When the pandemic arrived, it wasn’t just a virus spreading through the world—it was a shift in the way life felt, especially for someone like me, navigating blindness and mental illness. So much of my independence depends on touch, on proximity, on trusting the physical world around me. Suddenly, the very surfaces I relied on were framed as threats, and every gesture meant to help or guide me carried a new layer of caution.
Isolation settled in quietly at first, like a heavy fog. I was used to living with a certain level of internal noise—anxiety that could infect even the calmest days—but the pandemic magnified it. The outside world shrank, and with fewer distractions, my mind had more room to wander into darker corners. I couldn’t see the fear on people’s faces, but I could hear it in their voices, feel it in the pauses, sense it in how far they stood from me.
Blindness had always required me to trust others, yet COVID asked me to trust distance. Mental illness had always pulled me inward, yet COVID pushed the entire world into that same inward space. It was strange, in a way, to watch everyone else suddenly struggle with loneliness I had known for years.
Still, I learned resilience in small, deliberate ways. I found new rhythms, new ways to ground myself when the world felt unstable. I reached for connection even when it felt awkward or incomplete. And although the pandemic took much, it also revealed how much strength I carry—quiet, persistent, and rooted deep within me.
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