This resonated a lot. https://twitter.com/JasonIsbell/status/1311754567470641152

I find myself overreacting to some things, and under-reacting to others because the constant background of stress and anxiety causes a disconnect between what's happening in my head and what's objectively happening in front of me.

I have a BUCKETS of resentment towards people who won't take this seriously and feel like one of the last years of my 20s has been stolen.

I'm constantly upset about having time with friends, the fun parts of my job, and travel taken away from me...I get burnt out very quickly and all of those things are necessary to keep myself some semblance of sane.

Trying new meds, dealing with pre-COVID germaphobe-variety OCD, loneliness, and long-term anxiety, both generalized and health-centric, makes it impossible for me to rationally assess whether things are symptoms, side effects, or completely psychosomatic.

One of the big reasons why I'm moving next month is that I couldn't bring myself to renew my lease for an apartment where I've spent 99.5% of the last 6.5 months. I can't look at it anymore and it's become a bad space in my mind.

Getting myself to do work every day is like pulling my own teeth. Some days I spend two hours actively trying to make simple decisions like "what do I order for dinner?" Some days I can't get myself to start working until 9 PM, or can't sleep until it's light out.

Some days I can't motivate myself to do anything except scroll. There have been a couple particularly rough days where I cried so much that my face was puffy for 48 hours.

I have a whole list of personal projects I want/need to work on that I made back in March, and I've done none of them. There have been weeks where I haven't talked to anyone aloud--video chat makes me more anxious in almost all cases.

All of this with the constant bitter refrain of "something COULD and SHOULD have been done about this."

And here's the kicker...

My situation is objectively better and less difficult than SO MANY OTHERS.

Nobody in my close circle has tested positive for COVID. My job wasn't impacted financially. I can telework. I'm not a parent and I don't have to deal with virtual school or having kids home 24/7. I'm not immunocompromised. My safety isn't jeopardized by my living situation.

But, everything is still awful. "Count your blessings" doesn't work when the world is crumbling and taking your mind with it.

We are psychologically screwed. There's no "back to normal" light switch to flip when we've spent months and months like this.

There will be mental barriers to "reentry" that we might not even anticipate until we're going through it. The death toll is bad enough, but the psychological toll will directly affect far more people, for a long time. I really hope we don't fumble dealing with that too.

That's all. I know this isn't the best format for lots of words, but lol @ anybody would expect me to like...write a blog post or something right now. See above.