COVID Confessions: What contracting Coronavirus taught me

I've got another confession to make (and yes, I did just use a Foo Fighters lyric) a lot has changed for me during this second lockdown. I survived living in a shared house and I survived contracting the virus. When my test came back positive in October I laughed, first hysterically in fear, secondly in utter disbelief then, finally, in a humorous way as I saw the funny side of it (I now had a legitimate reason, enforced by the government, to stay away from people for 11 glorious days). I told only the closest people to me about it and I'm really grateful that I have those people in my life, checking to see if I needed anything (I'd already made sure that I had everything I needed before I self-isolated). A part of me was glad I'd get some alone time as the fatigue and nausea hit me at full force. But I also realized something else.   

 I've mentioned before that I have lived with mental health issues (including anxiety and depression) and was using some of my time during lockdown to help me deal with them and here's something that struck me during my self-isolation. COVID and my anxiety and depression share a lot of similarities and polarities for example:

1) Anxiety tends to make it difficult for me to leave my house even for some exercise. COVID

 made me not leave my house at all for 12 days (I stayed in an extra day just to be safe). 

2) Depression can often leave me feeling exhausted even if I sleep for 24 hours straight. COVID

felt the same way. Even when I felt at my weakest though I still made sure that I did the best that I could to take care of myself (this applies to both my fights through COVID and depression).

3) Depression makes me not want to talk to anyone, whereas having COVID made me start talking not only about the effect of the symptoms but also about how I was handling them. It also made me realise, yet again that I'm not alone in any of this, even during my self-isolation.

4) Anxiety tends to make me feel dizzy or nauseous from overthinking or worrying too much. COVID also gave me those side effects. 

There were also positive side effects to having COVID, such as:

1) Getting more sleep.

2) Stretching (yes, you read that correctly. After sleeping for hours a good stretch of the muscles feels spectacular, especially if I've slept in an awkward position).

2) Having to do everything at my own pace (e.g. really slowly), because my body was basically forcing me to, but given that I usually move at a snail's pace regardless maybe that's really not that noteworthy.

3) Youtube wormholes of epic cat fails never fail to brighten up my day, even when I'm feeling gloomy (and there were a couple of moments where I was really struggling to cope), that, and reading the comments on music videos.

4) Drinking a lot more water (mundane, I know, but I do stay hydrated a lot more now thanks to Covid, even if it means I have to use the bathroom a lot more).

My takeaway from having Coronavirus was that, like my mental health issues, no, it didn't kill me, and, no, it didn't make me any stronger, but what it did  do was remind me how fortunate I am have people in my life who are my support team, who I can turn to when I'm feeling lost, scared or confused or simply nothing at all.