I'm glad you are doing this. Covid was an absolute nightmare on so many fronts. I hope we learned that most experts aren't, and that careful thinking and self reliance are our best tools in many cases.
I want to submit my story about how my twin sister got covid in spring 2020, but we couldn't get he tested anywhere but a homeless shelter under the el. I want to talk about how my very best friend, who started to watch "seer" and "truther" videos on the internet, laughed at the virus and mocked and derided people wearing masks to me, who, when she found put my sister had developed long covid (a month into infection, where she would go on to suffer a cardiac arrest and arterial dissection in her brainstem, disabling her for life, on our 35th birthday, while I was caring for my dying mother at home alone with no help) said "I mean covid is real for you, but not for me." I want to talk about how I begged God on my knees and still do, to this day, to touch her heart and prove to her that covid is and was real. I want to talk about how she screamed at me that half the country doesn't believe that long covid is real so I should shut the fuck up about my sister. I want to talk about my other best friend, closer than that even, who I called my brother, who cared more about the "woke SJW language" my sister used during her Facebook posts updating friends and family from the hospital than the fact that she was IN the hospital for 3 months. (Her crime was saying that she was shaking and crying when a male doctor implied that he disbelieved her symptoms --- this was before her infection, and after her anoxic brain injury from cardiac arrest, my friend said he was more concerned that the hospital was "infantilizing" my sister and that he "couldn't engage with her illness." ) I begged God more and more telling Him to please, please let the worst most terrible things happen to me if He had to, let me be homeless again or tortured and murdered and raped if only, only, He could prove to the very best friends I ever had that the virus that killed my uncle and crippled my aunt and disabled my sister was real.
I want to talk about how while this was going on with my twin sister, the first friend and a former teacher of mine was sending me videos from Martin Kenney and Jonathan Kleck and Sevan Bomar and other seer/truthers talking about how people who masked were engaging in rituals cutting them off from God and that anyone who got the shots would turn into monsters. I cried for hour every day watching these videos they sent, up all night caring for my mom, because I knew that covid was real and that I would eventually have to get the shots because I had lupus and emphysema and couldn't risk becoming disabled like my sister or aunt. I want to talk about how I agonized over getting the shots and didn't get them until 6 months after I was eligble, about how I was so scared of dying from them and having my soul turned off. I want to talk about how, the day my mother was denied hospice in 2021 for not dying quick enough and sent from the hospital to a terrible snake pit "rehab" warehouse for the poor, where she would die in the 3 month window qualifying her anyway, my one friend sent me an email about how all our other friends didn't believe covid was real anyway and that they were placating me, even though one friend she mentioned had called me terrified in February 2021 bc he was sick and scared and wanted to know where he could get a covid test and what supplements I recommended. I almost ended my life over that because I couldn't figure out whether SHE had lied to me about him not believing it was real or whether HE was pretending that day and made that up to fuck with me, which is so unlike him. I still cry and beg and plead with God to reveal the truth to me about this to this day. I want to talk about how in that email I got she didn't mention my mom or ask about her at all but said I had participated in "demonic experimentation" by getting jabbed. I want to talk about how I was so scared for years that I DID cut my soul off from God by masking or getting the shots, but why God would give me all this proof that covid was real if it wasn't?
I have to go back to work cleaning houses under the table, but I wanted to double check? Would you consider such a story that wasn't about how the measures were worse than the virus or about how the shots were worse than the illness or about how people not masking or vaccinating were ostracized, all of which I believe, but would you consider a story from someone like me whose trauma and pain comes from the "other side?"
I can forward all the emails and group chats to you where these things happened. My sister is disabled and I could not risk upsetting her by having you guys contact her, but I could send you her posts from the hospital and proof of the conversations that happened. My mom is dead and my Dad is a private person, but I could prove everything that happened to her with emails and my Dad Might talk about it if he thinks it could help my Mom get justice by the medical system (she was dropped by her PCP in May of 2020 bc she mentioned to a home nurse that maybe the care would be more consistent if she was considered a "VIP patient" ( a real concierge demographic at the practice) instead of a poor woman on Medicaid.)..
