I contemplated writing this for the past few weeks now. There are many reasons I feared people would misjudge my intentions for this piece. Would it come across as a pity party? Or maybe an annoying reminder of the thing that transformed our lives for the past year and a half? The last thing many want to do is read about another experience with COVID-19. If that is the case, I promise I won’t be mad or sad if you choose to click out of this article(maybe a little…just kidding). Or maybe because of my young age and good health, some may perceive this as over-dramatic. I can’t do much if you choose to think any which way, but tell you I am writing this because it helps me make sense of the mental, physical and physiological changes I’ve witnessed within myself. No matter what I am trying to sort out, writing is how I piece it altogether. Furthermore, maybe someone who had COVID can relate to this. They may take comfort in the fact that they are not alone in the challenges of COVID’s lingering effects.
I had COVID around four months ago, but it remains a part of my everyday life in many ways. When I contracted it while living at school, I was just two weeks away from my vaccination. Instead, I spent those two weeks quarantined with my two roommates. I experienced all of the standard covid symptoms of fever, shortness of breath, fatigue, achiness and of course, loss of taste and smell. Everything tasted bland. I dreaded meals as the blandness made me nauseous and disinterested in food all together. This loss of taste as well as the fatigue continued for the first two months. Then, my taste randomly returned for around five days. I was happy and even more relieved to return to a normal diet. I ate more in those few days than the past few months together. After five days of this excitement, everything suddenly smelled and tasted like what I best describe as “hot garbage.” It became even more unenjoyable to eat than when it tasted like nothing. At first I thought I was crazy. How could all of this taste exactly the same, but this time be absolutely putrid? I eventually became accustomed to the feeling and found foods that worked and didn’t work with my new sense of taste. Unfortunately, most of the foods that currently work for me are artificially flavored or very bland. The foods of my normal diet like seafood, meats, and most vegetables carry the putrid taste. I am becoming irritable and anxious due to my unbalanced diet.
After a month, I realized this wasn’t just a short temporary sensation. I decided to look up the literal line “everything tastes like garbage post-covid.” I found many others (thousands) experiencing this. Some tasted only metallic, garlic, onions while others shared my rotten sensation like me. This distorted taste and smell is known as “parosmia,” and is reported anywhere from one to eight months post covid. I stumbled upon this article about a woman named Lucy who shared the mental toll of paraosmia. One line stood out to me, “For Lucy, eating remains an anxious experience and she describes meals as boring. Consequently, her diet is unhealthy, her mood is low and her relationships are strained.” Things finally started to connect. I do not slept well, my parents describe me as short tempered, and my anxiety is progressively worse. I find myself obsessing over minor details of my everyday life, as well as the uncertainty of the future. Most recently, my motivation feels very low because my energy and metabolism levels are off. Because of this, I accomplish nothing while dealing with an upset stomach most of the day. After doing more research, I found many post-COVID individuals who suffered from an increase of anxiety and depression due to the physiological effects of COVID. In some weird way, knowing this has been a relief. I have been incredibly hard on myself for not landing an internship and having a “slower summer.” With this knowledge, I try to remind myself that my body is recovering from a powerful virus that quite literally shut the world down.
Like I said, I am not writing this to attract a pity party but rather sharing my experience with something that is still very foreign to most of us. I’m assuming many of us also take our ability of sense for granted. Overall, this experience is teaching me the importance of patience and adapting to the unexpected. Please stay safe in this unprecedented time.