What the Actual Phukk, 2020 (2000...2023)?!

For you, when you can't muster up one more shred of the Hap-Hap-Happiest Season

I’ve managed to avoid catching the Covid until this year. I actually caught it a few days before my birthday when I had to bomb up to Missouri for the neurologist. Now as Christmas approaches, I’m in the reclamation phase. Lungs on Mass Exodus Mode, blowing out black-bloody boogers (ew), finally up for taking a shower (we’d appreciate it), finally able to wash a few dishes so I have something non-plague-riddled to eat off.

Man, this disease was so flippin’ fun that I decided to give some to my parents, too! So it’s another Distanced Birthday—they took half the cupcakes and left me the other half. And it will be another Distanced Holiday Season—they’ll pop over Christmas morning with a care package of our meal, drop it off, we’ll do elbow rubs from behind our masks and then jump back our designated 10 feet as we all try to keep warm through the long Minnesota Goodbyes.

Oh, ya don’t know about those Minnesota Goodbyes?

There are like…a dozen phases of proper stalling and repetition protocols one must go through before one can actually take one’s leave without offering offense to one’s hosts. Even when it’s freezing out. Especially when it’s late. Even when all three of you have the Plague.¹

When the Parentals get back home, we’ll synchronize our TVs with Christmas Vacation and text back and forth as we eat, watch, and try not to let the fits of laughter-coughing kill us off.

As you can see, this Christmas carries many remembrances of 2020 for us, in that we don’t really get to have much of one. 2020 Christmas was also the 20th Year Anniversary of the night I was rammed by a drunk driver, so there were oodles of similarities between those two years. This meant an extra dose of flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks and the full stupid gamut of PTSD anniversary reactions.²

Eh. Some years are worse than others. The biggies (Years 1, 5, 10, 20) tend to be particularly bad. In 2020, I pounded out a huge blog series about it—a bunch of which I’ve already migrated here so I can catch up any newcomers and finally get to the tell the rest of that flippin’ story for everybody who’s been waiting for it.

So here ya go. This was my Christmas Eve post while the world was shut down for Pandemic Holiday Hell.

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December 24, 2020

Before we get to today’s holiday snarky singalongs and the healthy coping mechanism tools, and before we get to the shiny-pretty reprieve of twinkle lights—I mean, c’mon! Gotta have the twinkle lights:

🎄This one is for The Unseeable.🎄

🔥The Shoved Aside.🔥

🎄The Muzzled.🎄

For those who don’t know how to speak these words but feel them just the same.

It's for everybody who's gone through a catastrophic loss that just hap-hap-happened to coincide with the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and you don’t have it in you to be hap-hap-happy about it for one more jingle-jangled minute.

It's for all of you being told to stop harshing everybody's sacrosanct Holiday Vibes with your crying, moping, and anger. Didn't you know? You just need to keep that shit to yourself and wait for two weeks when people require a distraction after having to go back to work.

This post is for everyone who's being treated like an ass-pimple eyesore—like you ignored the memo reminding the world that it's time for the Celebratory Shutdown so y'all need to stop getting sick or injured, and don't you dare die.

We remember to send extra thanks to the Essential Crews who devote their precious time and energy to helping those in need during the holidays. Not as often as we should, considering the size of the gift...but we do remember that. We make memes and signs. We send cards. We (used to) deliver cookies to fire departments and nurses. We make charitable donations and volunteer our time.

We also remember to visit those in hospitals and nursing homes (back when we could). For those few visiting hours, it's our sole purpose to brighten their day and remind them that they're not forgotten. We even (sometimes) remember to go out and feed those who have no home or invite them into warm shelters for holiday meals (now 6 feet apart).

This post is for a very different and overlooked demographic.

It's for the scads of people suffering alone in their houses.

It's for the scads of people who are spending the holidays with a huge family, and are still suffering alone because at this time of year, the most important thing to do is Put On That Happy Face.

Count Those Blessings.

Just Be Grateful You're Alive.

