blindedbythedarkness

[blindedbythedarkness]

My life trying to avoid a crash...

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people who have a loved one disabled by long covid and it still isn't enough for you to try and avoid covid Infection - what the fuck is wrong with you?

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"Haha look at these conspiracy theorists saying Covid isn't real and to stop being so afraid! What dumbassery!"

Okay but you're not wearing a mask. You understand how that's exactly what these people want right? You're giving them exactly what they want. For everyone to pretend there's no Covid anymore. Functionally, you are the same as this conspiracy theorist. Do better.

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I am so fucking SICK of this living nightmare that is the ongoing pandemic.

I swear to God other people's denial of the problem is almost as exhausting as the constantly trying to dodge a deadly virus itself.

Like omg a massive FUCK YOU to all the hospital infection control teams actively fighting back against individuals and groups trying to advocate for better patient safety. Maybe if you put all that energy into actually reducing nosocomial infections you'd, idk, be doing the care part of healthcare for once. Suck your fear about admitting Covid is bad the fuck up and do your jobs.

And a big fuck you to family and friends who ask you how you are but won't ever acknowledge my long covid. I'm sorry it scares you to be reminded that you're putting yourself at risk every single day by pretending the pandemic is over. How about you grow some balls, put on a mask, and show me the slightest sympathy when I tell you my skeleton feels like it's being dissolved from the inside-out.

Also I'm fucking sick of the world being all about mental health and suicide prevention now. But if I say that I'm in the worst place I've been in for a decade because of the constant gaslighting and literal lack of safety (a basic human need) yall turn the other way. I spend my life desperate to get back to dissociative apathy because my only other option is constant intrusive thoughts about slitting my wrists or chugging bleach. I literally cannot remember the last time I felt happy but it sure as shit was more than 5 years ago now.

I'd say I can't believe it's got this bad, but I can. People have shown me who they really are. Cowardly, selfish cunts who won't even protect their damn selves let alone anyone else.

Honestly I'm at this point where I'm praying for a sterilising nasal vaccine to come around because otherwise this zero covid group project is never going to end. Failing that, maybe it'll take a fucking even more deadly pandemic to get people to finally wake the fuck up.

Fuck you all.

[blindedbythedarkness]

Dear future me,

It's that time again on New Years Eve where I take a hot sec to actually see where I'm at. I did the same last year and just read it back and it was actually pretty useful, to see how much has changed and also how little.

I'll try and keep this brief, not least because I'm pretty shattered and ready for bed, even if it is still two hours until midnight.

How am I? Emotionally, I'd say turbulent. On the one hand I'm pretty consistently lonely at the minute - besides my partner the online friends I have has dwindled in number to 1.5 at this point. And 1 if you only count the people who ever make an effort to message me first. Day-to-day to med school is also emotionally exhausting, being constantly passively gaslit by crowds of maskless faces. There are people in this cohort who I like, and in another life maybe would easily have become good friends with, but the whole constantly-exposing-me-to-a-deadly-virus thing means there's a real ceiling on how much I can really bond with them.

On the other hand, some things are positive. For one, I made it back to medical school and I'm just about coping on placements. That's exactly what 2023 Me was hoping for this time last year, so that's a huge win! I've even gained the highest possible mark on my placements so far and honestly I feel a lot more confident than before my year out. I think my job taking 70+ patient calls per day did me good, even if it did feel like literal torture at the time.

Also, I've become a founding member of a local clean air advocacy group this year and we've achieved good things in only 6 months. As a last minute win for the year, earlier this evening the local hospital trust has just recommended FFP2/3 masks and ventilation to limit respiratory viruses on Twitter. I actually had to pinch myself when I saw it!! But I'm sure our constant pestering has played a role. It's not always been easy as it's essentially a voluntary group project, but I think together we can do far more than as individuals.

Health-wise, I'm far better than I was this time last year, yet still worse than I ever was pre-2023. I don't have debilitating daily headaches with light and sound sensitivity, and I much more rarely get bone and joint pain. I am extremely grateful that I've made the improvements I have, and petrified of ever losing that ground again to a reinfection. However, my fatigue and POTS are still quite a big issue and they've meant my return to medical school has had to be in a wheelchair. Adapting to that has been hard - it's one thing navigating all the difficulties you never thought of before (slippery rims in the rain, steep slopes, radar keys for toilets) and another to do it being stared at and patronised the whole time.