People like me are real..we aren't sheep. I still mask with fit tested kn95s because if I get sick and disabled like my sister we both will end up homeless. I would do anything to prove to the world and the friends i lost that what happened to my family is real and just as painful as what "seers" and "dissidents" went through. Would you real my story if I sent it?
Hi Cait - I know that you have many stories to tell. You have told me some in the past, and I know these have been but a small portion of all that you have to tell. Most likely, I won't be doing the first pass on the stories that come in, but I guarantee you that the good people with whom I am working will read every story that comes in, if they meet the minimum requirements (not longer than 2,500 words, and if they arrive with real (not pseudonymous) contact info).
All of that said: Your experience is absolutely worth telling, too, and not as common as those that I allude to in my post here, and those whose stories I have posted before. It can be easy for us to forget, those of us who were silenced and damaged and all of the things, that we, too, may have the capacity to act like a mob, to silence and damage other people as we ourselves become certain.
Yes, there are people who believe that Covid isn't real--that SARS-CoV2 doesn't exist, and that long Covid is a fantasy of hypochondriacs. There are people who believe that no viruses are real. I don't think that any of these beliefs are accurate...but I could be wrong. Keeping our humility in the face of certainty and trauma is difficult, and highly recommended.
One more thing: I have said to you before that fear is a stressor which itself causes real physiological damage, so trying to live away from fear, outside of fear, would be a goal for me, if I were in your shoes.
Thank you for your kind reply. My only issue with the not living in fear thing is that they seem to have released a new bioweapon that is a mix of h3n2/h5n8 influenza A variants and a terrible neuroinflammatory version of covid. People are posting about getting it and they all say they were happy go lucky and positive people before getting sick. That breaks my heart bc I remember my sister's last words before getting covid were "I really believe and have faith we will be OK", so what I struggle to understand is why the having faith and being positive and not living in fear thing worked for everyone else in the world but her:
My son and I are the only ones in my extended family that are not vaccinated. He was 12 at the time and the data did not support that Covid was a danger to him. The greatest damages done to me were by government policy not the virus.
Government Policy and Media's demand for compliance cost me most of my family relationships. Shout out to my father, and two uncles who did kept great relationships with me.
I am a past health regulator in Alberta - from before the regulators were evil.
On my substack I have put out a piece that focusses on the Idea - Free Speech Is Diagnostic. I would appreciate any thoughts.
Great idea. I have no significant story, except that, like a lot of people, I got two shots, and then got COVID.
Somebody has coined a new term, that we should all freely use, 'scientism'. That's when people develop a baseless ideology and try to pass it off as science.
Scientism is not a new term, but it’s a very good one to wield, in pointing to sciencey-sounding arguments that are often anti-scientific. Bret and I have been using it for decades, but long before us, philosopher-greats Hayek and Popper employed it. The problem isn’t new, but it does seem to be escalating.
I do like the fact that there are many who do not want to forget and move on. if we allow it to be forgotten then it can happen again. all societies in the Western world have changed because of 'covid', in more ways than we can ever really list I'm afraid.
I have already begun working on my story from the perspective of the mother of a (then teenaged) son with autism. its full of anger, absurdity and also a silver lining. a tad PTSD thinking about it in detail again but yes, also cathartic.
I'm glad this project is happening. Alex Berenson did something similar a while ago.
I don't think there will be a reconciliation over covid. Some people I know just want to forget how they behaved or that it even happened at all.
In 2020 my two daughters were in 1st grade and 5th grade. The 5th grader adapted fairly well to zoom school (no choice!) but the 1st grader was still learning early math and reading with some struggles and a seasoned wonderful teacher who had been teaching for 30 years the traditional way in person with all her materials. We lost a huge number of wonderful experienced teachers who were experts at classroom management and making learning fun and engaging. They all retired at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. We can't even begin to know how that horrific experience that DID NOT NEED TO HAPPEN to them will affect all parts of their being. I can't think about it too much since it makes my blood pressure go up.
