruction. I don’t have the emotional capacity to care enough about myself, much less anything else. Is it okay to exist with a broken mind and soul?
At the very least it feels comforting to be able to type this long page of words out. That I can still have this tiny will in me to write this despite believing I will be judged for it. This is the only place I can hold on to some sense of truth and self.