Balancing fatigue and med school has also been really tough as I feel like I've lost so much time for myself. When working shifts, I've been going to bed as early as 8pm to try and cram in enough hours that I can function the next day, and it means I just never get to relax and do what I want to do. I'm also really feeling the pressure of the med school calender, with no reading weeks, two weeks for Christmas and only a week for Easter. It's so hard to balance recharging and revising. I just keep telling myself it's time limited, I can work part time once I graduate. In the meantime, I need to make time to rest or I know my body will make that time for me at it's convenience.

My partner has very much been my rock this past year with all my health issues (not that he wasn't before). He's stepped up to doing a lot more things for me, ultimately making him my carer at this point. But I need it, and it's given me the energy and time I need to improve. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be making it through medical school without him, and I tell him that when I get this degree, it belongs to both of us. He's humble though, and just tells me he's sure I could do it anyway. I don't know what I did right to have him in my life, but I'm so fucking grateful he is.

Public-health wise, things are still broadly shit. This year has seen massive surges of whooping cough, measles and walking pneumonia and even more cases of people pretending that's somehow fucking normal. Currently the NHS is being pummeled by the so-called "quad-demic" of covid, flu, RSV and norovirus. Of course, nobody could have foreseen this 🙄 hospitals seem even more resistant than last year to reintroduce masks, though a few trusts are finally starting to cave. Meanwhile, over in the US bird flu is grumbling on, ready to kick off at any minute. California has declared a state of emergency and there's reports it's only one mutation away from efficient human to human spread. I've not kept up with it much besides that, but all the experts seem to think Things Really Aren't Looking Good. Such fun!

Besides that in world news - the entire West is still ignoring the ongoing genocide in Palestine (amongst others). And frankly it really sucks being able to do fuck all to stop it. Protests aren't covid-safe and in a world where I feel guilty turning on a single radiator, I can't afford to donate. Besides that, fucking Trump got elected again, so we all have that to look forward to in Janauary. I mean, I should count myself lucky that I'm not American since its them who will suffer the most (and inevitably die. Fuck this shit.) But it's still going to fuck over the whole world, for sure.

I said I would keep this short didn't I? 😅 I guess there's just a lot of things I know future me will want to look back on and compare notes.

Oh, the last thing! Tomorrow we get two new pet rats! We got our first pair of babies this year but they seem a little lonely and we're hoping two more will improve the dynamic. So yeah, watch this space!! Hopefully by this time next year they've all made friends and are ticking along nicely.

With the state of everything, my old OCD tendencies have been worming their way into my thoughts. I feel somewhat scared to say what I hope for next year, in case I somehow curse it to never happen. But I'll be brave and say I hope I'm still managing well at med school, despite the lack of holidays. I hope I'm still free from (re)infections and my long covid is at least manageable. And I hope we continue to move towards a safer, healthier world even if at the current glacial pace. Oh, and of course I hope my partner and I are both just happy, in general! Please be kind, universe!!!

To future me, I say I'm proud of you. You often spend so much time thinking about how far you have to go that you forget to look back on how far you've come. You've done great things, and you're going to do so many more. So be kind to yourself, rest, and keep taking it one day at a time. I love you.

C

[blindedbythedarkness]

Ed Sheeran - Give Me Love (Official Music Video)

[blindedbythedarkness]

I'm experiencing a lot of grief this Halloween as once again it's interwoven with more and more loss from this pandemic.

First, there's the loss of everything from Covid risk and its minimisation. The fact that I just can't justify the risk of going indoors to walk the shop aisles of tacky halloween decor. And any halloween parties or haunted houses are off the cards for the same reason. Not to mention that I don't even have any friends locally who would even host a party or group event. In 2020 Covid took many of the close friends I had, as they chose risking infection over my health and life. And now, as I live in another city, volunteers to get to know the crippled kid in a mask who won't come to the university socials aren't exactly lining up out the door. Truthfully, it's so fucking lonely.

I was coping with that though. I coped with that level of loss for three years and now looking back, I'm so grateful I had all that time before the next wave of loss hit. The Covid infection (despite my best efforts) and the Long Covid that followed. Now, I don't just avoid activities because of the future potential risk to my health, but because I physically couldn't manage them even if Covid disappeared tomorrow. And that makes me so fucking angry, though ironically I can't dwell too much on it, because the emotions will make me crash all over again.

