In this blog post I will recount how COVID affected my life. Some of this information is new, I have kept it to myself, until now.
Before COVID
I think that this deserves a short summary of how my life was before COVID.
First, if you have read my earlier posts, you are familiar with my childhood illness. Since late high-school, I developed a mental illness that profoundly affected my life – until a doctor put me on a drug that was able to treat it.
I was resistant to medication, before my first attempt at higher level education. Primarily because I did not see myself as sick during the late teenage years, and the medication that psychiatrists put me on, did not have any improving effects. Maybe it was because it was not the right medication or that I was not on it long enough. OR that my body was not responding at all to the medications during those times.
So, my first attempt at college failed and I dropped out. After deciding to drop out, I remember writing the letter and then delivering it to the college office. I moved in with my parents and remember being mostly home bound, not going anywhere.
Then things started to get worse. The details I have covered in other posts, primarily in my autobiography pieces, so I don’t think I want to recount them here.
After getting in trouble with law enforcement, they made a fateful decision to send me to the hospital instead of jail.
A psychiatrist put me on a drug that would start to work in a very powerful way. I was not a stranger to this drug before, however in the past it did not work. It was like coming out of a living in a damp and dark alley to going to a beach with warm, bright sunshine.
I would make a second attempt at higher education, and this time it was very successful. That led to a career that at times I enjoyed a lot. I moved out of state and worked and lived on my own – something that I don’t have today and envy.
I faithfully continued to take the medication and my life was good. However, after about a decade on it I was starting to feel a lessening of mental health, it was subtle though at first. Was it because the insurance company was transferring me to newly available generic?
However, eventually it would be clear, this was not all because of the generic, the illness was progressing.
2019
At a new company, back at my home state, and having moved back in with my parents, I was experiencing burn-out. I was enjoying the work, but I was starting to take breaks away from work. These during-work breaks would sometime take days. I didn’t talk to my boss about it at that time. Generally, I would reach a point where I was able to get back to work and have something to talk about at the next group meeting.
COVID entered my life late in 2019 and after reading the news reports, where people in China were falling dead in the streets, started to scare me.
I felt that it was a matter of time before I got sick. I just didn’t think it would happen this soon.
February 2020
A couple of coworkers went traveling, definitely out-of-state (it could have been international) and using airlines. Travel was rare for our group. Obviously, this was also during the time that COVID was mostly spreading in China, with few reports of it being in America.
The coworkers returned from their trip, and they alerted out boss that they had a fever. He deferred the decision on their return to the office to someone else, there may have been a COVID safety coordinator at that time. The COVID coordinator told the pair to stay home until they no longer had the fever.
It seems it was not more than three days they were back in the office. I remember being upset about it, internally.
At this time, the COVID protocols were in their early stages. As all of us remember it took a while of on-the-job training to refine them. I don’t think that mask and social distancing were the norm at that time. The insurance would not cover the PCR tests, and they cost upward of ~$800 dollars from out-of-pocket to get.
Mid-February I start getting symptoms, like a mild cough and I feel that I believe that I am getting a fever. I take a thermometer and it tells me that I have normal temperature. How could this be true, I ask myself. So, thinking that the thermometer is too cold, I turn it off, hold it in my mouth for a minute and then turn it on to take a measurement. It turns yellow – but it is exactly on the border for above normal temperature. I believe it was 99.x F.
These were not bad, but I am now feeling something that I never felt when getting sick. My thinking is impacted. I can’t think clearly, and it is an uncomfortable feeling. At the time the media did not discuss “brain fog” as a symptom.
At my workplace it seemed we were waiting who would first get it. I concealed the occasional cough and did not identify as being sick and continued attending. Eventually the symptoms went away without getting worse.
Post COVID
The small breaks that I was taking before COVID, not sure of the exact timeframe, turned into a permanent break at some point. By March this was likely happening, since I know that by April when we went to working from home, I was not working.
Fearing dangers of pushing myself over the edge I would deny the strong urge to work. This evaded detection in March, but in April, our boss started keeping a sheet with that status update for each person, every day. I still had not discussed this with my boss, now could not keep it secret any longer and set up a call with him on the issue.
