I Had Covid-19.

August 2020 I contracted Covid-19.

I literally will never forget the day because it honestly feels like it was yesterday. I was out with a friend we were at Blue Blood steakhouse, a place I have been wanting to go for sometime now. After an amazing meal or should I say during an amazing meal I began to feel unlike my usual self. If you know me and I mean if you really know me not the Alicia portrayed on social media but Alicia on and off every social media site then you know I’m usually a jovial and high energy individual.

There was something off about that day and I should have taken into consideration that something was wrong from the day before when one of my friends was telling me that she was not feeling the greatest. It’s so interesting how untouchable we feel we are when we hear about other people contracting this virus completely oblivious to the fact that we could be next. 

I never for one moment thought that I was C-vid Positive. When I started to feel this intense pressure in my head I attributed it to not eating or just potentially being dehydrated.

The entire dinner outing got cut short, I started to feel so unlike my usual self that we immediately just left and went back to his house. The next day when I went to the hospital to get checked they confirmed what I already felt inside… I had C-vid. 

I don’t know if it was a feeling of recklessness, negligence, ignorance or just plain anger that overcame me when I got my results back and was forced to tell my entire family that I had contracted Covid, potentially putting their lives in danger. It didn’t take long before my virus spread throughout my household allowing others to become sick as well. With all the propaganda and news that was being put out around that time I genuinely felt like I had HIV or something to that magnitude. I felt like I was being scorned, people didn’t want me around them even after I had recovered and no longer had C-vid.

Imagine feeling as if you yourself are a walking disease, and infection waiting to latch onto its next prey…

That is exactly how I felt. 

I felt like a marginalized woman walking into a restaurant in slavery times hoping to be seating knowing there was a potential chance that this was a “NO-NEGRO” place.

I just felt uncomfortable.

Friends and family even after I had recovered did not wanna be around me or if they were around me would want me to wear a mask or would keep their distance in fear that I would infect them. 

I can assure you, you do not know hurt until you have people categorizing you in a hegemonic bubble that does nothing but degrade and dismantle you as a person. 

My Covid experience brought more pain from people than from the actual virus itself. I consider myself fortunate to have only felt ill for not even 72 hours with a mild cough, mild headaches and a little bit of nausea. I recovered pretty quickly and I consider that a blessing every day knowing that multiple people worldwide lost their lives to the same sickness that I was able to recover and be healed from. 

How we view life can change in a BLINK of an eye based mainly on experiences we have that can alter our ideals.

I Haven’t written in so long I almost forgot how therapeutic it is to release my thoughts through written words, phrases and expressions. Sometimes I have so much bottled up in my mind and I know for myself my way of expression is through creative writing.

Initially I told myself I would never share the story because again I felt that there would be a lot of judgement and scrutiny and even criticism from people because of how much the media has warped our thoughts around Covid as a whole. I guess this could count as my welcome back blog posts, an insider scoop on what has been going on since the last time I’ve expressed my thoughts via this blog.

Hey.

My name is Alicia Harper and Im. C-vid survivor.