Amanda’s story- Long Covid and the effect on mental health
"It’s different when you have to support and care for yourself now, and I don't know if I if I'm doing it right."
“When COVID comes along it’s totally unexpected. It’s out of your control. There’s a lot of people out there that get it, and five days later they’re back on their feet. It affects everybody differently. It affects you physically, but for me, there was also a massive mental effect.
Before Long Covid I was always a strong person. I was always the one that everybody would go to. “Go and ask Amanda”, “Amanda’ll know”, “Amanda will support you”. That was my role as a paramedic. Now I’m kind of, I suppose, broken to a point, I’m asking for help, but I’m getting that barrier, that I should know how to deal with my Long Covid because of my job. There’s an element to my recovery which is the expectation that I should be able to handle everything that’s getting thrown at me because that’s what I do, I help and care for other people for a living, but it’s different when you have to support and care for yourself now, and I don’t know if I’m doing it right. It’s like, how can such an illness knock you sideways, and take you to such dark places?
Mental health wise, I would say that’s more of a struggle for me than the physical side of it. The physical side I feel like I’m getting there. I’ve got a routine where I’ll go to the gym or I’ll go to the shops, but if I do too much, I know that two or three days later I’ll be floored. I’ll just reel it back for a few days if that happens. But mentally? Mentally I’m broken.
I’m not that outgoing, bubbly person anymore. I feel negative. I’m a shell of who I used to be. It’s coming back, but it’s more of an expression of my frustration. “Stop treating me like this. This has to change”. It’s that kind of attitude
It got to a stage where I broke, and I don’t want to see that in other people. That is probably why I’m so vocal about this, because I know that Long Covid isn’t just physical, it’s mental.”
Read more Humans of Scotland stories.
Find out more about the ALLIANCE’s Long Covid Lived Experience Network.
End of document.
End of page.