Ripping Up My School Jumper, And What The Devil Has This Got to Do With Covid?

Content Warning: Covid-19, Health Anxiety, Reliving Bad Memories

I remember the last day of Secondary School when I was required to wear a uniform (the remaining day being a no uniform day). As I was walking home from my last day of having to wear it, I took off my school tie and threw it on the ground. A really nice student tried to hand it back to me and I tried to explain that I didn’t need it anymore. Then I got home, and took off my school jumper. I got a knife and a scissors, and I ripped it to shreds (there is a certain amount of artistic licence in this sentence, those school jumpers were made of tough material, so we’ll say I ripped it to the best of my ability.) There was a special significance to this. I was miserable in that school, six years of my life of bullying and absurd rules being prioritized over education. I was ripping up the jumper because I was never, ever, going back. It represented the fact that that phase of my life was over, forever. And now I need the equivalent with Covid, where a day comes that means, Covid is gone, not mostly gone, but completely gone. And that day isn’t coming.

I thought I was doing fine during 2020 and 2021, and it’s probably correct to say I was doing better than many. My astronomy and my music were thriving during this time. I even managed to get more cycling done during this period than I thought I would. And through a combination of Skype and meeting up during periods when it was safe to do so, I wasn’t all that isolated. And of course, the Covid situation helped me realise I was autistic. So it’s definately true to say I was doing better than most.

But it was bad for me in many ways. I would like to believe that I’m a person who believes in basic civil liberties, so the idea that there had to be restrictions on our civil liberties was horrifying to me. It’s not that I disagreed with the restrictions, I didn’t see another way, but I think living through that, where basic things like going a short distance down the road weren’t allowed, was very psychologically damaging, even if there was no other way. And I know good people, who were doing everything they could in their personal lives to keep others safe from the virus, who weren’t allowed to go to cafes and cinemas because they didn’t wish to get the vaccine. I never figured out in my own mind whether this was justified or not given the severity of the virus, but it was a horrible thing to see. Covid was a nightmare for anyone who believes in basic civil liberties.

In 2013 I developed very bad health anxiety. I had to go through a process of getting comfortable with the various things that my body does. It was a very scary time. Mild chest pain? Heart attack. Mild dizzyness? You’re having a stroke. My body doing anything at all? You’re going to die! So I had to go through all that, and then by told, “There is this disease called Covid, even the slightest symptom can mean…..” Well I think you can imagine what this did to me.

And I now have very bad travel anxiety. My travel anxiety has been so bad for years that I can’t travel outside Ireland, but now it’s so bad that I have trouble travelling within Ireland. The thought of more than an hour’s drive in a car is terrifying to me. I’m not used to travelling anymore, and now that I’m allowed to again, I can’t go outside the county.

So now I can legally do everything I could in 2019 again, and it’s wonderful. I go to cinemas again (though this has been possible since 2021), I’ve been to my first concert since the pandemic, my college course now takes places in the physical building once again, which is wonderful, and I went to my first Astronomy Club lecture in the actual building this year. So can I put Covid behind me? No, because the “rip up the school jumper” moment, when it’s finally done, is not coming.

This is my first worldwide pandemic, the last one being 1918, I wasn’t around for that one, I’m not as old as I look! And I assumed that there would come a day when Covid is officially declared by the WHO or some organisation to be officially over. Not that Covid would die, that’s pretty much impossible, but that it would mutate into something that’s indistinguishable from the common cold. But there will be no time when Covid is here one day, and gone the next. I have no idea how long it will take for Covid to be officially “off my radar.” Two years? Three years? Five years? Ten? I have no idea, and I’m not sure anybody does.

Every few weeks or so, a friend informs me that they have Covid, and that I need to take a test. And they’re right to tell me, if I might have Covid I should know. But the few weeks before this happens, I could have been living my life as if it’s 2019, like there was no Covid at all. And then all of a sudden, I get that text message, and it all comes back. Or I get a bad cough, and I have to take a test. Would you believe I had to go through a process of becoming comfortable with coughing, because for two years coughing meant you had the terrible disease you were trying so desperately to avoid. The fears I felt during those terrible two years, the fact that all my antigen tests have so far been negative hasn’t stopped all those bad memories from coming right back. But those moments before the test is negative, I’m worried, because I have terrible issues with being confined, with feeling trapped. Self-isolation would not be easy for me, in fact, it’s one of the things that worried me most during the two years, and that’s still something I have to worry about.

I really like things to be set in stone. While I’m delighted that all of the restrictions are gone, the fact that the pandemic is kind of over and kind of not is something I’m finding difficult to process. It’s like if instead of being able to say, I will never have to wear my school uniform again, it would be like if every few weeks after I left school I would have to wear the uniform. The reason I’m writing all this is that I suspect others are feeling the same, not just autistic people, but people of all neurotypes. And the other reason is that I’m hoping writing out my feelings on all this will help me in some way, maybe figure out a way of moving forward. We’ve been through so much, and I don’t know how to put it behind me without a metaphorical day of ripping up the school jumper.