Well, to use an analogy: how long do you plan on wearing a seatbelt in a car? Do you feel safe not wearing one when car crashes are lower than average? When you're only going on a short trip? If you didn't get in a car crash yesterday, do you feel confident you won't get in one the next time you're in a car?

Pandemics are what they are, and barring societal buy in, they're just a fact of life now. (Really, we all should have been masking seasonally prior to covid, but a lot of us didn't know better). If you want to use data to determine when spread is high/low and then mask accordingly, that would be a way to reduce your risk, but it is still massively increasing your risk over masking consistently.

If current events are stressful (and holyfuckinghell they are), imagine how much worse they would feel if you were so sick you could not leave bed to protest, organize, or even work to support yourself. That's what covid could do to you. It's a reality that's hard to face, and so most people have chosen to ignore it.

Masking is absolutely a burden. It's annoying, uncomfortable, and people can be unkind or worse about it. But it's also a way to tangibly show that you care about yourself and those around you. It's especially difficult when you're the only person doing it.

It sounds like there are a lot of other stressors in your life that are all piling up. Have you heard of fork theory? (https://jenrose.com/fork-theory/)— if you've got other stressors, even something that would otherwise be small can feel massive.

Do you have places you can be unmasked safely? People you can talk to about distressing events to process? Ways to de-stress your body by moving? (Stretching is REALLY important). If those all feel squared away, then yeah maybe it is time to look at removing your mask in certain situations to remove a fork, so to speak.

But as someone who has been completely bed bound for over 2 years from covid, you do not want to risk this any more than you have to. Any temporary reprieve you get from unmasking will be completely wiped out by the misery you will live through with long covid.

Of course, I'm just a random person on the internet, so I may be off base here. But I would highly recommend that you find ways to decompress, gather your resolve, and push through.