Personally, I experienced "othering" by friends and family for not getting any covid shots. I was excluded from activities and events I otherwise would have be allowed to participate in. When my husband was in a mild tractor accident in 2022 and I couldn't visit him in the hospital because I had no vaccine card to show--I rushed out to get a PCR test. My antigen 15-min test I wanted to take in the hospital staff's presence was insufficient. By the time the PCR covid-negative test came back, my husband was discharged and I cared for him at home. They never gave him a mask in the hospital but I was prohibited from dropping off his eyeglasses, phone, and wallet to the trauma ward since I didn't have the magic card.
It almost seems unreal. Being in the Bay Area during all of the madness was terrible. But, the weather sure is nice :-)
I emailed Berenson so many times with my family's story and commented on his pages so many times and he still kept posting about how long covid was fake. If you are in touch with him could you maybe direct him here. I would do anything to prove to him what happened to my sister was real bc then maybe my friend who reads him would believe me and then things could go back the way they were, and I could laugh and smile and hope and dream again. Thank you.
I just submitted a brief account of my mother’s experience in assisted living during COVID—not because it is unique, but because it reflects what so many families endured in silence. Out of that shared grief, a grassroots movement quickly blossomed in Texas, demanding humane access to loved ones in long-term care. That effort led to the passage of the Essential Caregiver Act, which was added to the Texas state Constitution and passed into law on November 2, 2021. These stories must be kept alive.
I was living in Southern California at the time but regular traveled across the border into Mexico despite the border being “closed to non-essential travel.”
The US polices and Mexican policies differed significantly, and on the U.S. policies were different based on one’s citizenship and how one entered the country.
Take for example flying into the United States- pre “vaccine,” all people regardless of citizenship entering the United States had to show a test showing they tested negative for COVID within the past 24 hours. When the “vaccine” became readily available, US citizens still could enter the country only showing a negative COVID test result (but not with proof of “vaccination”) while non citizens had to show proof of “vaccination.”
Crossing the border via land however was completely different. US citizens were never required to show proof a COVID test nor proof of “vaccination.” However, non U.S. citizens were eventually required to show proof of “vaccination.”
Mexico on the other hand never required COVID tests nor proof of “vaccination” to enter (or leave) the country. In 2020 they required travelers to fill out “contact tracing” forms which were originally paper (and seldom collected) but eventually moved to a form filled out on a website.
No deadline! Depending on how this goes, I’ll keep it open for a while, or if there is either no response or too much response, may pause and then restart. Take your time - my hope is that this allows people to reflect and analyze and, dare I say, heal from the act of remembering and writing, as much as the published pieces function as a historical repository.
Thanks, Heather. I’m currently having too much fun roaming around Tasmania and would much prefer to write about the plight of the wonderful Tasmanian devil, but might delve into my own awful Covid story when I return home. Or might not! Just as a suggestion to other readers, I tried many methods to help alleviate my grief and my trauma response to my experience, including a fair amount of talk therapy, and what finally helped was the modality known as EMDR. If nothing else has worked, I highly recommend trying it.
I have heard, from a good friend of mine who is a psychotherapist and who has both experienced and recommended EMDR to others, that it can be powerful and healing. It can be easy to forget that we are *lucky* to live in an era when there are so many good and diverse modalities to try for our idiosyncratic ailments and traumas.
I'm glad you are doing this. Covid was an absolute nightmare on so many fronts. I hope we learned that most experts aren't, and that careful thinking and self reliance are our best tools in many cases.
Nic
Heather.
