I'm at my limit

Need support!

Spiraling because I recently had to tell my mom that I'll be skipping family vacation this year, and her response really kind of seemed like she was expecting it/had been assuming I wasn't coming.

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but it hurt. No mention of anything that could be done to make it safer for me to join the trip, didn't even ask WHY I'm not coming.

I can't fucking live like this. My family is just carrying on without me. My city is too small for the local "still-coviding" group to do anything beyond a weekly Zoom meeting at a time when I'm already booked, and even if I was free, no amount of digital hangouts will ever actually replace face-to-face human intimacy. Nearly all of my friends live in different states at best and different countries at worst, and it's either too risky or too expensive to go visit them.

I have a COVID-conscious therapist who's trying to help me work through all of this bullshit, and I recently upgraded to the maximum allowable dose of the medication I take for my OCD/generalized anxiety disorder. I could probably stand to exercise a little bit more, but I'm still terrified of anything more than a brisk walk triggering some sort of latent Long COVID after my first and only infection that I know of last summer.

I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing - masking, probiotics, mouthwash, nasal spray - but I still feel like shit every single day. What's the point in staying healthy just to eventually (probably) have to watch my loved ones succumb to Long COVID or any of the myriad of horrible outcomes that multiple infections can cause?

I'm not religious, I can't placate myself with the idea that doing the right thing is going to result in some eternal happiness once I'm done here on earth. Obviously, YES, you SHOULD do the right thing, but unfortunately there isn't any reward for that. I'm spending my one wild and precious life isolated, angry, lonely, and scared, waiting for me or my loved ones to become disabled or die.

What's the point in staying alive just to wish that COVID had killed me the first go-round every day?

I'm so tired. I don't want to do this anymore.

in ZeroCovidCommunityby bug_bit3

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25d

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satsugene

24d

While it might not necessarily be encouraging, if you are anything like me, ignoring the risks to try to recapture those things/relationships would be similarly hollow, especially if it ended up causing me harm that I knew I had the knowledge and capacity to avoid--or possibly worse.

One thing I can say as someone who got irreversibly disabled later in life is that it can be much worse. Sometimes "good" is the enemy of acceptable, especially when worse is a very real possibility. In some ways, the modern western idea that people should always (or almost always) be happy and perceive the world as "good" or life as "pleasurable" runs counter to traditional wisdom (western, and to a greater extent eastern, with or without some belief in the afterlife) that life is unavoidably difficult and painful. Most approaches seek only to be liberated from that painfulness, and live in a way that can avoid some of that that is avoidable, but not have the expectation that one will be blissfully or euphorically happy all the time, which is what some people expect (and get angry when they don't get it, or get upset when they can't achieve that mindset).

Something that has helped me, is that I discovered I get angry whenever my expectations aren't met--whether it is what I think should happen (how a program is intended to operate/is statistically likely to happen, or in a more normative sense--what a person should morally/ethically do.) I have no real expectations of what others will do. I don't expect them act in a certain way (predicatively) because they rarely do. I try not to expect that they will live perfectly morally correctly, and try to tolerate things I'm not willing to physically force them to do.

Naturally, I don't do this perfectly. There are things, because of the danger to others, I can't abide and that do upset me. I try to be indifferent to things that may harm themselves but that they've freely chosen to do (though it gets hard when systemically they have very little practical choice.) I don't think they owe me their future health, or a certain amount of their free time. At most they owe me not to cause me harm, which may mean exclusion (by them knowing their actions can/will cause harm and excluding me, or me excluding myself because they can't or won't do what I need to do to have a full relationship with them.)

Similarly, I don't expect that they will be healthy for the rest of their life, COVID or not, because it could change at any second and may never change back--by their actions or random chance. Even that they will live to a statistical average age is not guaranteed. Half of people by definition die sooner, some significantly so. I had a massive heart attack at a relatively young age (due to a combination of poor genetics and a 1:1M chance event ) and me dying before anyone else in my life is a very real possibility (especially if I am not careful, which is why I am, RE: COVID). It is the case for everyone else too, but most people aren't as immediately aware of it if they haven't experienced a near-death experience or condition that makes (more than average) an ever-present risk.

lolonugget

24d

“I don’t think they owe me their future health” just REALLY resonated with me and is causing me to think about things differently. Thank you.