Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch): A lot of my friends have just stopped talking to me because they feel guilty talking about their lives while my whole social life, apart from work, has been on hold since March 2020. And that's a whole extra thing to grieve about. 1/7
Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch): High risk people are dealing with the fact that we're still high risk over 2 years in with no meaningful infrastructure changes to protect us. We didn't use that time to radically transform our indoor environments to offer ventilation and distancing. 2/7
Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch): Many of us still can't risk shifting back into social lives when there's so much misinformation. When people are blaming COVID symptoms on allergies or stomach bugs. We can't go back out in public with a disease that's rapidly evolving and still killing people every day. 3/7
Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch): And as time drags on my non-disabled friends just inch further and further away. Because they have all given up on restrictions. They've caught COVID and it's made them brave bc they survived if before and didn't develop long-COVID. 4/7
Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch): They won't explicitly downplay my worries, but there's also an air of "you're overreacting" or "when are you going to give this up?" hanging around. People asking when I'll feel safe. I won't, until I see better numbers, news, and actual interventions in place. 5/7
Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch): Over time my relationships have shifted. I've heard it all - from "we're all in this together" to "well we can't do this for forever" to "you can't just close yourself off for forever." I've been gaslit, I've been forced into dangerous conditions, and I've been left behind. 6/7
Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD (@Nicole_Lee_Sch): And it's one thing to watch academia, and medicine, and the govt do that to me. Bc those spaces always do that to me and their actions/reactions have been wholly unsurprising these past few years. It's another thing when it's people who I thought loved me. 7/7 #DisabilityTwitter