there's a lot of ways the pandemic will have lasting damage on the world but the one i mourn the most is how many friendships just straight up ended because of extreme covid anxiety¹ morphing into agoraphobia over a three year period
¹(please note: i am not referring to immunocompromised people; that is not anxiety, that's reasonable caution. the two are very different and i am currently referring only to anxiety, i.e a stress response that is much greater in magnitude than the stressor merits, to the degree that it interferes with regular quality of life. i would appreciate if nobody responded to this post as if it's referring to immunocompromised people, because not only is that a different issue, but it redirects the energy away from the problem I'm trying to draw attention to, which is about healthy able-bodied people who have developed longterm mental health issues and profound desocialization due to unmanaged anxiety in response to the pandemic)
