There’s a ton of overlap between the Covid Cautious & Chronic Illness communities because people living with chronic illness don’t have the luxury of ignoring the pandemic.

They know what a Covid infection will do to their precarious health.

so when the rest of the world decided to bury their heads in the sand and rush ‘back to normal’, we got left behind.
Stuck bearing the burden of knowing that the pandemic isn’t over.

That every day people are dying or becoming disabled.

That each Covid infection is playing Russian Roulette with disability and eventually, your number will be up.

There’s a significant mental toll that occurs when you are living in a different reality than the rest of the world.

People think we’re isolated and lonely because we’re often housebound and unable to do the activities we used to do, but they never consider the loneliness that comes from refusing to live in denial.

From knowing the danger everyone is in and being powerless to stop it.

All of these factors make maintaining a baseline all the more important, but it’s a delicate balance. Every thing we do is a cost/benefit analysis. We have to consider how much energy it will take. Do we have enough time to recover afterward? Is there a more disability friendly alternative?

The executive functioning required to make these decisions is considerable, and ironically also has a negative impact on our baseline. It’s exhausting having to be on high alert all the time. Unfortunately the alternative, throwing caution to the wind, is far more dangerous to our health.

https://www.disabledginger.com/p/maintaining-a-baseline-means-everything

#chronicillness #longcovid #covidcaution #covidisnotover #covidisairborne #disability #ableism