I want to submit my story about how my twin sister got covid in spring 2020, but we couldn't get he tested anywhere but a homeless shelter under the el. I want to talk about how my very best friend, who started to watch "seer" and "truther" videos on the internet, laughed at the virus and mocked and derided people wearing masks to me, who, when she found put my sister had developed long covid (a month into infection, where she would go on to suffer a cardiac arrest and arterial dissection in her brainstem, disabling her for life, on our 35th birthday, while I was caring for my dying mother at home alone with no help) said "I mean covid is real for you, but not for me." I want to talk about how I begged God on my knees and still do, to this day, to touch her heart and prove to her that covid is and was real. I want to talk about how she screamed at me that half the country doesn't believe that long covid is real so I should shut the fuck up about my sister. I want to talk about my other best friend, closer than that even, who I called my brother, who cared more about the "woke SJW language" my sister used during her Facebook posts updating friends and family from the hospital than the fact that she was IN the hospital for 3 months. (Her crime was saying that she was shaking and crying when a male doctor implied that he disbelieved her symptoms --- this was before her infection, and after her anoxic brain injury from cardiac arrest, my friend said he was more concerned that the hospital was "infantilizing" my sister and that he "couldn't engage with her illness." ) I begged God more and more telling Him to please, please let the worst most terrible things happen to me if He had to, let me be homeless again or tortured and murdered and raped if only, only, He could prove to the very best friends I ever had that the virus that killed my uncle and crippled my aunt and disabled my sister was real.
I want to talk about how while this was going on with my twin sister, the first friend and a former teacher of mine was sending me videos from Martin Kenney and Jonathan Kleck and Sevan Bomar and other seer/truthers talking about how people who masked were engaging in rituals cutting them off from God and that anyone who got the shots would turn into monsters. I cried for hour every day watching these videos they sent, up all night caring for my mom, because I knew that covid was real and that I would eventually have to get the shots because I had lupus and emphysema and couldn't risk becoming disabled like my sister or aunt. I want to talk about how I agonized over getting the shots and didn't get them until 6 months after I was eligble, about how I was so scared of dying from them and having my soul turned off. I want to talk about how, the day my mother was denied hospice in 2021 for not dying quick enough and sent from the hospital to a terrible snake pit "rehab" warehouse for the poor, where she would die in the 3 month window qualifying her anyway, my one friend sent me an email about how all our other friends didn't believe covid was real anyway and that they were placating me, even though one friend she mentioned had called me terrified in February 2021 bc he was sick and scared and wanted to know where he could get a covid test and what supplements I recommended. I almost ended my life over that because I couldn't figure out whether SHE had lied to me about him not believing it was real or whether HE was pretending that day and made that up to fuck with me, which is so unlike him. I still cry and beg and plead with God to reveal the truth to me about this to this day. I want to talk about how in that email I got she didn't mention my mom or ask about her at all but said I had participated in "demonic experimentation" by getting jabbed. I want to talk about how I was so scared for years that I DID cut my soul off from God by masking or getting the shots, but why God would give me all this proof that covid was real if it wasn't?
I have to go back to work cleaning houses under the table, but I wanted to double check? Would you consider such a story that wasn't about how the measures were worse than the virus or about how the shots were worse than the illness or about how people not masking or vaccinating were ostracized, all of which I believe, but would you consider a story from someone like me whose trauma and pain comes from the "other side?"
I can forward all the emails and group chats to you where these things happened. My sister is disabled and I could not risk upsetting her by having you guys contact her, but I could send you her posts from the hospital and proof of the conversations that happened. My mom is dead and my Dad is a private person, but I could prove everything that happened to her with emails and my Dad Might talk about it if he thinks it could help my Mom get justice by the medical system (she was dropped by her PCP in May of 2020 bc she mentioned to a home nurse that maybe the care would be more consistent if she was considered a "VIP patient" ( a real concierge demographic at the practice) instead of a poor woman on Medicaid.)..
People like me are real..we aren't sheep. I still mask with fit tested kn95s because if I get sick and disabled like my sister we both will end up homeless. I would do anything to prove to the world and the friends i lost that what happened to my family is real and just as painful as what "seers" and "dissidents" went through. Would you real my story if I sent it?
Hi Cait - I know that you have many stories to tell. You have told me some in the past, and I know these have been but a small portion of all that you have to tell. Most likely, I won't be doing the first pass on the stories that come in, but I guarantee you that the good people with whom I am working will read every story that comes in, if they meet the minimum requirements (not longer than 2,500 words, and if they arrive with real (not pseudonymous) contact info).
All of that said: Your experience is absolutely worth telling, too, and not as common as those that I allude to in my post here, and those whose stories I have posted before. It can be easy for us to forget, those of us who were silenced and damaged and all of the things, that we, too, may have the capacity to act like a mob, to silence and damage other people as we ourselves become certain.
