#cw: long covid. privileges. depression

[imayjustbejamesmoriarty]

I overasked my body at physio today and the long covid is kicking my ass (what's that thing that makes you feel excessively miserable from exercise that's common in long covid again?).

And it reminded me of a discussion I had recently with someone who recovered from long covid. She maintains that pushing your limits is important, even if it disables you in the short term. And I had to point out that she's saying that from a privileged viewpoint. She has a husband that'll take over chores when she has a bad day. I, on the other hand, don't have any of that kind of care. If I'm too dizzy to get out of bed, I don't eat much. All my energy will go into getting to the bathroom and making sure I drink okay. (And even if I could, do you think it's a good idea for someone so dizzy they struggle to stand to operate cooking tools???)

It's frustrating to keep having to point out to people that they're still really privileged in their situation (and I am too! Just a little less than they are)

Anyway this long covid thing I can't remember the name of is triggering my depression and it sucks

[self-winding]

WARNING:  THIS IS A VENT POST.  CW FOR SUICIDAL IDEATION AND ME BEING ABLEIST.  PROBABLY DON’T READ IF YOU’RE DEPRESSED OR DEALING WITH HEALTH ISSUES.

 Been a long time since I’ve posted anything so I kind of hate to make a reentrance with something this mopey, but the past two months have been the worst of my life, mentally speaking, and the reason for that is pretty mundane:  I probably have rheumatoid arthritis.

I don’t have an official diagnosis; I have an appointment with a rheumatologist in a little over a week, and given that it hasn’t been that long since my symptoms appeared, maybe my despair is premature.  But I have a strong genetic predisposition to this condition, and I’m just the right age for it to appear.  My mom and brother both have it, and the way my symptoms have appeared has mirrored hers pretty closely.  She was around my age when she got it, and it started with pain in her left hip, as it did for me.  With each new symptom that appears, my hope that this is something temporary continues to wane.  All the classic signs of an autoimmune disorder (feeling sick and “off,” tingling/pain in the hands and feet, etc.) are there.

Because two of my closest family members have it, I’ve seen up close and personal how debilitating RA can be, and not just in terms of the pain and loss of mobility. The medications for it compromise a person’s immune system, and in the time of COVID, that’s particularly bad news. My mom is basically a prisoner in her own home these days because she’s so immunocompromised from various medications and so scared of getting infected.  I’ve talked to my family about my worries a bit but I’ve concealed the depth of my own sadness and fear from them because “the idea that I will end up like you is making me nearly suicidal” is a shit thing to say to someone, and I don’t want to make their lives harder, since they���re already dealing with a lot. And also, whenever I mention a symptom and they say “oh yeah that’s how it happened with me” it sends me into another spiral.  I’ve always been close to my mom and brother, but I feel like—paradoxically—having this in common with them has cut me off from them.  Talking about it makes it worse.  And I feel bad about feeling bad.  Because compared to them I’m so physically privileged.  My brother was already dealing with chronic pain issues in his early thirties and even late twenties.  I’m the lucky one.

The daily pain is not severe yet, but it’s there and it’s constant.  My body feels alien to me.  In addition to the joint pain it’s full of weird sensations and other little pains that continuously remind me of my fear of the future.  My mental health’s always been spotty, but until now my physical health (aside from a few relatively minor things like TMD or spells of illness) has been pretty good. Exercise and walking has always been one of my primary methods for coping with depression.  I’m looking at a future where I might not be able to do that anymore, or at least, where my ability to do so will be limited.

In June of 2021, I got married to my partner of fifteen years.  Even if I’m almost forty, even if we’ve been together for nearly half my life now, being a newlywed made me feel like a new chapter of my life was beginning. Now I worry that I’m going to become a burden on him (it doesn’t help that my usual streams of income have almost completely dried up lately).  He’s been nothing but supportive and kind and reassuring, but my fear about this is something that can’t be touched or eased by other people’s responses to it.  It’s the primal fear of losing ability, losing the simple animal joy of being able to move as I please without pain, losing a part of myself.  It’s the quiet body horror of having a body which I no longer trust.

Am I being melodramatic? Probably.  This isn’t a fatal diagnosis.  This is a pretty common and manageable condition.  1% of all people have it.  There are lots of treatments for it.  Plenty of folks live and function with far worse things and still manage to enjoy their lives on the whole.

So yeah, maybe I am just a big sissy, but my emotional truth right now is that I am rapidly losing my hope and my will to live.  I thought I knew what depression was; I thought I’d gone through it before.  This is more severe.

I look at the future now and all I can see are things slowly getting worse. I see the scope of my possible experiences shrinking.  I see a life defined by a never-ending battle against pain which can be controlled but which will never heal.  The immune system which I’ve always relied on to protect me, which has always been my ally, is now my enemy, and the enemy is inside me, an invisible and inescapable thing—not something which can be cut out like a tumor, but something which is pervasive and essential.  My body has begun to eat itself.  I can feel it happening.  This is the beginning of the end, and it will be long and slow.

I’m not planning to die because, most importantly, I wouldn’t do that to my loved ones.  And also it’s too early to know for sure that this is permanent.  There’s still a chance (small but real) that it’s all some weird fluke that will eventually go away.  But I don’t think it is.  This feels permanent, like some inner switch has been flipped.  It feels as though I’ve crossed a threshold into a different, darker world, and I can only look back on the person I was, because that person is gone.

I knew that this (or something like this) would happen sooner or later. Everyone falls apart, eventually. Everything is temporary.  Bodies are not designed to last, and considering how many things can go wrong with them, it’s kind of amazing that they work as well as they do.  But I thought I had more time.