Insanity Descent

COVID-19

Jesus fuck- people are freaking out.

It has about a 3% death rate and only really kills people with compromised immune systems or really old or young people. Y'know, like MOST PATHOGENS?

It's stupid to do all this shutting down because of this one disease. Like... it's just a virus. The cold is a rather infectious virus and we don't quarantine the entire world because of a cold. COVID-19 is basically just an aggressive cold unless you're an at risk person, why are people freaking out so much?

Just the other day at the store someone was saying that we'd all eventually get COVID-19 and it was just a matter of when. That may be true, but that makes it sound like some kind of apocalypse. We all eventually get the flu, but when I word it like that I just sound paranoid. I dunno... I just really don't get it. Are we seriously freaking out over a bad cold?

What I'M freaking out about is the food situation. Because people are stupidly afraid of this virus, getting food has become a disaster. Store shelves are just always empty and the foods that I eat on a daily basis are suddenly in high demand. I eat canned chili a lot and before that actually wasn't a super popular item at my local grocery store. Now all of a sudden it's off the shelves and we're fighting to get two cans.

My store has limited customers to only be able to get two "units" of eggs per transaction because people otherwise clear it off the shelves and it's considered 'essential.' Lately I've been eating usually half a dozen eggs in a single day {along with a lot of hashbrowns and I don't really eat anything else} so because of me we've had to make frequent trips to the store. We live 20 miles out of town and each trip is 10$ in gas. I don't think I need to talk about how much we can't afford that.

My younger cousin who's like, 8 or 9 got pneumonia back in March. THAT was scary. That was something I was actually scared he might die from because it's known to kill, especially younger people. Luckily he made a full recovery and he's doing okay now.

If it was COVID-19 I probably would've been concerned because of the fact he is so young, but I wouldn't have been as scared. Yes, there's no known cure, but much like a cold or flu it's known to go away on its own after a while. Pneumonia isn't really known to go away without antibiotics; when my sister had pneumonia when she was younger she was extremely sick for a very long time, I think it was two or three weeks and even when she returned to school she was still coughing for another month or so.

Common symptoms of COVID-19 include a low fever and a cough, along with shortness of breath. Back in March, the exact week before the world shut down and went into quarantine, I had those exact symptoms and my dad made me stay home because of the fever {otherwise I would've gone to school because I didn't feel very sick and I'm super anxious about missing school}. I actually had arguments with him every night almost begging him to let me go to school but because of the fever he wouldn't let me.

I remember on Wattpad I talked about being sick and people told me I should get tested for COVID-19. What the fuck is that supposed to do in the first place? Get me in quarantine? It's not like identifying the problem will suddenly fix it in this case because there is no cure, not to mention the accuracy of the COVID-19 tests has been called to light because of the high amount of false positives.

I made a full recovery after about a week with no sign I was ever sick. I don't know if it actually was COVID-19 or just a bad cold, but either way I experienced the common symptoms and they're obviously not life-threatening because those symptoms didn't kill me- I didn't ever even see a doctor.

Another thing that pisses me off is how many people are complaining that they wanna return to a normal life. Just a few months ago you were complaining your life was so fucking boring and you hated it! For those who weren't complaining before, you can complain now. Personally I was complaining before so I shut the fuck up about wanting to be 'normal' and deal with it now. I asked for something different and this is what I got, so I guess the moral of the story is to be careful what you wish for.

Also, the idea of 'normal life' also pisses me off. Before quarantine I wasn't living a normal life. I lived in a normal setting but because of my stupidity it wasn't normal. I was constantly being pulled aside at school to make sure I wasn't gonna jump off the fucking balcony, skipping classes just to talk to other staff members, refusing to do assignments, yelling at people, the list goes on. Even now because of my dumbass self before quarantine it follows me here. I got emails from my history teacher and my therapist asking how I'm doing, and I keep getting them every other week or so. I've started ignoring them because I realized something.

They let me get away with too much.

Unfortunately, I am a person that when given the slightest amount of slack, takes advantage of it even when I don't mean to. It seeps into my daily routines too. I'm excellent at starting and getting into routines- I actually have that down to a fucking art. But if my routine gets disturbed once in even the slightest way, by the end of the week the entire thing will have unraveled itself.

Here's an example: at the start of the year my routine was to shower before school, eat breakfast at school, do my HW as soon as I got home, then fuck around the rest of the day. I lived a super healthy and productive lifestyle and I loved it.

One day I didn't have homework. The next day my homework was done right before bed, and then the next time I did my homework was the morning it was due. Then it was minutes before class and suddenly I was scrambling to keep up with my homework all because of a single day. Last year there was a day I didn't shower because I pulled an all-nighter and I didn't feel like it. It took a week before I showered again and then suddenly showers became a weekly thing at best because of a single day.

It's the same thing with other people. My therapist will cut me some slack because of reasons X, Y, and Z or whatever and suddenly without meaning to I'm taking advantage of that. It got to the point where me screaming at her for no good reason was totally acceptable to me and I literally saw no reason to say sorry for it. I was physically incapable of understanding why others were upset with me, and I still have this problem to this day. My dad has learned that if he sets any sort of guidelines or standards that he can't make a single exception for any reason or he can kiss his rule goodbye.

In mania, I'm very good at working around this huge flaw of mine and being sure to keep things working smoothly. In depression, everyone feels sorry for me and then I become a toxic person without meaning to because I take advantage of all the slack that gets cut for me.

What does any of me getting sidetracked have to do with COVID-19?

Well...

Because of quarantine and my living conditions of slow internet, my school is pretty much legally required to cut me some slack and allow me an alternative way to do my homework, push back due dates for me, etc. I think we all know where this is gonna end up...

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