I have been. Transformed into …………..
Before I describe my post Covid syndrome I would like to say something about me.
I am not an achiever in life, I think have been good and prompt in executing the tasks assigned to me in my professional carrier. But I have not been wise enough to grab great opportunities when they appeared before me. Earlier in my life I cherished many noble ambitions, but could achieve only one or two of them. So, definitely I am bot an achiever. Now when I turn back, I realise that I would have become highly successful in life if I were prudent enough to make use of just one of those opportunities. Whenever this sickening thought pops up in my mind, I sweep them under the carpet in my mind. I had the confidence that I would achieve my ambitions sometimes in my life. Now I have lost those hopes also.
I
t seems Corona has almost been eradicated. All over the world thousands of lives were taken and millions still suffer due this deadly virus. I belong to the latter. I was so badly affected by Covid that it was a highly traumatic time. But for a slight fever days passed on nor,
Normally. But nights were horrific. I would wake up by midnight by some painful thoughts. I would remain sleepless till morning thrown into a kind kind of delirium accompanied so many strange delusions and I often felt I was floating over chasm of death. Miraculously I recovered but the tiredness was so extreme and for months I looked as if I had just escaped from a concentration camp.
Now it is more than two years since I have recovered from Covid. On a broader sense I may say I look perfectly normal but I know I am not. I have not escaped unscathed. I used to attend hard works in my backyard. I attend such jobs even now but I get tired very soon. A clear sign that I have slowed down!
In the course of time I realised that I was not only physically slowed down but some strange psychological changes also were taking place in my mind. At first I thought my advancing age was the cause for this slowing down. Slowly I realised that apart from physically slowing down a weird behavioural change were taking over me. They would have passed unnoticed if they were minute. From my childhood - I still remember- I have been keen on being on time. May be because I got
How I came to realise it was from the words of my wife who one day exclaimed:
“Dilip, I have observed some changes in your behaviour. You never wanted to do multiple tasking and are used to saying that multitasking always ended in shoddy works. Nowadays you start doing a work and jump form one to a few and finish none! Are you okay?”
I looked at her thoughtfully and said:
“I don’ think you are wrong. The same realisation has started tormenting me also. Yesterday, morning while I was pruning the branches of the mango tree it came to my mind that I hadn’t completed cleaning my room and computer. Now I remember; I didn’t finish the work as I suddenly remembered that the weekly car washing was overdue. While I was drying the car, it struck my mind that my friend had called and informed me that he would be visiting in the evening. I glanced at my watch and there were just ten minutes left for my friend to arrive! I might take ten minutes to have a quick shower and start waiting for my friend. I gazed at the dripping car and said to myself that the wind is a perfect drier and would dry my car in half an hour.”
My wife looked worried and said:
“This is what is the change I observe in you these days. You never used to attempt all these one day. Only after completing one work you would start another one.
I have even commented that you are a slow but steady person. But now your works are tardy and you look restless and impatient and leave all the works unfinished.”
“Mmmmmm……I know. I know. I am fully conscious of it and try my best to come over it, but I am unable to. If one suffers from such a psychological ailment, they needn’t be aware of it even with others looking at the person suspiciously. I am glad that I am fully aware of it, and I
have been trying to come out of it.”
Some days I wake up slightly earlier and start brooding over some issues. During such ‘revelation like trials’ I find answers for many of my problems. On one such morning, I asked myself “Why do I go on skipping from one work to another and get depressed in the end?”I might have tossed left and and right for a few time before the answer dawned on me.
The dormant and conveniently forgotten thought hidden in some corner of my mind that I have not achieved what’s I really wanted to be successful person has prevailed my conscious mind. The Covid virus is so clever that it has scanned all the files in my mind and has rightly judged this vicious file could make me mentally uneasy, if opened. The virus has opened it. The virus has carried out this vengeance in retaliation when all its efforts to harm me physically failed.
I think there will be many who have had post Covid syndromes. Obviously they will be different in forms. I invite such people to share their experiences on this page.