This one is for everybody who's heard that shit so many times out of the mouths of people who are completely clueless (or care more about appearances and the holiday decor than they do about you), and it’s making you sick from holding in your need to scream, “SHUT THE JACK FROST UP WITH YOUR SACCHARINE, TOXIC POSITIVITY CRAPPIOKA PUDDING! JUST LET ME FEEL HOW I FEEL NO MATTER WHAT THE DATE ON THE CALENDAR IS!”

This is for everybody who is NOT helped, but rather, is further harmed by those sentiments, because there's no access to the kind of help that would have been given to them if they'd gotten hurt or sick either two weeks ago, or three weeks from now when the holidays are over and things are actually moving forward again after the backlog.

It's for everyone who's out there, terrified and in pain right now, but getting nothing but crickets-crickets-crickets because the world has abruptly ceased functioning.

I mean, what were you thinking?!

Why didn't you wait until January 4 for your inappropriate need for help? Couldn't you have just held off being rammed by that drunk driver coming back from her Christmas Partay? What were you even doing on the road, sober at that time of year?

And now you need help?!

Pffffft.

Go home. You’re #JustFine.

I mean, the world needs a break, so you need to tread water and desperately try to keep your children's noses afloat while fending off sharks because we're too busy blowing off our steam and vegging. I mean, if you have to bow out of the shindigs and let everybody down, that’s fine (although we’ll guilt you about it for…ever), but don't you DARE bring us down with the reminder of your sorry existence and the fact that you don't get a holiday this year.

You're breathing and Hashtag Life Is A Blessing.

What more do you want in your stocking?

You know what? Just go off in the corner and sing Silent Night for half a month until life resumes in January.

Peace, Love, Joy, and Good Will To All,

The Hap-Hap-Happy Hypocrites of the World

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Yeah.

That's what the guilting and chastisements feel like.

And I was one of the lucky ones. I had loving, attentive parents who bombed across the country when I couldn't fly to them, after they realized that the person they spoke to on the phone during the Distanced Christmas phone call was NOT their daughter.

I also had a handful of friends and miraculous strangers who went out of their way to help me survive. I had people who made sure I didn't get evicted or starve. I had one godsend of a medical practitioner who opened his office on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to treat me at a crucial time in my recovery.

The rest SUCKED.

Naturally. It was a catastrophic trauma.

But it was made into Pure Hell by the fact that it happened while the world shut down for the holidays. If I hadn’t had people who loved me…

There are plenty of people out there at this very moment, suffering and drowning amidst all this cheer, with even less help and love than what I received in 2000. 2020 is also a particularly potent year for that. C'mon, it's a Plague Year. Plagues crumble empires, so a city? A neighborhood? A family?

Pshhhhhh.

SQUISH.

Our society isn't set up for human beings. We put so much pressure on people all year long, and the moment they get sick, injured, or suffer a devastating trauma, we'd rather throw them away and replace the malfunctioning cog so the machine's productivity will not be interrupted.

Heaven help you if you should need help when the cogs have ground to a desperately needed halt just so the world can claw its way back to baseline functionality for another friggin’ year.

I'm glad you're on vacation. You've earned it! I'm glad that you're celebrating and blowing off steam and rejuvenating and looking for every gilded glimmer in this thunderstorm of a year in all the ways that inspire you most.

💖🎄🕉❄️🕎☃️☮️🌞☪️💖

For everyone who IS working, volunteering, or going out of their way to help someone in need...I don't have words for the kind of gratitude and honor you deserve.

✨🙏🥰🙏✨

But I didn't pound out this post for y'all.

I wrote it for you way over there, trembling in the corner and wishing that your holiday treat had any taste in your mouth. And for you over there, with no holiday treats. And for you, with all these beautiful holiday treats you made—

And suddenly no one to share them with, because it happens to be your turn at the Wheel of Fortune's suckalicious spin.

It is abysmal that you're alone and scared right now. My heart is just aching for you.

