In January 2021 I was teaching an online lecture when I started to feel hot, then cold, then achy. I knew even before taking my temperature that I had a fever. I finished the lecture, took my temperature, sat on my couch, and cried.
I was experiencing a moment that has filled many of us with dread. That moment, during the pandemic, when you realize that you might have COVID-19. I called my husband and asked him to come home from work, because we were going to have to self-isolate. I took a Tylenol and managed to attend one more online meeting before I canceled the rest of my work for the day.
I’m writing this blog to share my experience with COVID-19. But first I want to make two things clear:
I am not interested in debating about whether COVID-19 is real, whether or not the steps I took were appropriate, or whether people should wear masks or get vaccinated. If you post comments along these lines, I will not respond. This blog is about my personal experience, period. That being said, I welcome comments that reflect upon my experience in a compassionate and non-polarized way. You are welcome to share your experiences as well.
I am not a medical doctor. The steps that I took might not be a good fit for you. Please do not take this blog as medical advice.
Ok, let’s continue. When I realized that I probably had COVID, I did what I would do if I had any flu. I stayed home, rested, and tried to give my body a chance to recover. Keep in mind that I’m a relatively young, 41 year old person who does not have any pre-existing medical conditions. I stayed inside for 14 days, and allowed the illness to run its course.
In terms of symptoms, I had a mild fever for around 24 hours, followed by a runny nose and dry cough. A few days after these symptoms, I lost my sense of taste and smell. I was also very tired, and I was going to bed at around 8pm every night.
My fever started on a Thursday, so I took Friday off and slept my way through the weekend. By Monday, I was still feeling tired, but I was well enough to continue teaching my online classes (while sleeping and resting as much as possible in-between!). Within around 7 days, most of my symptoms were gone, except for the loss of taste and smell, which lasted around one month. I also felt a little more tired than usual during that month, but otherwise I was fine. My husband and I couldn’t isolate from each other (our apartment is too small for that!), but he never experienced any symptoms.
I chose not to get tested during the active phase of my illness. There were a few reasons for this. First, I live on the 7th floor of a large apartment building, so there was no way for me to leave my apartment without potentially exposing others. I could have chosen to take the stairs instead of the elevator, but I didn’t have the energy to walk up/down seven flights of stairs. I also don’t own a car, and the closest testing center was a 10-15 minute walk away. I didn’t have the energy to walk 10-15 minutes (+ stairs!), and I didn’t want to expose people on public transit or by taking a taxi.
A few weeks after I recovered, at-home antibody tests became available at the local drugstores. I bought one, pricked my finger, and had my blood test results within 3 minutes. I tested positive for the COVID-19 antibodies, whereas my husband tested negative.
Now that we have the technical details out of the way, I’ll focus on how I coped emotionally. First, throughout my illness, I didn’t look up or read any news or other information related to COVID-19. As an aside, I actually never read or watch the news, as I find that it’s too full of “if it bleeds, it leads” fear mongering. Somehow, even without actively consuming the news, I’m still able to keep up to date with what’s going on in the world (mainly through reading headlines of articles that people post on social media). When it comes to COVID-related news, I rarely check the daily numbers because I don’t find it helpful. And I find out about restrictions and regulations via emails from my employer.
Throughout the pandemic, my approach has been to focus on my immediate environment in terms of what I have at least some control over. While I was sick, I did my best to focus on what my body was doing/feeling in each moment, and I reacted to that through actions like taking Tylenol, sleeping, and drinking lots of fluids. It wasn’t easy to keep myself from looking up every single symptom that I had, but it kept me from going into a fear spiral about things like “long COVID” and fatalities.
Another reaction that I had to being sick was feeling angry and frustrated. I couldn’t figure out how on earth I would have gotten COVID. I was working 100% from home, and the only time I left my apartment was to go for walks around my neighborhood. I didn’t see anyone except for my husband. I was wearing a mask (FFP2 respirators are required in the Czech Republic), I was washing my hands, and I was doing all the things we’re supposed to do. I also take good care of my mind and body through things like healthy eating, yoga, dance, and meditation, and I take vitamin D and a bunch of other immune-boosting supplements.
In retrospect, my husband and I laughed that out of all the people who might get COVID, we did not expect me to be one of them.
We later found out that our neighbors, who live directly across from us, had COVID a couple of weeks before me. One of their children brought it home from school, and it went through their entire household. So it’s possible that I somehow caught it from them - but I’m not sure.
Regardless, what this situation taught me is that no matter how hard we try to be in control, we are not in control. My inner control freak tries very hard to dictate many aspects of my life, but this illness made me realize that even if I check off all the boxes, and do all the right things, the universe might have a plan that I simply cannot predict or force to go my way.
With this in mind, I decided to treat the illness as a journey into the Unknown. Numerous approaches to soulwork, such as Bill Plotkin’s book Soulcraft, suggest that at various times in our lives, we are invited to enter a space where we release control. During this time, we take a metaphorical journey into the underworld. In this underworld, we might feel like all is lost. We might be scared, angry, frustrated, disoriented, and lonely. It is a difficult time, and it is often referred to as a dark night of the soul.
