I’ve started this particular post several times and discarded it just as many. I hope this time will be different.
It’s been a long time since I talked about how I’ve been doing, but you can probably guess things haven’t been easy – I’ve barely posted anything for a year now. It’s not that I’ve not wanted to, because I miss this every day. I almost feel ashamed of not having written anything for a long time and have occasionally considered whether I should quit this entirely. You see, I am tired. I’m fatigued and exhausted.
I had covid-19 about a year ago and since then I have struggled every day simply to survive it. If you have not felt the extreme fatigue and exhaustion that some of us have had to live with since covid-19, then I can assure you that you cannot imagine it. It doesn’t fluctuate, it doesn’t get a lot better – it is like a constant strain on your body and mind that doesn’t let go even for a moment.
I would have not believed it possible to be this tired this long. Nothing helps, not coffee or food or anything I have thought of taking to relieve this feeling and it makes me lazy and I can’t be bothered with most things in life because I am just too tired. I am not surprised that many struggle with depression as well as long covid.
One of the worst things is how everyone doesn’t seem to respect my limit. I try to tell a friend that I am too tired to go to the movies in the evening or go out for dinner, but they don’t seem to understand. They seem to think that if I just go, I’ll have fun and “wake up” and yes, I may have fun and I may be able to stay awake until nine or ten in the evening, but if I do, I am completely exhausted and unable to do anything for days after. I use up all my energy on staying up until nine and then my life is on standby for a week after.
How do my friends react? They say I did fine and ask me out again. If I continue saying no, they stop asking and if I go, I break myself – needless to say, most people stopped asking by now and if they do, they still ask me out for things I can’t do.
I ask my friends to go to the movies in the afternoon or go out for lunch or something instead, because I can do things earlier in the day, but apparently going to the movies is only fun in the evening. Or they want to do other stuff, like go to a concert or something that’s only on in the evening, and I can’t do that.
My health is getting better. Well, to be honest, I don’t know if it is. I hope it is and I tell myself that it is.
I do my best to eat healthy, to exercise and get as much sleep as I need now and I hope that maybe in a year or so, I will feel better. Of course, this is not taking into account my cognitive challenges (covid-19 did a number on my brain, apparently), which has actually improved a lot over the last year. Sure, I am still nowhere close to what I was like before I had covid and I am not sure if I ever will be, but at least I can function now. I hope to re-train my brain and improve things like my memory, which have suffered most of all.
I didn’t want to talk about being sick, because I need to focus on getting better and being healthy again. But here it is – I am not what I used to be and I don’t know if I ever will be.
My doctor said there nothing left to do, that I should get used to this and accept this is what I am like now. I don’t like being told something is impossible, though, and after having felt sorry for myself for a few months I have decided she was wrong.
It’s strange, but I don’t even remember what it was like to be healthy, to have a strong body or to be able to hike all day up a mountain. I know I did that before; I know my body was strong and healthy, but I cannot remember what it was like. Therefore, it somehow feels impossible for me to regain it – I cannot remember, so perhaps it never really happened? Maybe I was never healthy, maybe I was always this weak?
When I had a frozen shoulder, I was in extreme pain every day and could barely move my right arm, my physical therapist told me to make a choice; a life without pain and no mobility in my arm or a life with mobility in my arm, but a lot of pain regularly. I left her office and never came back, instead I worked hard for several months and now the mobility in my right arm is almost as it was before the surgery. The pain? As long as I work out regularly, I barely have any pain. If I forget to work out for a few days or the weather is particularly cold, then I do feel some stiffness, but most of the time I barely notice anything. She was wrong. I may not yet be entirely without pain, nor do I have the mobility I want, but I have come further than my physical therapist ever thought I would, and I am not done yet. It’s still getting better.
Maybe covid-19 didn’t just fog my brain up and drain the strength from my body, maybe it numbed my feelings somehow? Is that possible? I am a stupidly stubborn person – for better or worse – and yet I have given up on fighting to get better. I have given up on feeling good and doing all the things that make me feel happy; things like writing this blog, writing my stories, playing guitar or hiking through a forest. Things like making friends and being social.
I am still tired and exhausted, but what is life without all the things that bring us happiness?
Is tiredness all I have now?
What is life with long covid? I feel like I’m not just tired all the time, I am asleep. Every day I get up and get through the day with as little effort as possible because I am too tired and can’t be bothered, but I don’t want to be asleep anymore. So tell me this, how do I wake up? Everything I do just makes me more tired. Can I push through it and get better? Can anyone?
