Covid Probably Won’t Kill Me — But It’s Ruining My Life
It’s 9am on a Monday morning, and I’m staring at yet another sparsely populated job board, and for no apparent reason my eyes begin to tear up. Ironically, I’m up this early to secure a telephone appointment with my doctor to review my Sertraline prescription, a drug I’ve relied on for a half a decade, but had hoped to ween myself off of — at least before March hit.
It’s probably another wave of futility that’s hitting me. Another wasted day at the table of my childhood home hopelessly scouring for an employer to jump through hoops for to not even get a cursory automated rejection in return.
The sickening irony is that at the start of March, I had a job. I was fresh from university, having graduating with my second first-class degree, and raring to face my the rest of my twenties with a renewed vigour. Rightly, or wrongly, I’ve always considered a large part of my youth stolen — I’ve suffered with depression and anxiety since I was 17, meaning my penchant for self-sabotage has robbed me of living the sort of life that was worth it.
I had been in a much better place. Yet, when I think about it, the past seven months have been my lowest ever — trapped in a suburban penitentiary with a masked trip to the local coffee shop serving as the week’s only highlight. It’s not even the height of lockdown anymore, we can go out of course, but it’s far from normal out there. It would be a whole lot easier if an end were in sight, or if I believed that ‘six months’ of restrictions wouldn’t become seven and so on, and so on.
Some days, I sit on the sofa, looking out the garden window and I feel an itch, the urge to scale the garden walls and be free. I know I’m in Northamptonshire and not Alcatraz, but that overwhelming desire to escape this kind of life is all-consuming.
And yet, I’m one of the lucky ones, I’m in a spacious four-bedroom house, with a garden — I have plenty of space to roam and breathe. God only knows how people in cramped one-bedroom flats in dense urban core can cope with these restrictions.
Things were looking up for me in March, but the combination of a global pandemic and some unscrupulous employment practices have left me here, writing this. I remember, leaving the job interview of the role I would eventually land in February, and having a real moment of clarity. That was it. It was the turning point for me, or so I thought. The years and years of working up the courage to simply live my life were over — I was going to get that job, I was going to move to the big city, and start to live.
It didn’t work out like that.
I try not to dwell on my naivety in that moment, it’s too painful. But when all you’ve got is time to think, it’s hard to be strict with yourself. At 25, I’m in the slightly odd position of being my only friend with this specific set of isolation. All of my other friends have jobs or a partner to fall back on — or at the very least, their own space. Failing that, many, if not all can comfort themselves with the amazing experiences of their late teens and early twenties. I don’t have that luxury.
The pandemic poses problems for all of us — and for my generation, we’ve sacrificed a year of our precious prime already. Yet, with the job market, and relative lack of progress in defeating Covid-19 so far, it’s hard to believe that won’t become more. I wish it did, but it doesn’t surprise me to see that over a third of British adults showing signs of anxiety, and alcohol abuse soaring. Even before lockdown, waiting lists for talking therapies in the UK could be as long as two years — now, with a shrinking economy, and a raft of newly afflicted people, our already climbing suicide rate is bound to soar.
Did you know that someone like me is 357 times more likely to die due to mental ill heath than coronavirus? 357 times.
Lack of freedom, and career prospects are viewed as some of the biggest drivers of mental ill health, and with around half of young people reporting negatively mental health from the pandemic, I wonder how many others feel like I do.
That really scares me.
I can feel my mental health deteriorating — it fluctuates of course, but the trajectory since March has only been down, and with us facing more lockdowns, more restrictions and another year of social distancing, that isn’t about to change.
And now, nine months in to this pandemic, my overriding emotion is bitterness. I am bitter, I am angry and I am fed up. The average age of a person dying from Covid-19 in the UK is 82.4, and 91% of people who have died have underlying health conditions. Now, don’t get me wrong — every single one of those lives is worth as much as mine, but it’s hard to not feel cheated right now. I understand why we’re making these sacrifices for the vulnerable groups, I have played by every single rule, and I’m not so naïve as to think that this virus couldn’t kill me too, but I fear more and more that this is becoming more detrimental than beneficial — at least for people like me.
26,000 extra people have died at home from non-Covid related causes. How many of them have been like me? This pandemic has indirectly put my life, and those of people like me in greater danger and nobody is talking about it, and nobody cares about it. We’re not necessarily vulnerable to Covid, but we’re vulnerable all the same.
And really, all of this leaves me with one question; how many more mornings will I have to do this? How many more mornings will I wake up in this vapid purgatory-like existence?
How many more days will my generation have to feign being positive when the planet is burning, we’re being ripped out of the EU against our will, and at this rate none of us will work again until we’re forty?
The real sting comes from the fact that this is all coming during my best years — maybe, maybe, all the economic after-effects would be worth it, if I could be out now living the life we should all get to, but I’m not — no partying, no holidays, no experiences of any kind.
And, then there is the cutting truth for me that there will be no quick fix for this, I won’t just go back to how I was before as soon as infections drop to zero. The aftereffects of this pandemic mean it will probably take me years to rebuild the courage I had in March, if I ever do again.
Yes, I know, I’m being selfish but it’s hard not to be when Covid-19 probably won’t kill you but it’s already ruining your life.