It is abysmal that you have the additional burdens of expected silence, forced “good cheer,” and having to wait for help to arrive compared to everybody whose tragedies will happen two months from now, or those whose tragedies happened two months ago.

It is unconscionable that the world tells you your pain, fears, and feelings are invalid, ungrateful, immature, and unwelcome because the Northern Hemisphere holly bushes are full of berries.

I SEE you.

I HEAR you.

YOU MATTER.

December 23, 2020
Forty-eight years old

Thank you, flashbacks.

Thank you, nightmares.

Thank you, panic attacks.

Thank you, stupid, insidious little voice that hisses over and over, "Are you sure? Are you reeeeeeeally sure you wanna get in that car?"

YES. I'm really, really sure I need to get in that fucking car and drive it for twenty minutes on the afternoon when gobs of people are getting off work and traveling for the damn holiday.

WHY?

Because my right hand is numb.

Why is my right hand numb? Because I have subluxations in my cervical vertebrae that require the work of a chiropractor to correct. And why do I have those? Because of a drunk Christmastime driver and a guy who got so mad at me that he slammed his fist into my face.

Now naturally, it's the fucking holidays, which means my chiropractor won't be open next week, or the week after. He deserves a break. He works his ass off. We all deserve a break.

AND it still means I'm gonna have to go for more than a month with no adjustment if I can't get in this cursed car and drive right now because I'm having flashbacks and nightmares and stupid panic attack BULLSHIT PTSD ANNIVERSARY CRAP!!!!!

Cuz I'm SCAWED.

I cannot force my terrified animal-brain to stop freaking out. I am C-3PO. I have nothing but a "bad feeling about this." When I hush the paranoid droid and pet it and try to assuage it with my fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, it retaliates by slamming images into my mind. Memories and not-memories-but, "This is what could happen if you pull out of this safe widdle parking lot and get out into the big, bad world."

FUCK!!!!!

2020 is a continual echo of what happened when that woman blasted into my bumper two decades ago, especially now that we're at The Most Wonderful Time of Year. All the sounds and sights and music and vibes are nothing but anniversary triggers. And now all this history is repeating.

• Holidays: CANCELLED.

• Life: CANCELLED.

• I was supposed to fly home for Christmas: NOPE.

• I was supposed to dance all weekend: NOPE.

• I was supposed to work and be able to put food on my table: NOPE.

• I was supposed to start touring for dance: NOPE.

• I was supposed to have a new loving boyfriend and enjoy falling in lurve and experience AllTheHappySex and go to parties and have coffee and see my friends—hells, I was supposed to even HAVE friends.

• NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.

• The majority of the people who had called themselves my “friends” before my car wreck had fled the ship by two months, and my “best friend and dance partner” actually tried to sink me when it looked as though the crash couldn’t.

When that Holiday Humbug Drunk rammed me three days before Christmas Eve, there were suddenly a gazillion things I needed to deal with. Dire things. Emergency things that weren’t quite bad enough to warrant a stay in the emergency room, only a breeze through it for a few minutes. And during the Hap-Hap-Happiest Season of All?

Hahahahahahahahahahahah...

Have you ever had an emergency come down during the holidays?

Then you know.

If you haven't, you have no clue. I think a whole lot of you are starting to understand now with this pandemic. One of my friends that I hadn't spoken to in years called to catch up the other day. She told me about all the awful things that had ensued over the course of the year since the world went into lockdown. "So?" she asked with that tone of expectation. "Has this year hit you as hard as it's hit most people?"

I had to force myself to stow my dark chocolate laugh because my answer was, "No. It hasn't."

There was a surprised pause, followed by an, "Oh," that sounded more like, "Must be nice."

Yeah. It’s really, really nice. Super-duper enviable.

Because then I explained myself: "The majority of what the world has been doing for the past nine months? This is what I've been doing for the past TWENTY YEARS with no end in sight. I didn't have very far to fall. The level I've been surviving at isn't much farther down from how I'm existing now."

• Going from 75-90% social isolation down to 95-99% isn't much of a drop.