After the call, I applied for time off from work and was able to get on a state program for time off work, that paid a fraction of my salary. Still, the pay did not matter much, the relief to be off the roll was important. I was hopeful that I could return to being a contributor after that.
After a month, I decided to return to work but quickly found that I still was not able to work.
To not mislead the reader, I will add this part. What I call my spiritual guide, (or formerly “female worker”) was intervening anytime that I tried to start to work. She was strongly discouraging it.
I believed her, but specifically never really knew the reason why she was discouraging me. She limited her communication to a few words that she would repeat any time I attempted to work. I suspected that there was an invisible edge that I would go over if I worked for long.
Now I developed a new symptom that I did not have before COVID. I would get stomach pain within minutes of working. This would occur for a simple thing like searching for something at home.
Work was never the same after COVID and to this day – although I believe that I am making improvements. I occasionally have stomach and psychological symptoms when working on the computer. Somedays it is not there, then other days it is.
At that time, reading a technical article in a newspaper would develop the symptoms.
Eventually, after a year of not working (and concealing it), the HR person started to encourage my supportive boss to let me go.
I thought about resigning long before that. But decided to listen to one of my parents who encouraged me to try to work. For most of the year, I was hopeful that next week I would be able to return to being productive, but that never happened.
February 2021
The HR person, after getting push back from my boss to letting me go, decided to have me meet with a psychiatrist, that I would choose, and they would get status updates from them to see if there would be any improvement.
This was during lockdowns and the HR person wanted to meet me in person to propose this to me. I went to the desolate workplace, and the three of us sat in a large conference room, separated by distances. I listened to her. One of the things she said is that “We are worried about you”. She was really being genuine about this, I was not worried about myself as much, I believe.
I accept the arrangement and must choose a psychiatrist from the list sometime within a week.
I never do this since I change my mind after a voice warns me off. This leads up to a new Friday call, that we are to have every week with me, the HR person, and the boss.
The HR person decided to terminate with cause on the call, something that I did not expect so soon. But it was a relief.
Unemployed
I can honestly say that it took me at least two years to realize that that COVID may have impacted my health. During that time, I just believed that my mental health started to deteriorate quickly around the time that I had COVID but never made the connection.
Am I scared of getting COVID? I don’t think I have had one in two years. I don’t wear a surgical mask when going shopping since I don’t think it is worth the hassle. A N95 mask has some benefits, however it makes me feel like I am suffocating, so I just can’t tolerate it for long. I am not scared of getting COVID again. I can’t rule out that I may have been getting it but without symptoms.
Looking for Work
I recently started to look for work again. One of the needs is having something to do, but the money would also be useful. I avoided openings that were remote. I really wanted to be in the office again with co-workers. Relocating to another city would be a benefit, since that would mean living on my own, something that I miss.
After five applications, and two interviews, I have decided to pause it. There are still health improvements that I need to make and that I think are close by and I am not there yet.
I just couldn’t understand why remote positions were so in demand these days, workers are resisting to return to the office. I am sick being home all the time. Being at a workplace would be nice.
But big tech companies are laying off workers. Some businesses are cancelling job openings. It may get tougher to find work going forward.
Just recently, I started to make moves to conserve the money that I have, something that I was not doing before. My average monthly outflows increased after I lost my job, largely because I bought a new car (with cash) and that I decided to pay for my health insurance. I expected that I would be better and able to work around this time. Seeing that I need more time, I am starting to be more fiscally conscious.
Overall
I am surprised that it took me this long to realize that COVID affected my health long-term. This means that my thinking is really limited. And I see it from time to time – why had this not occurred to me sooner – I think occasionally.
While there are times that I think things have improved and will stay that way, often this is not the case in a week. However, with a slow average, I think that I am making improvements. I will specify, that about two years ago, I was living in an emergency mentality. Month was too long to wait; I needed some relief. Now, that is gone, and I can wait/plan for a longer period of time. The mental emergency is gone. This is something that dawned on me one day.
My memory is short, but that is a characteristic of my illness. It occurred to me, I am not the man that was born yesterday, often I feel like I was born this morning. Nevertheless, I am hopeful.
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