modernheretic

Intellectually I came to terms with the realization that we were not going to have a real reckoning around COVID, that nobody was going to admit any wrongdoing or apologize for the harms they inflicted. And yet, anger over the lack of reckoning swells inside me.

Recently I encountered people from my Old Normal life, and I was especially struck by the lack of reckoning. Their lives continue on unabated while mine was imploded due to my noncompliance with the tyrannical and nonsensical mandates. While I made the best of a horrible situation and found great relief in being pushed to leave New York City, I am frustrated that few from my Old Normal life seem to appreciate what losses I suffered. It hit me first when Aimee of the New York Mandate Podcast encouraged me to think for the first time about my losses and again recently when I learned that, not only am I being paid a fraction of what I used to earn for the same work, I am also being paid substantially less than my colleagues for performing the same job because I work remotely as a temp, full-time jobs at the company not being available where I am located.

I knew that my strategy of buying a relatively cheap house in an affordable location would limit my career prospects, and I accepted that as the cost of my bodily and spiritual autonomy. But still I resent that I was forced to make that choice, that even today I am suffering the penalties of a mandate that was precisely intended to penalize my lack of obedience to the state. I am barely repressing a simmering rage at the fact that my family and friends, even as they now acknowledge that the vaccines do not prevent transmission of COVID, still refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing in subjecting me and countless others to a mandate that required us to choose between an ineffectual, experimental drug with an unproven safety record and our livelihoods.

So though I recently lost one Old Normal friend due to my continued outspoken heresy about lockdown policies, I could not stop myself from bringing up my losses during my reunion with some Old Normal friends and family recently. The response I received was often quick and reflexive, a glib suggestion that I could easily course correct if I tried a little harder and that all my losses would be erased if I could just get a higher paying job, which they refused to acknowledge are not plentiful in the low-cost of living area where I am now located. “Just get a remote job,” they said, as though high-paying, remote jobs in my line of work are just falling from the sky and I simply have not stepped up to claim one. They would not let themselves think even for a second about the fact that I am continuing to suffer losses due to the mandates that they supported. They admonished me that everyone has moved on, and I should just forget it all, as though I am being unreasonable in recounting the fact that I am continuing to live the consequences of these punitive policies each day. They steadfastly refuse to confront the harms these policies inflicted on people. As long as their lives continue apace, who cares how others suffer? But their reflexive and dismissive responses are also a way for them to avoid arguments because they still see my noncompliance as foolhardy at best, and they do not want to tell me to my face that they think I deserve what I got.

My family member—the first one I felt safe enough to open up to about how I was feeling about COVID—was a little more willing to entertain my pain. She was shocked. It had somehow never occurred to her that my being terminated from a job I had been at for over a decade and being forced to give up my pay, pension, and health insurance might not have been an entirely positive experience for me. It also did not occur to her that my family being terrified of me for two years and refusing to see me or include me in holiday celebrations was a painful and isolating experience. She advised me to forgive them and release my pain, but it was really a plea for me to forget what transpired. I let them back into my life in 2022 with open arms and never said a word before this conversation about how much they hurt me because I excused it as coming from a place of fear. The only way I could forgive them any more than I have is to forget everything that happened. But as I informed my relative, I cannot do that because I am continuing to live the effects of their actions and because I know they would do it all again if the circumstances changed for the worse. She knew this was true and did not object on that point, as she continues to believe that their actions in distancing themselves from me and bullying me about getting vaccinated were completely justified. It appalls me to think about how I spent years tiptoeing around their fear and emotions around COVID, and now when finally confronted with my emotions around COVID, my family wants to immediately dismiss my feelings because they make them feel uncomfortable. Once again, their feelings are valid, and mine are not. Once again, I am expected to subordinate my feelings to theirs.

At one point in the conversation, she mentioned what a deadly virus COVID is, and my face signaled my incredulity at the statement. Seeing my reaction she added that COVID is real. This moment continues to play in my mind. Despite the years that have elapsed, despite the slight widening of the Overton’s window, and despite my baring my soul to her on this matter, she still today reduces me in her head to nothing more than a caricature, some right-wing conspiracy theorist who’s been banging on about what a hoax this all is. The fact that I have never said anything of the sort and intentionally only relied on official, published data from the CDC (data my family and friends continually ignored as they relied solely on whatever propagandista was being spewed by pundits on CNN) in what few conversations I did have with my family does not matter. Still to this day my family cannot admit of any nuance between the total fear and lockdown response that they represent and complete COVID denialism. There is no in between for them, and even as we were in the midst of discussing the peak COVID years, my relative failed to express any intellectual curiosity about why I took the position that I did, just as my family failed to express any curiosity in my critical position as it all was unfolding. Even as my relative was making a concerted effort to understand and empathize with me, her mind would not allow her to see me as an intelligent person who may have valid reasons for coming to a different conclusion on these topics than her and the rest of the family.

At the end of the day, the propaganda runs deep in their psyches, and I am still just a crazy conspiracy theorist to them. They are no longer afraid of me and will tolerate my dissent to a point, but, ultimately, they do so grudgingly, still seeing my heresy as a problem and a sign of intellectual infirmity. How can we have a reckoning as long as lockdown and mandate supporters continue to associate dissent and independent thought with conspiracy theories and extremism?