For some context, I (20NB) have found out a lot of information regarding covid/LC recently and I'm scared. For myself and for my loved ones mostly, but also for the general population. I know the people in this sub probably think its ridiculous that I'm so late to this but I was genuinely just un/misinformed this whole time. I wasn't one of those people who thought covid just dematerialized after 2023, but I was not aware of it being airborne or it being labeled as a respiratory disease being a misnomer. I'm sorry.
Im so fucking terrified because I feel like getting long covid is inevitable at this point even if you do everything right as an individual. From what I've read people have gotten infected despite taking rigorous precautions and that knowledge makes me want to throw up because that means that we're genuinely never safe and theres nothing we can do. We can't outrun the air and not breathe. Thats not to say that I think masks don't work, but just that I kind of think nothing is going to be enough unless society at large starts taking this seriously and its not looking like thats gonna happen anytime soon, which horrifies me. If this is going to be around for the rest of our lives and society continues to not do anything about it, I'm essentially being forced to watch everyone i love slowly deteriorate and drop like flies. It feels like the worlds worst trolley problem except theres no lever and I'm being forced to watch while also being on the tracks myself.
I think I'm the only person in my life who understands the gravity of this situation and I feel like I'm going crazy. My mom started masking again because I asked, but I dont think she fully grasps the severity and my friend won't mask depite talking to her about this and because of that I haven't dared to bring it up to my other friends, but I've been reposting stuff on my instagram to try and get them to at the very least think about it again. I'm honestly more scared for them than I am for myself. At least if/when I develop Long Covid, I can cope by knowing I tried my best to protect myself and the people around me but they won't be able to if they don't do anything. I don't want to have to grieve with my friends over the lives they used to live before they got sick and have to watch them live with their regrets. It makes me insane everytime my friends tell me they're going to do something because I think about how that could be the last time they go out as a healthy person and they wont even know it until its too late.
The anxiety and subsequent depression I've developed because of this has been so overwhelming. For the last 2 months I've done nothing but avoid going outside out of fear (even though being home also technically isn't safe) and compulsively research the biological mechanisms of Long Covid + potential treatments, read people's lived experiences with LC and run the statistics in my mind of what the most likely outcomes are going to be when its my/my loved ones turn. I cry nearly everyday because I worry about the health of the people I love and Im actively grieving the life I was expecting to have and maybe that sounds really dramatic, but it's true. I'm supposed to get a job because I just graduated but I've been procrastinating applying to places because of this. I already haven't been able to get even a basic entry level job and now I have another obstacle because no one wants to hire the freak who wore a mask to the interview and then I have to worry about the possibility of being infected at work despite masking. I don't know how I'm meant to navigate my relationships knowing what I know now. I don't think I can risk another infection, (I've had 2 known infections, probably more realistically) but I also don't want to be forced to explain myself to people or end friendships. I also can't make new friends, I live in Quebec and the cc community here is practically non existent. I already feared the future but now its even harder to imagine one for myself because whats even the point of making plans when my ability to execute those plans is probably going to be taken from me within the next 5-10 years. It really felt like the one consolation for everything else going to shit in my lifetime was that at least we have each other but its like no actually we don't even have that because people might be sick and you have no way of truly knowing and your relationships are going to fall apart because society made a pathogen into a conspiracy. Fuck it all.
I want to have hope that things will change for the better and that there will be some kind of scientific breakthrough that will lead to LC treatments or nasal vaccines that effectively reduce transmission or we'll get something that will render the virus harmless, but given the capitalism of it all I think we're genuinely going to be doomed before that happens. There's nothing I can do except try to delay the inevitable by taking precautions and otherwise resign myself to the reality that no one is coming to save us. I really hope I'm wrong and that I'll live to see the day this is written about in textbooks in the past tense talking about how it was the 21st century's biggest fumble next to climate change or something.
Idk, I don't know why I wrote this post I think I'm just going crazy and maybe hoping someone will show up with proof that things aren't as bad as they seem or something.