I was not sure where to post this but my main problem has always been depression so...The title of this post is not quite right because it should be the response to COVID ruined my progress.

I want to start by saying this post may upset some people so I would advise people that have lots of fear regarding COVID stop right here.

First, I want to give you a little back ground. My mental health issues have crippled me all my life. My life has mostly been one of isolation, self-hatred, and sadness. I have enjoyed very little of life's pleasures. That being said I did not give up! I worked with a therapist for years and it did help. I worked up the nerve to actually start school through the ticket to work program. It was hard, believe me. Especially since I was so much older than the average college student, and having to do actual speeches! My god I would never have believed I could make it through that, but I did.

My goal was to get a degree in network administration and security. I was scheduled to graduate Spring 2020 then the dreaded COVID came along. Since then, it's like I did all that work for nothing! After all the restriction started to kick in, I could no longer see my therapist in person. I could no longer see the person from DHS that was helping me through the process, and I really depended on her too. She was more like another therapist really. I could no longer see the professor that was the head of my IT department. He was a great professor too! We developed a real good working relationship (I end up being Network admin for the IT department). He was all about helping people to get started in the field. I know he would have been of great help to me with guards to finding employment. Then all of the sudden everything was shut down and locked up! All this started just as I was finishing my degree. I was able to finish and get my degree but since the Spring of 2020 it's been nothing but back sliding for me.

I know many will say, oh well you could be using skype or the phone. Well that is true but I really need personal interaction. I need appointments that will get me out of the house. I need a reason to get out of bed, shower, put some nice clothes on and get out there in the world. I have isolated all my life and going back into isolation was one of the worst things I could have done.

At first, I thought all this will be over at the most in 6 months and I can get back on tract. Well here we are. It's almost a year and a half since I graduated and frankly, I don't even have the desire to get out there anymore.

My therapist moved on. I still can't see the DHS lady in person. I don't know, she may not even be there anymore. I wrote to her but never got anything back so maybe she is gone too. I lost touch with the professor and now I feel ashamed to even contact him because I have done basically nothing since graduation. I never did tell him my whole story and really dont want to.
In my personal opinion I think the action taken were unnecessary and hurt who knows how many people in ways we won't understand for years. At the very least the lock downs should not have gone on so long.

Before you tell me of the great dangers of COVID I will tell you of my personal experience with it. In Feb. of 2020 I had the it! Who knows what I really had but I will tell you it was the sickest I had been in a long time. I had high fever and it effected my lungs pretty hard. The coughing and not being able to catch my breath was not good. I was pretty bad with the fever for 3 or 4 days but the breathing problems just lingered on. My mom finally talked me in to going to the doctor because she thought I had pneumonia. It turned out that my lungs were clear. They give me influenza test but by that time I was already recovered enough that that did not show. Maybe it was not the "it" but who knows, my cousin grandchild test positive and all he had was a sore throat and he has a history of having strep throat so again who knows.
I am not saying it's not bad. I am saying personally I don't think it is the boogeyman either. At the time I was sick I had all the hallmarks of COVID-19. I survived it and I am a BIG FAT 30 year long smoker in my mid 40's at the time. I live in a small house with my 85 year old mother and 27 year old nephew. No attempt was made to isolate me. My mother did get sick around that time but it was nothing compared to what I had and my nephew never got sick all.

Well that's my story.