By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (140)

February 6, 2023

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 312: I’m on Week 3 of a cough and sore throat that won’t quit. Smol Acrobat came down sick yesterday and couldn’t nap or sleep properly so they’re home, and JB’s off school today too. Depression grabbed me by the throat on Saturday and it’s been a 48-hour-and-counting fight to stay neutral against passive self harm ideation, digging in my heels against spiraling further down this riptide, with no end in sight.

To say I’m gritting it out is an understatement.

At any given moment, I’m on the verge of throwing up, screaming with rage, and curling up into a ball of apathy never to move again. At the same time. Depression is a bizarre companion. Fatigue doesn’t make anything better.

I’m doing my level best to make tolerably ok decisions while my brain flips between feeling like a plank of wood and a backstabbing traitor. I took most of the day off work. I did less than the bare minimum of work, just the bits that people needed to get their jobs done. Laid down to rest (watching TV instead of working from bed) between bouts of Smol sobbing hysterically.

I’m not going to feel better soon but if I can not feel worse, that’s a victory.

Year 3, Day 313: I’m reminded that even if we paid for full time daycare, it wouldn’t save us from days like today. After a long night in which they woke in a panic and screamed every 15 minutes, requiring soothing and sometimes not being soothable. We went through one bout of hysteria that resulted in vomit so that was fun. They finally fell asleep on PiC’s shoulder late into the night. Smol is still running a temperature today so they’re home again today. I’d planned (hoped, yearned!) for 4 days of childcare this week and we’re muddling through each day hoping we’ll get any days this week.

JB luckily still seems pretty healthy, though they also required my services (laying next to them for a cuddle) last night because Smol’s constant screaming kept them up. They struggled to wake up this morning too. It was a rough and late night for everyone leading to a rough morning for everyone.

Midday, as intended, after Smol went down for their nap, I also laid down. Those three hours were bizarre. I felt all wrong. I felt like I “should be” working. Revised that to “could be” working. Revised again to “no, I need rest.” Getting rest before collapsing feels uncomfortable and selfish, which says a lot about how I’ve internalized unhealthy attitudes about rest.

Scalzi pulled Gail Simone’s tweet into a fun post. I don’t play D&D but I enjoy reading D&D related stuff. How would you rank yourself in:
STRENGTH / DEXTERITY / CONSTITUTION / INTELLIGENCE / WISDOM / CHARISMA

At a guess, I’d be ranked really low on strength, constitution, uh, also dexterity. And charisma. I really don’t like or trust people, and that probably shows. Intelligence and wisdom… ehhh… I don’t know. Maybe wisdom is higher because I have gained a lot of perspective through many years of chronic illness.

I don’t know what intelligence means here so I have a ?? for that stat.

Year 3, Day 314: Good news: Smol actually slept six hours at a stretch today! Less good, it made for a really late start to our morning. At least it happened on the one morning we didn’t have earlier meetings. We still took JB to school on time, at least. I have an aversion to re-living the anxieties of my childhood, like always being late for school. Generally speaking my fault for not being able to wake up (if fault is the right word here) on time regularly. I still occasionally had nightmares about this, years after it was irrelevant and before kids. Now I’m reliving it at one remove. We recently had to adjust (and strictly enforce) an earlier bedtime for JB because they were struggling to wake up on time, even with their alarm, and that seems to have helped a bit.

I, on the other hand, still feel like I am mentally and physically drowning. Physically: my chest hurts, it feels like I keep getting stabbed between the ribs. Mentally, everything is distorted and magnified like I’m underwater. It’s less bad than it was earlier this week but it’s still an effort, and an energy drain, to make the right decisions and survive.

And yet.

As much as I’m still fighting my way through depressive quicksand, I noticed that I didn’t have a totally unwarranted flash of rage at a perfectly innocuous request from JB like I’d been feeling before the meds. The rage itself isn’t gone, oh no, that fire breathing dragon nests comfortably in my belly, it just didn’t flare up for something (again, unwarranted) that it’s been flaring for these past months. That is at least one strong indicator that depression may well be what’s made me so testy and irritable for so long.

I can’t feel hope right now but there may be a reason to have hope nonetheless.

Year 3, Day 315: PiC took the overnight with Smol again so I could sleep. It sort of worked. I got a solid block of sleep even if it was insufficient. I had a short reprieve from the crushing weight of the depression and anxiety this morning.

I very much did not want to take JB to their activity today but I did. Stuffed my computer into my bag and spent a good 40 minutes working off general anxiety by filling in our financial details in our end of life to do list. I’ve added recurring (irregular) bills, subscriptions to be cancelled, household bills, designated new people to handle the phone tree and added the names of people who should be contacted in the event of an emergency where PiC or I are sick, incapacitated or dead.

I asked a good friend take over a chunk of the list in place of another friend whose health probably precludes her from helping any time in the near future. I mildly alarmed her, she knew I’ve been struggling this week. But no, this wasn’t an ideation / planning thing, this was just me being me. I harbor general anxiety over leaving loose ends or unanswered questions if unexpected tragedy or emergency strikes. Though I understand her concern. This would be something I’d take care of if I were planning an early exit. But I wouldn’t lie about it and I am mostly in a safer mental place today. It’s still hipdeep mud but it’s not pulling me under.

Year 3, Day 316: Ending Week 3 of whatever this sore throat/congestion viral thing is and pretty well tired of it. Or it could be a new virus (from Smol??) because my throat feels like death today.

The depression weight still weighs heavily on me.

The new 529 rule is a good thing: Starting in 2024, Americans can roll over unused 529 funds into a beneficiary’s Roth IRA with no penalty. I had held off on putting more cash gifts into the 529 lately. Even though we no longer have to worry about an excess of funds, with two kids, I thought it’d be good for the kids to have cash as well in case one or both don’t use up the funds for education. With this option, I can dump the cash into the 529 and whatever they don’t use won’t be penalized. (Assuming we have much of a planet to live on by the time this matters…)

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