Yes, there are people who believe that Covid isn't real--that SARS-CoV2 doesn't exist, and that long Covid is a fantasy of hypochondriacs. There are people who believe that no viruses are real. I don't think that any of these beliefs are accurate...but I could be wrong. Keeping our humility in the face of certainty and trauma is difficult, and highly recommended.
One more thing: I have said to you before that fear is a stressor which itself causes real physiological damage, so trying to live away from fear, outside of fear, would be a goal for me, if I were in your shoes.
Thank you for your kind reply. My only issue with the not living in fear thing is that they seem to have released a new bioweapon that is a mix of h3n2/h5n8 influenza A variants and a terrible neuroinflammatory version of covid. People are posting about getting it and they all say they were happy go lucky and positive people before getting sick. That breaks my heart bc I remember my sister's last words before getting covid were "I really believe and have faith we will be OK", so what I struggle to understand is why the having faith and being positive and not living in fear thing worked for everyone else in the world but her:
By the way, this new bioweapon sounds like what you posted about having. https://www.reddit.com/r/flu/comments/1qnr3js/day_10_of_the_death_flu/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=58e89c41-b423-4382-b057-6702968061f7&post_fullname=t3_1qnr3js&post_index=2&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&target_user=seemoreglass32&utm_content=post_title&utm_medium=Email%20Amazon%20SES&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1476862718230413554&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA21Q0U7EIBD8mt5b71ro9XomF2M0%2FsaGK9sWpYDLNtUXv92tpz6ZABlmdoYJE3PKd4cDobWO9yalvXfh9aDTfaEanS4IJu8ERnKjC8bDQv4yba5CPxTqWda6rvsffx9nIUj24Bc55T5j4CywfgukXzZkzQfUFcQBeEKwaHiC23ihJe%2BoGouYYOtR6CemBQvV9pEIvWEXAzgr%2FLHD7tw3dXltlC4b3anyWh1PZXuq1LntqrYeTuJLMTMMi%2FfBzLjFafhrchNdsPguihKCcBCEs3EerBsx842E3szJuDH8r%2Ba4UI%2B%2FmpBsaESGJSMJmxHnSDh6k7Penll4hj4Glq8R%2BbsFO%2Fa4%2B5Q0JHJhhCvFVeyXx4nijF8Yd5VjqAEAAA%3D%3D
My son and I are the only ones in my extended family that are not vaccinated. He was 12 at the time and the data did not support that Covid was a danger to him. The greatest damages done to me were by government policy not the virus.
Government Policy and Media's demand for compliance cost me most of my family relationships. Shout out to my father, and two uncles who did kept great relationships with me.
I am a past health regulator in Alberta - from before the regulators were evil.
On my substack I have put out a piece that focusses on the Idea - Free Speech Is Diagnostic. I would appreciate any thoughts.
Great idea. I have no significant story, except that, like a lot of people, I got two shots, and then got COVID.
Somebody has coined a new term, that we should all freely use, 'scientism'. That's when people develop a baseless ideology and try to pass it off as science.
Scientism is not a new term, but it’s a very good one to wield, in pointing to sciencey-sounding arguments that are often anti-scientific. Bret and I have been using it for decades, but long before us, philosopher-greats Hayek and Popper employed it. The problem isn’t new, but it does seem to be escalating.
I'll amend my statement: Somebody has coined an old term...
I do like the fact that there are many who do not want to forget and move on. if we allow it to be forgotten then it can happen again. all societies in the Western world have changed because of 'covid', in more ways than we can ever really list I'm afraid.
I have already begun working on my story from the perspective of the mother of a (then teenaged) son with autism. its full of anger, absurdity and also a silver lining. a tad PTSD thinking about it in detail again but yes, also cathartic.
thanks, Heather!
I'm glad this project is happening. Alex Berenson did something similar a while ago.
I don't think there will be a reconciliation over covid. Some people I know just want to forget how they behaved or that it even happened at all.
