Coronavirus - Share your personal experiences

[Animal]

If anyone has COVID, or knows someone who has suffered from it - feel free to vent, share and express your stories here. Also, feel free to share if you're a nurse or doctor working on the frontlines, a grocery store employee who is frightened and needs to vent, or any person who just needs to vent about their circumstance.

Rule #1: Please do not pick a political argument with anyone who shares their personal story. This thread is for coming together and honest sharing. If you want to argue, feel free to pick an argument on other threads!! Thank you

Rule #2: If you are venting, you can include any politics that are relevant to you. Don't feel like you have to walk on eggshells. I just ask that no other party argues about someone's personal vents on this thread.

[Kelvin]

I've been so frustrated in this pandemic. Somehow it makes everyone a little bit nastier and a little more unreasonable. I've had to cut off ties from friends because all they've done is twist my words and demonize me, when I've explained myself over and over. It's so frustrating because these are people I used to respect. Now it's gone down the drain. Their baseless, biased-driven rhetoric and me not being able to stand these kinds of things really have me in a bad spot.

[Quindary]

COVID has allowed me to work from home, which is the only thing I'm grateful to it for. My position was never one that should have been forced to be in the office, but people in the workplace were resistant to changing over to a virtual environment because of office politics. COVID forced the issue and now they're gathering all the data they'll ever need on how well people in these positions CAN work from home. Maybe in some pipe dream they'll take all the money they save on rent next year and redistribute it to us to provide the salary our work is actually worth...probably not. But they'll save it, thanks to COVID.

Otherwise, COVID sucks. It hasn't wrecked my deeper friendships, because I always knew where those lines were drawn before this ever happened. But the restrictions are making life unnatural for everyone else, which is making certain things that were natural for me into a bizarre norm and oddly enough twists my world. Things need to reach a better equilibrium, otherwise the world is gonna go boom.

[Animal]

I guess I'll chime in too.

In New York, Covid hit hardest in the early days, when the virus was still at a stronger strain. Governor Cuomo forced New York nursing homes to accept Covid patients without asking questions, per Executive Order. Obviously, nursing homes have the most vulnerable patients, so the exposure to covid would be more likely to kill them than anyone else. There were at least 10,000 deaths in those nursing homes, though the numbers may be as high as 30,000 - since many people left the nursing homes and died afterwards, but it is impossible to count.

One of our friends, someone we admire tremendously, was staying at a nursing home. He was not very old, not on his death bed. He just needed some work done and was having some health issues that could have passed with time and treatment.. and he got exposed and died. This was heartbreaking. I have wanted to write more about him, but it's so disheartening that I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm so angry about all the politics around it that it's hard to honor him as a person without getting furious. I'll write about it when I'm able to focus on his amazing qualities and how much he inspired me, and everyone else around him. He was a truly special, eccentric, artistic, wonderful soul. This was a major tragedy.

I want Cuomo to go to jail. I considered getting politically active, but others have also lost friends and relatives, and they are on the job. I have no doubt there will be class action law suits, but I don't know if he'll actually go to jail, which pisses me off.

Early on in the pandemic, Daeva and I both stopped working. He was delivering pizza and I was working retail - both part time. He didn't want to get me sick, since I'm chronically ill - so he stopped working. And my store closed for several months. When it finally opened many months later, I didn't go. I can't breathe in a mask, and masks are being forced on everyone any time they enter any indoor location, including a gym. I have multiple reasons why it's hard for me to breathe - serious allergies, Babesia which causes air hunger, and lung issues from Lyme. So with all of these issues, I can't breathe in a mask. So I stayed out of work. Our bank account went lower and lower until we were pretty much flat broke. Finally I went back to work, wearing the mask. I get light headed constantly, need to take breaks, run to the back room and waste big portions of my shift trying to catch my breath. It's very unhealthy.

There are many studies and articles written by medical professionals which detail all the reasons it's bad for people to wear a mask. Also, statistics have shown that places who didn't force masks did not have different outcomes with Covid than places who did. So the masks actually did nothing to slow the spread. Of course, many don't agree with these findings. I am all for debating the merits and demerits of masks, and talking about whether it's worth it. This is a very fair argument to have, because even the chance that it might help to prevent people from dying of covid is worth discussing. But a lot of people are so adamant that if you even bring up the possibility that masks do something bad, you're a horrible killer and should be censored and silenced. I use my facebook platform to start civil discussions, and there are many people from the right and left and center alike, and from all over the world, who comment on my threads. So many people have been willing to have these debates, regardless of their beliefs, and avoid making it personal. Unfortunately, for all the amazing people in the world who are willing to engage respectfully and keep it intellectual, there are still people who can't do this. Some people think if you disagree with them, you shouldn't be allowed to talk at all. Luckily most people in my life are not like this. So I removed the few who were, and it made me appreciate the good ones even more.

