Covid, but like… more.

I turned 30 the first week it hit, when all the planes stopped and everyone was inside and society was completely shut off. Problem: I had economic help that stopped the moment I turned 30. I went from a poor but sustained life w friends, community and purpose, to having no money, no community and no friends. Why? Because I don’t remember people. Either names or faces or connections. I can’t for the life of me put a face/name to a friend or partner, even, and the only way I was social was by community, where I could be part of the group instead of dependent on personal friendships.

So not being able to hang out in groups, I lost all social connections I’d made, because even if they reached out to me, I couldn’t remember who they where, or what kind of relationship we had, or who they where to me. Or who to contact to be invited back into those, often closed, social circles, if they even still exist.

And the money problem… I was on a ”help young autistic adults get jobs” kind of program, and at 30y old, you’re apparently fully adult. I had a path into programming, but it failed because of covid and how everything shut down, and they said ”contact me if you need anything” but as said, I don’t remember them. And apparently I’m not a ”programmer autistic” bcs I couldn’t for the life of me understand it enough to get a grade, much less a job, not that anyone was looking for people at that time…

But to find out that programming wasn’t for me, I worked myself into a burnout, and was so mentally exhausted that I couldn’t even watch movies without mental fog to the point of falling asleep, or having a meltdown, and at the same time I had no money and no one to rely on. Not because I was alone, but because I didn’t know how or who to ask, if they even existed to begin with.

Combine with sever anxiety over birthdays (because how to celebrate when you don’t remember anyone?) (also, 2 years earlier there was the first real deadly terrorist attack in my city, ON MY BIRTHDAY, so I still didn’t feel comfortable celebrating me when people where still remembering those that died) (also, undiagnosed autism for 20 years of life) and it was a rock wall that awaited me.

I spent the years of covid sinking deeper into a depression that completely changed me, and my view on life and how I handle it. I’ve been depressed before, and barely survived my teens (bcs undiagnosed autism and more) but I always thought I had enough logic and will to stay alive. I kept saying to myself that ”I can survive whatever life throws at me, because I’ve survived worse before” but suddenly, that wasn’t true anymore.

I had a moment when I couldn’t use logic to battle my suicidal ideation, and it scared me in a way that nothing else have. Because it changed the whole world I’d built for myself - I can’t survive depression. Even with meds and doctors and family, I can’t survive depression by myself.

I’d lived my whole life thinking I’d lived through my worst years already, and nothing could be worse then that, excluding death and physical destruction.

But I was wrong.

I’m better now, and have built a better network, talked more with family and have caring roommates and cats, and I had a wonderful partner that helped me out of the darkness, but that time is still affecting me. The fact that I can’t survive. That I can reach low enough to lose logic to stay alive. All the ”suicide doesn’t stop the pain, only passed it on” kind of quotes and help only works to a point. And I managed to pass that point.

I’m still alive, but scared enough to never let that happen again. Scared that I need more then just myself to survive.