In 2020 my two daughters were in 1st grade and 5th grade. The 5th grader adapted fairly well to zoom school (no choice!) but the 1st grader was still learning early math and reading with some struggles and a seasoned wonderful teacher who had been teaching for 30 years the traditional way in person with all her materials. We lost a huge number of wonderful experienced teachers who were experts at classroom management and making learning fun and engaging. They all retired at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. We can't even begin to know how that horrific experience that DID NOT NEED TO HAPPEN to them will affect all parts of their being. I can't think about it too much since it makes my blood pressure go up.
Personally, I experienced "othering" by friends and family for not getting any covid shots. I was excluded from activities and events I otherwise would have be allowed to participate in. When my husband was in a mild tractor accident in 2022 and I couldn't visit him in the hospital because I had no vaccine card to show--I rushed out to get a PCR test. My antigen 15-min test I wanted to take in the hospital staff's presence was insufficient. By the time the PCR covid-negative test came back, my husband was discharged and I cared for him at home. They never gave him a mask in the hospital but I was prohibited from dropping off his eyeglasses, phone, and wallet to the trauma ward since I didn't have the magic card.
It almost seems unreal. Being in the Bay Area during all of the madness was terrible. But, the weather sure is nice :-)
I emailed Berenson so many times with my family's story and commented on his pages so many times and he still kept posting about how long covid was fake. If you are in touch with him could you maybe direct him here. I would do anything to prove to him what happened to my sister was real bc then maybe my friend who reads him would believe me and then things could go back the way they were, and I could laugh and smile and hope and dream again. Thank you.
I just submitted a brief account of my mother’s experience in assisted living during COVID—not because it is unique, but because it reflects what so many families endured in silence. Out of that shared grief, a grassroots movement quickly blossomed in Texas, demanding humane access to loved ones in long-term care. That effort led to the passage of the Essential Caregiver Act, which was added to the Texas state Constitution and passed into law on November 2, 2021. These stories must be kept alive.
I agree, very glad people are doing this.
For those interested in further reading I'd recommend
Diary of a Psychosis - Thomas E Wood and the companion volume were individuals tell their stories at DiaryofCovid.com
Thank you for this Dr. Heying.
I was living in Southern California at the time but regular traveled across the border into Mexico despite the border being “closed to non-essential travel.”
The US polices and Mexican policies differed significantly, and on the U.S. policies were different based on one’s citizenship and how one entered the country.
Take for example flying into the United States- pre “vaccine,” all people regardless of citizenship entering the United States had to show a test showing they tested negative for COVID within the past 24 hours. When the “vaccine” became readily available, US citizens still could enter the country only showing a negative COVID test result (but not with proof of “vaccination”) while non citizens had to show proof of “vaccination.”
Crossing the border via land however was completely different. US citizens were never required to show proof a COVID test nor proof of “vaccination.” However, non U.S. citizens were eventually required to show proof of “vaccination.”
Mexico on the other hand never required COVID tests nor proof of “vaccination” to enter (or leave) the country. In 2020 they required travelers to fill out “contact tracing” forms which were originally paper (and seldom collected) but eventually moved to a form filled out on a website.
When is the deadline?
No deadline! Depending on how this goes, I’ll keep it open for a while, or if there is either no response or too much response, may pause and then restart. Take your time - my hope is that this allows people to reflect and analyze and, dare I say, heal from the act of remembering and writing, as much as the published pieces function as a historical repository.
Thanks, Heather. I’m currently having too much fun roaming around Tasmania and would much prefer to write about the plight of the wonderful Tasmanian devil, but might delve into my own awful Covid story when I return home. Or might not! Just as a suggestion to other readers, I tried many methods to help alleviate my grief and my trauma response to my experience, including a fair amount of talk therapy, and what finally helped was the modality known as EMDR. If nothing else has worked, I highly recommend trying it.
I have heard, from a good friend of mine who is a psychotherapist and who has both experienced and recommended EMDR to others, that it can be powerful and healing. It can be easy to forget that we are *lucky* to live in an era when there are so many good and diverse modalities to try for our idiosyncratic ailments and traumas.
It absolutely helped me, quite a bit. Have recommended it to many