At work, my boss tries to give me as much time in the back room as possible, so that I can be working by myself, away from everyone, and take off the mask. I've had some days where I had to work on the floor and that was pretty horrible with the mask, but in the back room, I can take it on and off when needed. Hopefully I can transfer to stocks eventually, because I like it much more. I really don't like working with clients since my voice is quiet. So that was a positive development for me, that I might get transferred to stocks, which I have wanted all along - but the occasion did not arise until now. It has also been positive to see how well I was received at work and how wonderful everyone has been about my worries about the masks, and general health issues. I am truly blessed to be working in such a nice environment with good people. The salary unfortunately is too low, so I don't know how long I can stay. But I'm enjoying the open heartedness there for now.

So to recap, in terms of people, I've been met with a lot of love overall. In terms of money, this has been a real problem. We haven't paid rent in months, and I'm really worried about how we're going to get out of this hole. I just got off a serious medication that made me exhausted. I'm bordering on BMI overweight, and can't work out at the gym while wearing a mask. So that is a major drag. It pisses me off that so many avenues are closed - either outdoor locations are flat out closed to the public, or they force masks, so you can't work out since it's dangerous to breathe in CO2 and to have limited oxygen intake while working out. I have major fat genes and thyroid and health problems, so I get fat easily, and I'd like to work on it but many avenues are closed. I'm going to have to develop a home workout, which is too bad since I'm much more comfortable with my gym routine, which kept me in great shape for 20 years of my life.

Overall, studies show that the lockdowns are causing enough suicide, death and poverty that they are much more devastating to the world than the illness itself. More and more outlets are posting this, so I'm sure the lockdowns will not go on much longer. Hopefully masks won't either, but I'm not holding my breath... .*laughs at my own pun*

On a final note, one morning I woke up and wrote this poem randomly. It just came out....

[Qassim]

For the first time in my life I have gone truly hungry because of this pandemic. I have spent most of my adult life being hungry--through illness, depression, rationing, or living at the whims of an abusive man. But ultimately, I always managed to get 2 or 3 meals a day, even if my body still felt hungry or I didn't get to eat the things I wanted, when I wanted. This is the first time I have truly experienced poverty-based food insecurity, skipping days to eat or only eating one meal a day. I don't want to complain, but I need someone out there to know that my hair is falling out in clumps, my nails are fraying, my ribs are visible, and I stopped menstruating. This last one finally prompted me to contact my parents and beg for food money.

I was supposed to start working again this week, and they just put us under another lockdown. I survived the first lockdown because of the stimulus check, but how am I gonna survive this one? The pathos and frustration of this, ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE, well, I can't handle it. I've been pro-lockdown up till now. But now I just want to murder these idiots that are starving me and ruining my life FOR THE 23456823749234th TIME. WHY does nothing EVER go my way? I get it, Universe! You want me to suffer! Yes, I'm humiliated and broken, have no confidence, will never assert my will again, and have lost everything I own MULTIPLE TIMES. I get it! Joke's over!

I hate my life. I hate Covid, and I hate hunger. I hate this sadistic fucking god.

I ask myself if this is why I went to college and grad school, to starve in a developing nation as I approach middle age? Something is wrong with the world, very wrong. Garbage planet. Run by literal chimpanzees.

[Animal]

I'm sorry you're going through that. Absolutely awful. I have been against the lockdowns (aside from the first month or two when there were a lot of covid deaths, no cures and meds, and we still didn't know much about it) --- for many reasons, including this. Less than 1% deaths, mostly among the elderly who would die from a flu anyway -- is not worth locking down the whole world and starving people. Like really.. wtf.

[Qassim]

I'm still not against this, but they've got to compensate people who are really up against it because of their actions. You can't just tell people to stop everything, and then leave them to starve. Even just setting up a free rice dispenser would be useful. One guy in our school died last week, and I'm not sure it wasn't from hunger. Idk, this country has screwed me over so many different ways at different times, it's actually impressive. I'd still rather die here than go back to that abusive shit in Sri Lanka, though, just to be clear about that.