Megan
Megan is 26, single and lives with her parents. Ethnicity: White English.
Megan caught Covid in July 2021. After coming out of self-isolation, Megan felt fine for about a week, but then says she “…just sort of deteriorated.” Since having Covid, she’s experienced problems with her taste, smell and mental health. Megan was interviewed in November 2021.
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Megan caught Covid in July 2021 at a large birthday party. At the time she says she didn’t feel particularly unwell with it. After coming out of self-isolation, Megan felt fine for about a week, but then says she “…just sort of deteriorated.” Initially she noticed a change in her sense of smell which she finds difficult to explain other than it being an “awful horrendous smell” which has since developed into not being able to smell very much at all. She also noticed that her mental health deteriorated significantly around this time. Megan has more recently noticed changes in her sense of taste.
Megan describes never having struggled with her mental health before contracting Covid, and so found the onset of her symptoms to be “very weird.” Megan says she felt sad, very tearful and “…just wanted to be at home.” Around this time, she found doing her job difficult, and suffered a panic attack.
Megan went to her GP who gave her a number to call to discuss her depression and anxiety. She says didn’t find this very helpful as she couldn’t explain to them why she was feeling the way she was “I sort of went through my life and they were like, ‘So, why are you like this? I was like…I don’t know.”
Megan’s symptoms put a strain on her relationship with her parents. Although she found them to be very supportive, Megan found it quite hard to communicate how she was feeling with them at the time and she tended just to say them “…everything’s fine.”
Megan says she’s taking things “day by day” and fortunately says her symptoms are now improving – “Definitely feel more like myself.”
Megan described how she couldn’t stop crying. She had “never struggled with depression or anything like that ever before.”
Megan described how she couldn’t stop crying. She had “never struggled with depression or anything like that ever before.”
Yeah, in a bad place. I mean, I never had any bad thoughts or anything like that. I was just, I just didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to be in my own little bubble where I could, if I wanted to be sad, I, I could just be sad without sort of explaining because I didn't know how to explain it. I just wanted to be on my own, if that makes sense.
Oh, it was like I wasn’t myself. It was like, I was a completely different person like I, I couldn't bring myself to talk because if I talked, I’d, I’d start to tremble, my lips would start to tremble and like my eyes would well up and I, I wouldn't know why. It just became-, it’s starting to happen now [laughs].
Oh, I’m sorry.
It, it was weird. I just felt, I felt like I just wanted to hide. I wanted to crawl under my duvet and be in like a black room and just hide from everything. It was not, not nice. But normally I’m really happy myself. I can speak to anyone—
Some days, yeah I fel-, well like I genuinely thought I was either going insane or I don’t know. I thought my brain was either shutting down or I was going mental or some days I was like ‘do I need to go to a psychiatric unit, like [laughs] what is wrong with me?’
Because it wasn’t a couple of tears, it was days of just non-stop, couldn't control crying and it was, I had these tears, and I had no idea, why these tears were coming out, if that makes sense. So, it was definitely, definitely unusual and I’ve definitely never felt anything like it before – ever.