Locked Down Life

Covid is not doing good things to me. I haven't caught it as far as I know, but it's not doing me any mental health favors. I didn't leave the apartment for a week, but then went out thinking, I need to walk somewhere, maybe take a few pictures.  I tried this one sidewalk that parallels a park in my town, thinking it's 35 degrees [just warm enough for me] who's going to be out there?

Every time I find an empty spot to walk, other humans pop up out of nowhere and it's always me running away while they always walk too close.  The edges of a panic attack lapped at the edges of me and it was Aspie meltdown time, and I started saying out loud like Doc Martin on crack against that dog who annoys him, "Go away!" I don't know if anyone heard me, hopefully the passing by cop didn't. There was one point I thought "Maybe if they think I am crazy, they will stay farther away then the prescribed 6 feet". I had to race away from so many people, I gave up and walked in the street instead of the sidewalk. I had a surgeon's mask on which I can now wear walking but still can't do that with the KN95s.

Of course as I walked back to our car that was parked, down the road, one of those ex-friends "fake Christian mission" friends drove by me in her car. She just stared, no wave or anything. According to her Facebook, she's had no problems visiting people, going to a big city on a trip with her family and held two parties during the early months of Covid. Both were held outside, so she didn't break the law, but the pictures of people all hugging each other while mask-less floored me. Maybe she's the smart one with tons of friends and family members with a strong inability to feel fear that has left her impervious to Covid. I don't know. I have had so many people tell me about taking trips all over the place, seeing family and friends, I wonder if I am insane. Maybe I am jealous they have so many friends and family to see. 

I'm a complainer, not a cool Midwestern stoic. I can go distract myself with art and go down fantasy lane, I have comics and graphic novels to read but this Covid stuff, has lasted too long. I bought 10 Roberta Gregory comics  "Naughty Bits" dating from 1999-2002, and it was like reading a snapshot in time. Bitchy Bitch fought her mean bosses, and narcissistic uncaring rich mother, and worried about breast cancer and split up with a boyfriend but it was interesting reading about 9-11, and you can see how stupid America got 20 years ago and track the descent. In one panel Bitchy is commenting how humanity is going to destroy itself with plague. Ironic.  I laughed a lot at the comics so at least they gave me respite. 

My patience has worn out. If only I was a thin waif who could lay in bed, and sleep the year away. My worries about mobility forced me outdoors today among all the disease carriers. Yes it's bad that in my mind I have words like "disease carriers" for other humans. Maybe that's not a good thing. On the way out, the mailman this time with a mask, and a neighbor with a mask, were in the foyer, I talked to both of them and felt safe enough and stayed 6-7 feet away but any conversations with people outside of my husband are very rare. It's done weird things with my autism, like the vanquishing of all social skills.

 As you all know I've had to dodge the maskless neighbors. One guy approached my husband as I got into the car and took my mask off, as my husband was getting in. At least this guy was 15 feet away on the other side, but I put my mask back on immediately. My husband had to calm me down a few minutes later when I said, "These damn people shouldn't walk up to you not wearing a mask!" My husband said, "He was way over there!".

My struggles with OCD are back. OCD is actually something I thought I had near almost total recovery from. I still checked things like the oven and faucets, and lights but it was a quick glance, now the staring and counting is back. With Covid, if someone unmasked gets too close to me during one of my once to twice a week sojourns out, I think about it, and wonder if I caught Covid. I can't help it. I bordered on germ phobia for years, and had handwashing issues as a teen and in my early 20s. It all went along with the narcissist fueled anxiety disorders I struggled with for years. Some people used to find it extraordinary that someone as disabled as me, showered every single day, and refuse to re-wear even one item of clothing. People on my Facebook can probably see the OCD breaking through as I complain about maskless people and wonder if I should leave the apartment at all.

 I am so scared of losing my mobility. I'm not able to walk around like normal, there's no shopping, there's no exploring, there's no doing stuff. I fucking hate this. In a normal thin person's case, that's not going to destroy their life. So I go outside bad lungs and all, just wanted to walk a short way, to make sure I still can but when you live in apartment, and don't have a yard or health to go to real hiking places or the real woods, there's too many people to dodge. I even fear not being able to get in and out of cars anymore. I exercise at home, marching in place for 15 minutes, every couple days, I probably should do more, nothing ever feels like enough. 

