I think I have some kind of PTSD - but I'm not sure about the P part.
My anxiety over the last few years has been getting worse and worse. Before the start of the pandemic I could happily navigate the world alone. I'd travel through London solo, down unfamiliar streets and through tube stations. Hell, at 18 I even got a 9 hour flight to the US alone to meet a friend I'd only ever spoken to online. I was confident. Unfamiliar things were a challenge, and I could walk down the street happy to take up space, head held high.
Sure, there were times when I got some shit. I dressed goth and had the occasional lads comment. I got called a fag on the way to the gay club once. But it was minimal, and I didn't live in fear of it. When it happened it was at worst a bit of a downer, but more often just cause for an eye roll.
Nowadays, I'm so afraid. Things that were second nature feel like the world is watching me fail at them. I fuck up on the self checkout and I have to stop myself sprinting out the door as the attendant comes over. I don't walk tall, I slouch, I shrink myself. And I can't meet anyone's eyes, in case I invite aggression. A primal instinct to avoid conflict forever dictating how I move. I avoid the world and the people in it as best I can.
We're moving house right now, and it's a challenge for me. We have to let so many people into our home to bring in heavy furniture and connect the broadband and install appliances. Every single one of them I see the question on their lips the second we open the door - why are you masking?
Up until today, all the negative experiences I've had with antimaskers have at least been outside our home. Most workmen haven't said a word, and will happily mask if one is provided. But today, we had to let an antimasker in. We needed a job doing asap, without any time to find someone else.
"I don't wear those mate" he said when we offered him one. Though he asked three separate times if WE were infectious.
He was there all of 10 minutes, but that was more than enough. I know in my mind I shouldn't care. We clearly aren't people on the same page about basic science, and I wouldn't care what he thought about any other aspect of my life, so why care about this?
The thing is that it's not that I care about the opinion. It's what's behind it that terrifies me. The aggression, the confrontation, the hostility, the way it will affect how I'm treated later. Not to mention the direct impacts on my safety of their mask refusal. Emotionally, I'm cowering. And he may be one guy who I shouldn't give a fuck about, but he represents what scares me even more - the fact the ranks of those like him are growing.
I've always said that my depression is reactive. I've struggled with it for years, but it's never been unwarranted. But right now, I don't think I can call it that. Day to day I'm barely depressed at all (and any I do experience is more in the form of grief for what I cannot do). Yet when I experience these microaggressions, I go from 0 to 100. I shut down. I can't think, I can't speak. My whole body feels the deep pain of heart break and fear all at once. The thoughts of suicide and self harm hit me like a train.
It's disproportionate to the event, but it's a reaction to death by 1000 cuts. It's a response to the apparent validation of my ever growing fear of the general public.
"I just don't have any more in the tank" I say to my partner, trying to explain why it hits me so hard. It's true, but it feels like so much more than that. I'm burnt out from living in a hostile society hell bent on infecting me for over 7 years now. What I don't say is the rest of that sentence "...and I don't know how much more I can take."
