If you are continuing to read from my social media post; welcome back. But just in case you are not let’s recap! And remember, you can follow me on any of my social media platforms at the bottom of each website page so that you can receive smaller updates not just longer stories 🙂

On to the recap… Has COVID taken a toll on our mental health? DEFINITELY YES – I would argue just as badly as the virus itself has. Have we lost lives due to the mental health affects that COVID has placed on people? Again, YES! Don’t believe me? Google it because as I always tell my children if it is on the internet, well, only then it must be true. Did I survive COVID despite my heart and medical conditions? Yes. Am I still struggling? YES, YES, and YES.

Now that all readers are caught up from where I left off on social media, let’ dive in. Why have I posted a picture talking about walking into another week when it is not the beginning of the week on the calendar?? I promise I have not completely lost my mind, so let me reassure you; yes, I know it is not Monday. And for many of you reading this; your State or Country are or have started to lift bans so many are either already back to work or, at a minimum since many lost their jobs, are at least easing back into some regular routines from pre-COVID and I admit that I am jealous of you, but not for the reasons you might be assuming. 

If you watched my #IChallengeCOVID video or read it here on my website when I contracted the virus, and the impact/concerns that COVID had on me due to my stroke and medical conditions I just mentioned; great. But if you didn’t get a chance to read that post or watch the video; let me summarize the key points; post-COVID for me.

1) Regardless of my medical status pre-COVID I was blessed to be able to have the ability to self-quarantine at my home with the constant contact with my medical specialists at the hospital. I didn’t want to go in, despite their wishes due to my oxygen levels, because I knew my family would not be able to be with me. Even staying at home, it still took quite a toll on my mental health. I could hear my family in my home, but I could not interact with them – at all – physically. When I did have the strength to breathe or talk without coughing; we would face time or watch a movie virtually together, which again is still more than those patients in the hospital battling COVID can do. And there were logistics involved as well that you may not realize. You have to have an area that you can completely cut yourself off from anyone else, yet still try to be comfortable and have access to a bathroom (bathroom access is definitely a necessity). I posted a video about that as well because many people are not able to have the space they need, or have the medical equipment they need, or the medical staff they need; to have been able to do what I did. So do I suggest you do this versus going into the hospital? ABSOLUTELY NOT or as I also say to my children, “Do as I say not as I do.”

My isolation also went, from what we thought would be 7 days initially, to being in isolation for just about 14 days. Not a quarantine in your home with your family – but isolation. There is a difference, as I realized, so just take a moment to think about that for a minute. Not a quarantine but an isolation. Only those that have been in prison and had to experience solitary confinement, or those service men and women that may have been captured as a POW, can tell you about the toll that complete isolation causes on the human mind and thus why it is used as a form of torture or punishment. Regardless, I am neither a former prisoner of war or any other type of prisoner for that matter, and the 14 day isolation I experienced would not even be on the same comparable scale as these examples. Thus, I feel beyond blessed to have not been completely without the sounds of my family or the video calls to see their faces, as I would have experienced if I had gone into the hospital. Now, back to the summarization of #IChallengeCOVID.

2) The challenge was to post what you were going to take this time of quarantine to accomplish or reset; something that you didn’t have ‘time’ maybe to do prior to COVID. And let me just say, for the most part, I have truly enjoyed all the posts of positivity, gratitude, and projects you have done!!

Of course there are always a few that ruin it for everyone else with their negativity and conspiracy theories (which must be a global conspiracy, I guess, since unless you live in a bubble; people from around the globe have all been affected by this ‘conspiracy’??). Anyway, the one that gets to me and irritates me to my very core; well, there is no better way to just say it – the overall whining. Yes, plain selfish whining about the “inconvenience” this has had on their lives. Everything from having to wear a face mask in public, having to spend extra time with their family in their homes, to the one way aisles at the grocery stores that are trying to implement social distancing and how people don’t follow those one way arrows that are on the floor (**note: they are on the floor…most people don’t see the arrows because they don’t look at the floor when shopping; they look at the shelves-gosh forbid that!). Even some complaining that they have to now realize what our education system goes through every day because, as parents, they don’t believe they should have to teach their children – school is a drop off day care, didn’t you know? And this point as well; parents not taking into consideration their children that had to transition from in-person learning to remote learning; and depending on the age of the child or their experience with on-line learning, that was quite a task for them as well. They, too, had to give up (and some still do) their social interaction which is, in my opinion a lot harder for youth because they truly do not understand the why’s to this pandemic. Never mind the economic hardships that people have and are facing globally, or those that live in an abusive home and are/were forced to be subjected to that violence even more, or those that counted on lunches for their children because they cannot afford, pre-COVID, to be able to provide food for their families and at least with school, their children had a full meal at least once a day. Sadly, as mentioned throughout this recap of #2, even some adults have had a difficult time with the why’s or have not been concerned about the effects this has had on others that far supersede an ‘inconvenience.’