• Neither is going from mostly-to-occasionally jobless down to complete joblessness overnight—for the third time.

• Having to forgo what I WANT to do in favor of what health and safety NEED me to do? Yeah, that’s my life every day. I base my every decision on those parameters and limitations no matter what the pandemic is or is not doing. EVERY. DECISION.

• My non-existent love-life situation hasn’t changed either.

• When everything "goes back to normal" I'll still be here doing a lot of what the world has been chafing under since lockdown started. Even if they came up with a miracle cure that blasted Covid-19 into smithereens forever, very little would change for me.

Now that we're approaching a year of this shit, people finally have a better chance to begin understanding me, and maybe even appreciate the scads of survival mechanism I keep trying to share, instead of writing me off, rolling their eyes, looking down their noses, and slapping all sorts of inaccurate labels onto me.

BECAUSE I'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR TWENTY YEARS.

And there are plenty of people who have it waaaay worse than I do. Plenty who have been at this even longer. They get denigrated and unfairly labeled, too.

And the ableist world calls us weak?!

Hahahahahaha! That’s funny.

Take 2020 with its devastating losses, its glimmers of hope, how they were snatched away over and again, its revolutionary eye-openers, its never-ending hits from multiple directions, its deep, wounding isolation, and "I swear I'm going insane!"

Now multiply all that by decades, and maybe you'll begin to understand me and others with chronic conditions a little better. Maybe now the world can stop labeling us as:

• Crazy

• Lazy

• Flakey

• Paranoid

• Melodramatic

• Pathetic

• Useless

• Worthless

• Whiny

• And my favorite: weak.

I don't call y'all weak for losing your shit during this pandemic. I think it's pretty well warranted, so on behalf of we Unseeable, Shoved Aside, and Muzzled “worthless eaters,” we’d appreciate the same consideration.

Cuz this 2020 shit? Looking back in 20-20 hindsight over the past twenty years...yeah, this past year’s lockdown is not that far from my "normal" life. And oooh! As far as chronic illness and disability go, I have it pretty darn good. I mean, I was capable of actually putting our reality into words, wasn’t I?

Most of us can’t.

Update 12/23/23: I find it interesting that all the hope for understanding and compassion that I’d had when I originally drafted this post in 2020 came to naught. Instead of the ableist corners of the world finally gleaning a glimpse of what it’s like to live in our shoes, there has been instead an even greater backlash of hatred toward the disabled.

After all: “We all pulled ourselves up by our pandemicky bootstraps and bounced back so what is your problem that you’re still down there whining?”

Ummmm…you realize that the Systems that were already overburdened by all of us before the Pandemic had to then support all of you, too, so we just got crammed even further down the crevices of the Abyss, right? And that we HAVE pulled ourselves back up by our bootstraps as much as possible, when we now have all of those Systems hammering us and trying to shuck us off alongside all the Covid Malingerers and those who never should have been on disability before the pandemic, right?

And then…um…

STILL FUCKING DISABLED.

You know, ‘cause I’m disabled?

This IS my bootstrapped baseline, thanks.

So what the ACTUAL fuck is wrong with this picture?

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! There’s a sequel now!

And in case you didn’t know how good swearing is for your system as a coping mechanism for stress, check this shit out!

Bet ya had no idea that today’s badass survival tool was gonna be dropping THE F-BOMB, didja?

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood Long Hauler. Oh yeah, especially as we head into The Most Blunderful Time of the Year:

FOR RED-NOSED RUDOLPH’S SAKE,
PLEASE DON’T DRINK & DRIVE.

I actually have an entire SFW publication dedicated to just that, if you get burnt out by my personal story of what inspired me to make this Elements System:

© 2020 Hartebeast

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UP NEXT

The way I celebrated the 21st Anniversary of my tangle with a drunk driver - by going out into a magical forest to ogle:

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Related Posts:

1. Long Minnesota Goodbyes. You think we’re exaggerating.

2. PTSD Anniversary Reactions