While I have been suicidal since age 12 or so due to child abuse, the thing I hate most about covid and the aftermath of it is how the whole situation has torn the fabric of society apart and lead to even more division between people.
The constant infighting between groups and watching your prospects further be stamped on is even more fuel to the fire when it comes to suicidal ideation.
One group always blames another for covid not being "over" as if one can completely remove a highly transmissible unstable RNA virus from the earth completely solely with human action, subreddits exist where people brazenly mock the dying if they have the wrong political views or hold some kooky conspiratorial like beliefs (as if that is a valid reason to invade their privacy and laugh at photos of them in hospital dying for internet points) as well as the opposite of that where people claim covid isn't real and belittle those who suffered due to it, and in some countries people turn their backs on their families and friends if they disagree about government pandemic policies.
After seeing this behaviour from other humans, why would anyone think the world is a good place? After I had been forced to quit university, I was looking forward to a fresh start in the months of fall 2020, only for there to be no freshers week, all university activities banned, fully online teaching, and forced isolation indoors, while you watched the block of flats across the road throwing wild parties day and night because they already had friends and could easily flount restrictions.
If you were already isolated, pretty much every means of making friends was shut off. Those who already had a wealth of love (and money) were the ones who loved lockdowns, because they got to spend more time with the people they cherished. Those who were alone got thrown to the wolves or called selfish for being unable to handle complete solitude for months on end.
I joined this site during the time where I was indoors with my partner and one of his family members for nearly an entire year. I was incredibly lucky just to have them, but when I'd have to go on university zoom calls and hear about my classmates partying, it made me want to cry because I was all alone in a new country with essentially nothing. Here I was, 21 years old, with 0 friends. Whenever the neighbors had another car in their drive, my boyfriend's family threatened to call the police and snitch on them. I just couldn't believe it.
The only upside to all of it was that when I finally found a part time job, I was allowed to work remotely, which was a godsend to someone like me with disabilities including chronic pain. Other than that, it's like my life prospects have hemmoraghed. My sector was completely decimated due to lab capacity rules, with most research placements or training schemes being suspended. In my time at university, I have barely done any practical bench work or any tactile learning, when it was meant to be a key focus of my degree.
Even now, when restrictions are pretty much gone, most internships were suspended, and the lack of experience has put off several employers. When you're already disadvantaged due to not being able bodied, it's nothing more than another crushing blow to an already solemn situation. Only the existing upper class have increased in their avarice, the average person has just been screwed over economically with rising cost of living, house prices increases due to rich people buying investment properties during covid, no jobs, etc.
We will likely have permanent mask mandates at my campus, which wouldn't be a bother if my ptsd didn't give me weird breathing problems where my default state is taking shallow breaths and I randomly involuntarily gasp for air. I have a disability badge that would exempt me but I don't wear it because I don't want to be ostracised even more than I already am for simply existing. I've been humiliated several times now during a class because I can't control my breathing and masks worsen the issue, yet I really can't handle the whiplash from others for using my disability badge.
Not to mention, the pure vitriol in the vaccinated versus unvaccinated debate. I've been called a plague rat, filthy conservative (despite being incredibly left leaning in my views), selfish, failure of evolution, a murderer, etc because I didn't take the vaccines due to me having health conditions that aren't well understood and seeing someone who has similar health problems to me experiencing a rare side effect.
Out of all the people I interact with at university frequently, I'm the only one who hasn't had covid (most of them multiple times) due to my solitary lifestyle, yet by default people think I'm a superspreader or purposefully going out and hurting people when I've never actually had the disease and have always been quite careful. I've tested many many times so I know that when I have been ill, it wasn't covid. The inflammatory rhetoric posted everywhere wears down on you. There was a massive campaign by the government made to guilt trip unvaccinated people and blame them for the continued barrage of covid cases, when in most places, we are less than 10% of the population. A miniscule minority.
All of this has made me lose my faith in humanity because no one is willing to see nuance in what is an incredibly complex situation, which is mostly out of our control due to how nature operates in regards to viral transmission and evolution. Both sides of the arguments go to extremes and it makes me wonder if a crisis happens again will people respond in such a callous way to each other and tear at their throats just so that they can "seem correct."
