The Fear Behind the Mask: a COVID-19 story

COVID and Summer Depression

This chapter was written by Lizzie Read on 7/15/20 as she struggled with the way that her life would look in upcoming months and the affect that quarantine might have on her relationships. 

I don't want to exist! I DON'T WANT TO EXIST! Leavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealone.... Just make it stop!

I actually can't breath right. Why the heck is that? I'm laying here on my bed and staring at the glossy stuff on the wall and I feel like I want to throw up. Or cry. Or be in pain or scream or literally anything other than feel this twisting that threatens to kneed my stomach into a knot to push out of my throat.

I don't even really want to eat ice cream any more. That's a sentence that I should never be uttering. But I don't even like doing nice things anymore because I know that after the nice thing is over I will go back to feeling lonely, and empty, and heartbroken. 

I HATE QUARANTINE.

I HATE CORONAVIRUS.

And, honestly I HATE SUMMER.

-But, most of all, what I hate is being alone.-

My parents are probably making me do our school's online option this year. Strangely enough, I am feeling a lot more fear about this prospect than I ever did about the coronavirus in general. Funny how your brain works, sometimes. The thought makes me petrified. Me. Alone. In the house. Slaving over schoolwork for fifteen hours a day. Wearing pajamas all the time unless I'm forced to go to the grocery store. Forgetting to eat. Unable to sleep. Nothing nothing nothing left of my life. Just mindless computer work. 

You see, I've done online school before. I was homeschooled by my parents until the age of twelve, and then, when I was thirteen, they entered me into an online public school. There is some mental debate as to whether that was actually the worst year of my life, or whether that title belongs to the year that my parents wouldn't stop yelling at each other-and me (story for another time)-but it was certainly a torture.

See, logically I know that this year won't be the same. I have more friends now. They love me. I love them. I'm a lot less shitty at remembering to text them or email them or write them a letter. I've gotten over the friend break-up that had happened a year prior to all that mess, and I haven't had any messy ones, since. I have an amazing theater group that still meets every week (not in person) and the people there actually like me (or so they say). I have teachers that are at least somewhat more equipped to teach their students, and some of them even seem to understand the fact that students are actually people. Surprise!

However, I can't help filling my own head with all sorts of irrational anxieties. Things like, maybe my best friend at school won't want to be my friend anymore if we don't see each other. Maybe that, since I'm doing even harder classes now, that I will fail everything. My best friend/older brotherly person is going to a boarding school, this year, and next week might be the last time that I see him for months. 

I just- feel so alone. 

I've been avoiding my favorite TV show (The Flash) half the time because I don't want to mess up the experience by feeling so upset. 

I cried today. Tears and tears and tears.

I haven't felt this hopeless since I skipped my anti-depressants for a week and then my friend asked me out in front of his ex (another of my friends). Everything is just so fucking shitty now.

Much love,

(Or maybe apathy as it seems that's the best I can muster),

Lizzie <3