But at first, for a short time, the posts, stories, pictures of frontline workers, and social media challenges seemed to pull a very large world together into a much smaller globe. And thankfully, there are those that continue to give, to try to supply some of the necessities, like food or shelter, to those that need it.

So, then why do I post this picture mid-week? To complain, vent, or only share my story? NO. I am posting it in hopes to continue to educate. To bring awareness to not just the obvious issues or those seen on media, but those not seen, those that fall on deaf ears, and those that seem to be invisible no matter how much you try to reveal them. Am I once again going to try to make people listen or see the invisible? YES

It is currently mental health awareness month in the United States and this is also mental health awareness week in the U.K. Whether you want to review the numbers for just the United States (via: NAMI.org) or globally (via: WHO.int); 1 in every 4-5 people suffer from a mental health illness and over 800,000 people are lost to suicide each year – and this statistic does not include the impact that the Coronavirus has had yet. And if you don’t want to focus or realize the impact of mental health; look at how many people suffer from an invisible disability every day. 15% of the world’s population lives with an invisible disability every day (via: WHO.int). Another report done by the WHO (World Health Organization), one recognized as one of the most detailed and extensive research done covering disabilities as a whole and their affects globally concluded that including children, over a BILLION people are living with a disability everyday and out of those anywhere from 110-190 million people are trying to survive living with very significant difficulties in functioning on a daily basis. Again, this report due to its extensive inclusion around the globe was last done in 2010 so not only does this report not include the after affects of COVID but it doesn’t include the growth in disabilities around the globe since 2010.

And if you know me, well then you know that the debilitating health conditions I face daily since surviving my stroke, puts me in that class of not only being disabled but since my body is shutting down internally and to those that do not know me, I may look healthy from the outside (on my good days); I am also put into that class of invisible disabilities. Again, if you knew me before my stroke, I had what my doctor’s would tell me was ‘Wonder Woman’ syndrome. I wanted to change the world, impact the world, run my businesses, take on legislature at local, State, and Federal levels, be a mother of three and a wife all at the same time. They warned me to slow down but that was not something I wanted to hear or that I listened to either. I still suffer from that syndrome today, but my body no longer wants to cooperate with me to carry it out most of the time.

I know, I know…get to the point of the picture, right? That is what started this to begin with. Well, one of the largest factors that anyone disabled deals with everyday, regardless of the extent of their disability, is their ability to be included. They, we, I are excluded from so many social activities not to mention most of the types of employment that we once did. I mentioned this very briefly in my #IChallengeCOVID video/article; but I had a message to anyone complaining/whining about being quarantined to STOP. Because those living with a disability, again any extent of disability from a minor disability, mental health disability, or completely disabled; lives their life in ‘quarantine.’ A quarantine that never gets lifted. A quarantine that, in most cases, they do not control at all. A quarantine that is not an option for them. A quarantine, a trap inside their own mind and body.

When COVID was first starting out; I was on that high-risk list right away. My children had started to take precautions around me before any cases in the United States had even been confirmed. They wanted to quarantine me even more than I already am; out of love. They were worried from what they were seeing that if I contracted COVID, they would for sure lose their mother. They have seen their mother flat line more times than ANY child should have to see. So, I understood their concerns and by all accounts, I should not have survived when I contracted COVID but I did. Why? Only God knows that one. Maybe it was, selfishly, for me to realize that although I would have very depressive days being quarantined in my own body before; being isolated was much worse. Getting pretty vulnerable here but also pretty passionate; my mental health is much worse now than it was before. I have to fight daily with my health and about a month before COVID occurred I didn’t have a very good doctor’s appointment. I was told that there was not a single ‘autonomic’ function of my body that had not been officially affected anymore. I was, of course, encouraged to have hope and to continue to fight. But again, I think the mental fight is the hardest part, in fact I know it is. Prior to my stroke I taught about the power of our unconscious mind and the power it can have, when we awaken it. I taught tangible skills to people around the globe how to awaken and utilize more of their unconscious mind on their own. Since the day of my stroke, I have had to utilize my own teachings and skills to still be here today. And I know I need to use them to continue to fight from the affects COVID has had on me.

So, am I walking into this week – midweek – like I just survived COVID and am happy to be alive? Yes. Am I still in quarantine? YES – which is why I purposely posted this mid-week because, for me, it doesn’t matter what day the week starts on; I always will be, in some way or another, in quarantine because of my daily disabilities. But am I in isolation anymore? Absolutely NOT.

Just remember, before you post, comment, or complain about COVID or quarantine; try to take a step back and really analyze and feel for those that are probably suffering more than you may even know about or visually see. It may seem cliche now to say, ‘we are all in this together,’ but the truth is we need to realize that even after restrictions are lifted from COVID; we are all still in this journey called, life, together. We must learn to stand together all the time, so that no one needs to feel quarantined or isolated unnecessarily. Keep things in perspective; take the high road.