This year I've managed to make it back to university full-time, something I don't take for granted and for which I'm so damn grateful. But my Long Covid hasn't gone away and it means by the weekend (or some weeks by Thursday to be honest), I'm wiped out and housebound. I've largely accepted that this is the price I need to pay to finish medical school (whilst praying for no further infections) and that once I start working, I'll be able to go part-time and have more of a life. But that doesn't mean it's not incredibly frustrating and heart breaking to sacrifice so much.

Even in my first year of Long Covid, I made it to the pumpkin patch for a short time. This year we never made it at all. No pumpkins, no Halloween decorations, no spooky walks. I haven't even had the time or energy to go online shopping to decorate the flat. It really feels like Halloween just hasn't happened this year, and to me it's a more exciting season that Christmas so it's been such a gut punch.

So, yeah, that's where I'm at now. Lying in bed listening to the chorus of trick-or-treaters making their way down the road and feeling my heart break piece by piece. Even if we had pumpkins, we couldn't put them out or encourage them to come to our door because the poor kids are walking disease vectors. Yet again, it just. Isn't. Safe.

The most I can really do is find a (likely very cheesy) horror movie and try to ride this out. But to me, that's a pretty normal evening and I really don't think it will be enough to soothe the grief.

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I think I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I'm ageing because the person I was before the pandemic is no longer recognizable to me now. I have all their memories and some of their clothes and a body that's almost identical. But they just aren't me. The forces of five years of very real threats to my life; gaslighting; isolation and eugenics have forced me into a whole new shape.

[blindedbythedarkness]

Sappho, from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho; tr. by Anne Carson

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Josh, how has it already been 5 years since you took your own life?

Josh, how has it only been 5 years since killed yourself?

I'm not the same person I was then, but the grief has never really changed.

That was the single most traumatic day of my life.

The day you turned you head into a smoothie, throwing yourself off of the university balcony.

And I waited eight hours in the family room for your comatosed body to finally pass on.

But I know we lost the real you the second you hit the floor seven stories below you.

I will never not wonder about all the things that could have been.

I will never not miss you, my friend, Josh.

[blindedbythedarkness]

its ok to grieve what once was + what could have been

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[blindedbythedarkness]

Dear Josh,

A few weeks ago it should have been your 25th birthday. Where did all that time go?! In a few more months it'll be five years since you died; you only made it to 20.

I feel like I've healed a lot since you passed. I've long since moved through the five stages of grief and accepted that you're gone. Writing to you was a huge part of it. I've also relived that horrific day in therapy, which helped my mind reprocess the whole thing and took the sting out of the memory. We still visit your grave once a year or thereabouts, but I've found a balance between missing you and moving on.

There's only one thing that I'm still holding back on. A few weeks before you died I remember you singing along to Roaring 20's by Panic! At the Disco and I could never bring myself to listen to it again since. In truth I can't really remember how you sounded when you sang it now; though I remember being amused it wasn't quite in tune (I'd never have told you though). I don't even particularly like the song, nor the band anymore for that matter. But this song is so intertwined with your memory that I still actively avoid it.

The irony of it being about the Roaring 20's isn't lost on me. You never made it to the 2020's. You never lived your own 20's. And this decade so far has been far from roaring. I guess maybe any hope of that died with you, or maybe we were all just unlucky.

Knowing it's been half a decade without you brings some pretty mixed feelings. Logically, I still wish you'd never died- any life cut short is tragic and it will always break my heart that you were murdered by your own sadness. I can't lie though; a part of me is glad you've missed out on half a decade of global crisis and misery. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, so I guess it's a testament to me still loving you that it hurts me to imagine you enduring this along with us.

I also fear that had you lived until now, we wouldn't still be friends. That you'd have abandoned me to walk alongside the brainwashed masses, participating in eugenics for the sake of brunch. Maybe it's selfish of me to be glad that our friendship got cut short before it got soured. But, I just can't shake that thought.

I just hope that one day, maybe when we pass the anniversary of your 30th birthday, I'll feel different. Maybe I'll have finally picked off that last scab and listened to the Roaring 20's. Maybe the world will be looking up enough for me to say "hey, actually I still wish you were here because it was all worth it in the end." Hopefully, I won't find myself joining you between now and then.

I guess I'll come visit soon, Josh.

Lots of love,

C

[blindedbythedarkness]

How many times can the same thing break your heart?

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Do I probably have actual PTSD from the way I was treated by fellow medical students whilst literally unable to escape due to being quarantined with Covid? Yes.

Will those same medical students go on to become doctors with absolutely no consequence or reason to change their behaviour? Also yes.