My COVID Experience

“Focus on the step in front of you and not the whole staircase” — Anonymous

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Dear readers,

Ah, COVID-19, the thing that threw the entire world through a loop in March 2020.

I will say as much as I hate COVID, it did save my life. As I started writing this post, I remembered I had a mental breakdown in the middle of the night (I love my midnight mental breakdowns) and wrote in my journal. I don’t write in my journal much or often, but when the urge to write in it hits, I write until my hand is cramped. It’s a helpful outlet when I need it. But that isn’t the topic for today.

It was dated January 19, 2021. At the time, I was finishing the first semester of my senior year. It was almost a year of COVID and lockdown. The journal entry was my past self thinking about what would’ve happened had COVID not happened. What I said in the previous paragraph is true; COVID saved my life. From mid-October — March 2020, I was slowly sinking without knowing until I was up to my nose in the water. School was getting more challenging because my headaches were getting worse. There was all this talk about University, where I wanted to apply the following year, and what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. The pressure was on, and I didn’t do well under pressure.

My marks were slipping, my mental health started deteriorating, and everything was slowly falling out of my hands. I barely got past the first semester of grade 11, and when the second semester of grade 11 hit, I was drowning. I went to school like every other day because of my bad headaches. When I did go to school, it was because I forced myself and sometimes I even left half day because of my headaches. All my teachers noticed. When they do attendance and get to my name, they’ll be like, “Oh! You’re here today,” and I would smile shyly and nod.

Those three months of “school” was me slowly becoming more and more of a zombie. Everything was slipping away, and I was powerless to do anything. I need a break, a pause, a breather, anything. I just needed things to stop and let me catch my breath for just a few seconds.

Then COVID hit. We went into lockdown, march break got extended, and suddenly I had that break. I had that pause that I needed, and I took that time to gather all the pieces of myself that I had dropped and slowly put myself back together.

When online school hit, I was ready. I had a schedule for which days I focused on what classes because classes were asynchronous at the beginning of COVID. Despite my province announcing that my marks couldn’t drop below my current grade, I still put effort into my classes, did the assignments and tests, and watched the videos. It was easier because everything was on my own time, and I didn’t have outside triggers making my head worse. It was great for the first few months; it was what I needed.

It took me a year to realize but had COVID not happened, I probably would’ve been dead or put into some mental institution. I would’ve self-harmed so much earlier than I did, probably with the intent of ending it all. I remember feeling at the edge of the dam right before it broke, and floods of water just fell through, pulling me with it and drowning me in the process.

I didn’t care. I was losing hope in my physical health and was so tired of having a constant headache that I just wanted to end. I was at such a low point, and had COVID not happened when it did; I wouldn’t be able to sit here and write this post for you guys. Even if it were just one more week, if COVID happened a week later, I probably would’ve started down a path I can’t come back from.

Again as much as I hate COVID now, it did save my life at the beginning.

Now onto what I felt when I got COVID-19. I am fully vaccinated, by the way.

It was hell. Now my doctor told me because of my migraines; I might get even worse headaches than I already have if I got COVID. Was that true? Not really. Let me explain, but before that, I want to point out that my COVID symptoms were mild. I was coughing, and had a sore throat, stuffy nose, body aches, headaches, and sleepiness. I was sick for an entire week before I tested positive for COVID, and then five days later, I tested negative.

The issue when I got COVID wasn’t COVID itself but what it triggered in my body. Now, this is my experience, and my experience only; this doesn’t mean it will happen to you.

I’ve had issues with my autonomic nervous system in the past. My blood doesn’t circulate well in my body, my blood pressure is a bit on the lower side, and I often feel lightheaded and dizzy. The nervous system issue wasn’t news to me.

What COVID decided to do when it entered my body was fuck with my nervous system. It triggered something, and that caused some disconnect in my nervous system. (Mind you, I’m not a doctor, and at the time, my head was too hazy to understand much of what my doctor was telling me.) I ended up getting seizure-like movements when I was trying to sleep. Each episode would only be about 10 seconds with a minute or two reprieves and then repeat, which would go on for like a few hours. I don’t know if I had them during my sleep, but they would happen while I was trying to sleep.

These seizure-like movements started two days after I tested positive for COVID, and it scared the crap out of me. The next day I would feel dizzy and like I was going to drop to the ground and start convulsing at any moment. They would happen once during the day but mostly at night. The worse was that it made my headache so much worse. I was all over the place, couldn’t remember shit, and felt like moments of my life were wiped from my memory, and it was just hell.

This went on for like two months straight. I have no idea what stopped them, but over time they went away; that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it underlying in my system. Sometimes when I try to fall asleep, I would feel a weird tingly feeling in my body, and I think it will happen any second now.

To this day, I still don’t know what it was or have a confirmed diagnosis, but my doctor did say it was something with the nervous system, and COVID must’ve somehow triggered it.

Thank you for reading; I hope you have a fantastic day or night or whenever you’re reading this.

A. B💜

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The reason for the bow and arrow emojis is that I found this explanation of the bow and arrow and fell in love. One can take any symbol to mean whatever they want, so your meaning of a bow and arrow might differ from mine, and that’s okay. A bow and arrow help me keep my hope and determination in my future. An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backwards. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it will launch you into something extraordinary. Just remember to focus and keep your aim.