Dr. Steve Taylor’s work on “awakening experiences” suggests that these dark times often lead to radical transformation. Indeed, the purpose of this underworld journey is to dismantle our ego. We become a gooey caterpillar in its cocoon. The journey shakes us so hard that we lose the identity that we held to so strongly before. This cosmic shakeup happens so that when we emerge from the underworld, we have a new identity, like the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. Keep in mind that this new identity is not perfect, and we can actually go through many underworld journeys in our lifetime. Some journeys will feel harder than others, yet each time we return from the journey, we are a slightly (or drastically) different version of ourselves.
My experience with COVID-19 taught me to loosen my grip on my life, and to stop trying so hard to force things to be how I want them to be. This is a lesson that I have been learning throughout my life. (I hope to someday get the hang of this lesson, so that I don’t have to keep taking these underworld adventures! ;-) )
I also learned to bow down in humility in the face of the Unknown. I had no idea how my situation would turn out. I had to let go, trust my body, and see what would happen. I have immense gratitude that my symptoms were relatively mild.
Personally, what I would like to see is more people adopting this stance of humble not-knowing. Because the truth is that none of us knows with 100% certainty what is going on with this pandemic. No matter how many YouTube videos you’ve watched, or scientific articles you’ve read, none of us knows.
I think it’s unfortunate that this situation has become so polarized, with people on one end of the spectrum praising “science” like it’s some kind of god, and others blowing the whole thing off as a conspiracy. As a research scientist myself, I want to emphasize that even science has its limits, and data can be manipulated (even unintentionally) to show certain patterns of results. And, as a yoga and meditation practitioner, I also value a holistic approach to health. Yet I see many of my “spiritual” friends and colleagues being pulled into “conspirituality,” praising “love and light” on the one hand and then expressing condescension and superiority by calling people who wear masks “sheeple” who need to “wake up.”
Both sides are pushing their version of the story like a Jehovah Witness missionary knocking on doors:
Get vaccinated!
Don’t get vaccinated!
Thank-you science!
Science has been corrupted by Big Pharma!
Wear a mask!
Masks are a symbol of silencing our voice!
Stay home!
Go outside!
Lock down!
Open up!
To be honest, it’s fucking exhausting. I’m just as tired of seeing people’s “I got vaccinated” photos as I am of posts about how COVID will go away if we just take some vitamin D and go hug each other.
Instead of polarizing in this way, a truly compassionate, loving, and humble response to the pandemic is to drop to our knees at the enormity of the situation and admit that WE DO NOT KNOW.
Instead of attacking each other on social media, we need to show compassion for each person’s unique experience. Besides, Facebook algorithms make it such that the only people who read your posts are the people who agree with you, or the people who take the complete opposite stance and want to debate with you (and who, no matter how much debating you do, will never agree with you).
I’m an advocate for things like good scientific debate, questioning assumptions, and having productive dialogue. But most of the discussions that are happening around COVID are not productive. I think that both sides of this debate have important things to say. The problem is that we aren’t actually listening to each other.
Yes, science is important.
Yes, immune-boosting behaviors are important.
Yes, it is important to ask critical questions about what we see in the news.
Yes, it is important to think about the health of others, not just ourselves.
We might not agree with someone’s point of view or actions, but we can still have compassion for that person. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who was imprisoned in Auschwitz, famously said of his Nazi captors:
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
In other words, you might vehemently disagree with someone’s perspective on COVID. You might even think their perspective is harmful. But you get to choose how you respond to that perspective. You can respond by pushing your point of view down people’s throats in a way that further escalates the situation, or you can try to find a way to respond in a compassionate manner that opens up dialogue rather than pushing people even further onto their side of the fence.
As Charles Eisenstein suggests, we can ask, “What is it like to be you?” In other words, what is beneath this person’s words or actions? Can I find some mutual point of understanding with them?
In many cases, fear of the Unknown is driving the reactions of both sides. We are just coping with this fear in different ways. Some are afraid of government takeovers, others are afraid of dying from COVID. Some choose to post articles about COVID being a hoax, others choose to get vaccinated. Each person is responding to their fear of uncertainty in their own way.
Thus I would argue that one mutual point of understanding is that we are all fumbling our way through this. We are just choosing to do it differently. We all crave certainty, whether it’s through science, or religion, or conspiracy.
It’s messy. And uncertain. And tiring. And terrible. Because that’s how a dark night of the soul is supposed to feel.
My hope is that we will emerge from this shared underworld journey with a new identity for humanity and planet earth. I have no idea what that new identity will look or feel like, and I make no claims on how it will come about. Maybe Bill Gates (or aliens, or Trump) will take over the world. Maybe enough people will get vaccinated so that COVID-19 disappears. I don’t know. And neither do you. No matter how much we want to know, we simply don’t.
My advice is to be humble. Choose not to know. Embrace your own unique experience. And be compassionate toward others. Take care of yourself, and support people who aren’t as fortunate as you are.
As for how this will all turn out, only time will tell.
Thumbnail photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash