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SprinkL3
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Attention Nov 27, 2021 at 09:29 AM
  #1
Prior to the pandemic, I used to remove my shoes before I came into my apartment, and then I would spray the bottoms of them with Lysol about once a week or more frequently. I would wash my hands a lot, but nowhere to the point of them bleeding and cracking like today. I socialize with friends, but I was also leery about catching any disease from them. I was okay with shaking hands, but I would still want to wash them at least within the next hour.

I think over the years my fear of germs and contamination grew. I didn't have the energy to always maintain my rituals to prevent germs and contamination, but I would try when I wasn't dealing with post-exertional malaise from chronic fatigue syndrome. I think my physiological disorders, including two or more incurable diseases, which resulted from being sexually assaulted, had changed my views about safety, germs, and cross-contamination factors. Prior to my traumas, I think I was somewhat "normal," meaning that I didn't obsess much. I may have been organized most of my life, but not to the levels that were disabling.

Flash forward to now and I'm completely fearful of all communicable diseases, as well as fearful of being a victim of a hate crime by way of being spat on or the like. I isolate in place, I always wear double masks with double gloves and sometimes head with ear coverings and goggles, to fully protect my head. I can't always have the energy to clean surfaces, and initially, there were no disinfectants available to me, so I decided to change my life by using reusable washcloths to open up cabinets in my home and to handle the touching of certain knobs. I'd definitely wash my hands more frequently and use only one single-use washcloth to dry them each and every time. My days of reusing a hand towel to dry my hands are over. But now my hands are frequently dry, cracked, and chaffed. I also own over 200 single-use washcloths, which were about the only things I could purchase at the beginning of the pandemic. They helped me feel a sense of safety and control when the world was unsafe and chaotic. The world still seems unsafe and chaotic to me.

I get super angry at those who wear masks improperly. I see cracks of noses peering through the tops of masks like I would see cracks of buttocks peering through the top of jeans. I see the unmasked as "naked" and "selfish petri dishes superspreading purposely to the masses around them." I can somewhat understand the unvaccinated, but to a point, if and only if they wore a mask and social distanced properly. I see germs and bacteria and viruses everywhere, even though they remain invisible to the naked eye.

I can't stop thinking and obsessing about being intubated and suffering a traumatic death. I fear that I will have nonstop flashbacks and be raped or harmed in certain ways if I ever got sick with Covid-19, the flu, or any other respiratory illness for that matter. I've already had to deal with a few surgeries in my life, and I know enough to know that I can't stand cathedars or anything stuck inside me. I also couldn't handle a CPAP machine for my sleep apnea, so I would just envision intubation as throat rape, which would actually reinforce the intrusive memories of being raped in the past. I can't handle the thought of what it would be like for anyone to die from Covid-19 in the ICU. My friend died from Covid-19 last year.

I can't help but think about how Covid-19 patients are mixed in together, even though their strains are different, and how that could equate to more mutations because of the mixing and blending of multiple forms of SARS-CoV-2 strains in one room. I hate that there aren't enough HVAC protocols that could really improve all indoor air environments if that were mandated in addition to masks and vaccines in some areas.

I obsess over this pandemic as being the end of the world now, because it seems to only get worse. I fear that my now agoraphobic life has become the new norm for me - a part-Asian person with a vulnerable dissociative disorder and other mental and physiological vulnerable conditions. I don't trust the world to be safe to me, even as I take every precaution to make myself safe.

I feel like I've already died - that the person I knew before the pandemic is no longer here anymore. My dissociative disorder has worsened, and I feel others taking over more often inside. I worry about my alternate personalities making a mistake by taking too many risks and getting us sick. I can't afford to get sick, get more medical bills, get into more debt, and be alone while sick. I have no one to take care of myself, and I fear nursing homes and institutions because of their high malpractice rates as well as the high rates of unvaccinated and improperly masked staff.

I'm angry at every policy that goes against public safety, and I'm angry at every person who spreads disinformation. I'm angry at every risky thing, and I'm certainly angry at this pandemic and all the diseases in the world. Most importantly, I'm angry about those who weaponize and politicize these viruses and bacteria. I'm sick of things that could have been prevented had there been more funding, more scientists, more freedoms to conduct science and data-driven prevention measures, more public safety policies globally and locally, etc. My mind processes these things over and over again, even though I know that people in the world (not just in the U.S.) are divided on these issues and will always be divided on these issues, and that there is no way to reach herd immunity at all because not enough people mask, social distance, and/or vaccinate. I feel hopeless, and the only way for me to live in this kind of chaotic world is to find some sense of control. What I can control are my rituals like organizing, periodically packing, periodically donating items, cleaning my hands, using individual washcloths to open cupboards or dry my hands, using goggles over my glasses, using disposable gloves under cloth ones, washing my clothing after only one use, washing my towels after only once use, getting vaccinated, wearing a KN95 mask on top of an N95 one, etc.

I obsess over the data on aerosolization, and how many hours pathogens remain aerosolized in the air after the last potentially infected person has left the room, such as in the case when there will be about 4 people inspecting my apartment's sprinkler systems throughout my entire apartment (closets and all) next week. I freak out over any of that, and every time I open my front door to positive air pressure coming downwind and into my apartment when there are so many unvaccinated and unmasked people roaming the hallways in this apartment complex.

I also obsess over every Asian hate crime or potentially hate-based attack (criminal or not), and how that might affect me, my mom, my family, my daughter, and my Asian friends.

I also worry about my Black/African American friends, Latinx friends, and LGBTQ+ friends who struggle with different forms of hate as well. I worry about their safety.

So my ritual for all the above is to stay home and isolate - almost being too agoraphobic to go outside, and being very envious and angry when people travel, especially when we hear about new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 roaming around.

I haven't officially been diagnosed with OCD, but there's a lot of talk about how the pandemic has worsened some people's mental health, and how there are pandemic-related symptoms like isolation (agoraphobia?), pandemic stress, pandemic fatigue, health-related fears concerning viruses, etc. Who knows what I have, but my life and my identity have completely changed.

My goals for rehabilitation have also changed. I no longer feel safe attending any college or grad school in person. I dropped out, despite winning awards and graduating Summa Cum Laude with an undergrad degree. It doesn't matter anymore - my accomplishments in this life won't matter if my health and safety are at risk, and if I'm more likely now to be discriminated against anyway. What's the point of me even trying, and I certainly wouldn't want to risk myself being put in harm's way at a brick-and-mortal school. I never socialize in person, unless it is for a necessity like getting a ride to the VA or a medical facility, or unless I'm donating items and meeting people outside. I play it safe, and I'm miserable about this life. I miss socializing, traveling, being in person, and all that. I just can't bring myself to doing any of that until this pandemic goes away - and until there is no threat of going into an endemic (which would mean loss of pandemic-related funding and costly vaccines in the future for boosters for the privileged).

I worry about it all.

I worry that my worry will drive me even more crazy and to the point of just losing it all.
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Default Nov 27, 2021 at 01:20 PM
  #2
I can DEFINITELY identify!
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Default Nov 28, 2021 at 02:32 AM
  #3
Thank you, Yaowen.
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