Two weeks ago, I had two dentist appointments, and he had a surgeon level air cleaner in there and he is a dentist that takes precautions, and my 4 cavities were fixed, but there were nightmares for days wondering if I caught it. I have a teeth cleaning soon, and am hoping it will be cold enough to cancel or delay it.  My rheum blood tests and kidney scans are due to January. It used to be a friendlier warmer month prior to Covid but everything got delayed.

Some local people told me that the Outpatient clinic I do all this at has been turned into a mild and moderate Covid treatment center. Now I am too scared to go over there. I am supposed to see the eye doctor too and haven't in a year in a half, but now as Covid is rapidly spreading here, I'm scared. It's a big office with tons of people going through there, The  place is run like an assembly line. I may cancel it too hoping that my diabetes hasn't started to do anything to my eyes. A mammogram is a year and half overdue as well.

I live in a religiously stupid redneck state, now trying to become "Alabama of the North". We have enough urban folks and people of color to just err on the side of blue, in elections, but the rural areas are bad. The state supreme court here removed the Democratic governor's rules, she turned to the health department to force Covid mandates as Covid started to rapidly rise, and now they want to remove those rules. As I showed in the last article, the majority of the people I went to high school with are screaming for everything to be opened up and against mask mandates. 

With the vaccine, because of my health problems, I am willing to take it but am waiting a few months to make sure there's no bad side effects. I am scared of the new mRNA technology doing weird things when it comes to severe autoimmune disease, there's also the problem of allergies and my history of severe allergic reactions. 

 The "no fear" from Covid now ex-friend and other lemmings, keep writing things like God is good on their Facebook walls, I want to throw up. God, if it were to exist should be fired at this rate. I was happier for some time and felt eager about life and looking forward to things. I guess I never learn, that's the time I will be squashed and everything will be broken, it's how things always have worked. Find a group of friends or a place to belong, some outside force always breaks it up. The locked down life. It should be a theme. Locked in my room as a child, locked down from doing stuff from no car or money for too many years. The theme of being thwarted, locked into a box, was it too much to ask to have a few peaceful years to enjoy whatever time I got left with my husband? 

I was enjoying the UU, going to stamp clubs and because we had a better car wanting to take some day trips.  There's no one to talk to. The migraine headaches are raging again and those are back too.  Everyone else's life sucks and no one wants to hear your complaining. There's people I am scared for, I care about. All the single people living in solitary confinement, if a year is putting cracks on my edges with someone daily to talk to who lives with me, what have their lives become? What about the people who have no jobs or no unemployment, who may live in red states where unemployment is 150 a week or less? We were used to living on nothing what about average people who pay in rent or mortgage what I live on for an entire month? Trouble will come for me if Social Security collapses but for now I am better off on some secure income. What about the people who have lost loved ones? Widowed by this crap or who have had children get sick? Watching those without empathy do their thing has been revelatory to many of us. America cried about 3,000 in one day but doesn't give a shit about 300,000 in less than a year.

I live in the ultra Christian Midwest full of the reticent and stoic, where no one talks about problems, they hide them. I have a husband and online and long distance friends I can be real with but around here on various Zooms [my only social contact] there is this constant pressure to be "positive".  There's no opening up around anyone anymore. The word of the day is REPRESSION.  I am positive too, and put the fake smile on my face but the neurotypicals can see my CPTSD thousand yard stare peeking through. I have gone very silent outside the internet and very few friends. In polite company telling people, America is crashing and burning and announcing they have ruined our lives doesn't go over very well. Just like 20 years ago during Bush's bullshit, we are expected to accept Trump's as normal. 20 years ago Republicans were ruining our lives and that has not changed. They grew stupider and meaner. You won't see "across the aisle" kumbuyah crap here. I want nothing to do with the Nazis who have ruined our lives. I protested their wars and now I protest their stupidity. There's a point where kissing evil and stupid butt becomes simple enabling. 

I still have some moments of happiness. A disability group helped me to get a phone to overcome the increasing deafness via a grant, where I can Live Caption people. Yes my hearing got that bad, and that was the backdrop of some of my stress, that I lost more hearing. A lot of people stepped up like fellow UUs to help us too for shopping and other things. My refuge with my husband and in sleep, hobbies, art, television and internet are still there. My husband has stayed strong and been a great support. I think about what is happening and the insanity is beyond the pale. None of this had to happen. Millions of lives ruined, now with 300,000 dead, and 12 million possibly facing homelessness, and the Republicans want as much suffering as possible and a Orange hair man who commits overt sedition and did this to us is still supported by half of a very dumbed down population. Maybe we knew 20 years ago how bad it would get?