Long Covid Hell

🚙

I’m driving my car today.

First time in over a year and a half.

Yeah… let that land.

I didn’t even know a body could disappear like this while you’re still technically alive. Nobody tells you that part. Nobody warns you a virus can just… rewrite your life and leave you stuck watching it from the sidelines.

Like a ghost in your own body. Dead but still breathing. And I’m not exaggerating.

There were days—weeks—where all I could do was lie still. Praying. Puking. Over and over until I ended up in the hospital just trying not to dry out.

Post-viral illness is real. Not cute. Not rare. Just wildly ignored—until it happens to you.

Four years of this.

Four years of my world shrinking down to a bed, a ceiling, and whatever scraps of energy I could bargain for.

And yeah—I lost people.

Almost all of them.

Turns out a lot of folks can’t sit with darkness that long.

Or maybe they were never built for it in the first place.

Either way, the room got real quiet.

It became just me, a dark room because light hurts. My plushies, and my healthcare team.

No drop-ins. No check-ins. Just… silence.

That kind of loneliness changes you.

It hardens something. Steals a little bit of your faith in people.

I thought I made it out back in October—had a few weeks where I could almost pretend I was me again.

Then it came back like it had something to prove.

But right now?

Right now it’s… quieter.

Not gone. Don’t get it twisted.

But softer. Looser. Like it finally unclenched its fist just enough for me to breathe.

So yeah—today I’m driving.

Not because everything’s fixed.

But because I’m still here.

And I’m done asking permission to live.