The 5 Stages of Choosing Myself During A Pandemic

This is Autostraddle’s “How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World” series. In some areas, COVID restrictions are lifting, but regardless of how “post”-COVID some of our individual worlds might feel, a pandemic and its lasting effects rage on. These writers are sharing their struggles and practical knowledge to help readers survive, heal and thrive in 2021.

I. Dreaming

In the dream, I am running breathlessly through the woods at daybreak. There is nothing chasing me and I am running, which assures me this is a dream. As my legs slash through the brush, thin branches cut my shins, and dew on grass washes the blood away in a lullabilic rhythm that soothes me just enough to keep going. If there are animals watching my fat Black body rumble through the woods, they do not make themselves known. There are no crickets chirping, no rustling of leaves, no rivers running. The woods let my breath take up all of our shared space.

I run until the grass becomes dirt, until the dirt becomes rock, until the rock becomes nothing. And I stop. I sit down right at the edge, my thick thighs folded criss-cross applesauce as if I am back in primary school on Ms. Hood’s reading carpet. This is the second sign that this is a dream. My thick thighs have not criss-crossed since primary school, but in this dream — I run, I breathe, I cross my legs and sit on the edge of cliffs as if to say, “This here is mine — this life, this moment.” When I wake, the cliff fades back into my bed and the valley beneath it is just chilled hardwood.

I tap my wife. I hate waking her in the middle of the night. She will be at her computer screen teaching science to black squares hours before I even exit the bedroom in the morning.

“I can’t sleep.”

She stirs and tells me to come and lay in her arms. I stay long enough to hear her fall asleep again.

The night is long with nothing to fill it, a marathon to nowhere. At night, all I hear is the sound of my rotating fan and our breathing: my wife’s, the dog’s, and my own, labored with grief and exhaustion. I go to the bathroom and check my phone. Swipe down, click, swipe down, switch app, click, swipe down, refresh. I repeat until my legs fall asleep and I will them awake by standing and staring at my reflection in the mirror. I am tired of running.

II. Running

When I was in high school, I was a four-year varsity letterman in track and field — heavy on the field. I was a mediocre shot-putter at best and mostly just showed up because I liked sports and was too fat to make the basketball team (there is more running involved in shot put than advertised). Twenty years later, my thighs burn just thinking about the mile we ran to warm up. I always dreamt of being a distance runner, long and fast.

“Keep pumping your arms!” The coach would yell at the distance kids as they trained around the track. “When you are tired, keep pumping your arms and your legs will know what to do!”

I spent the first nine months of the pandemic running full stop. I had just quit a horrible job to focus full-time on my studies and consult more; to be “free.” Terrified, I kept running. Most days, I was afraid to leave my work to get fresh air. The only steps I took covered the distance between my bed, couch, and desk. Yet, where my body wasn’t moving, my dreams were active. I created a collective. I built learning experiences, communities, and programs for folks to stay connected as the world fell apart. I facilitated open spaces, scheduled Zoom dates, read, researched, applied to PhD programs, worked, fucked, and tweeted in order to keep myself alive. If you keep pumping your arms, your legs will know what to do even when the world is crumbling around you.

When it got too hard to run in our 600-square-foot home in Boston, I ran to Vermont to breathe. The mountains met me with openness that let me go, go, go until I could no longer feel the ground or my legs, into a numbness with a beautiful backdrop of greens, blues, and the reds and oranges of the most picturesque sunsets.

III. Sitting

Fate meets you regardless of how fast you run.

My dad died sometime between lunch and bedtime on my wife’s birthday in the second worst year of the decade. At 32, I was an orphan and a seasoned runner. Up to and through my father’s death, I spent my life running, afraid of what might happen when I stopped to rest. Afraid that my community, my job, this world might deem me worthless or invisible without my contributions.

Ain’t you tired of running, baby? my soul asked.

I did not respond. Grieving while the world is grieving is the loneliest lonely I’ve ever met. When my mama died, folks flocked to hold space for me and my healing. During the pandemic, most of my circle was just treading water and I was my own buoy, gasping for air on days the sun shines. It was just enough for me to keep going.

We buried my father’s body. For the first month after, I spent most of my days in bed. My grief, a new, unexpected lover, spooned me tightly as she took everything I could muster. Each morning, I ate oatmeal from a glass measuring cup and spent my days staring at empty Google Docs and measuring my water intake. I did not work. I did not respond to other people’s texts about him — about how sad they were, about how they were thinking about me. The honeymoon phase of grief is just as all-consuming as new love. It envelopes your being and latches onto your heart, reminding you that you are — were — loved and treasured and desired by someone so fiercely that the mere absence of them makes you crumble.

Instead of running from this grief, I chose to sit in it. I was supposed to spend six months writing and instead I spent six months crying, sleeping, and watching the same romantic comedies with all-white casts and predictable endings. White rom-coms are like fantasy movies for folks like me: comforting in a “this is completely unrealistic and yet wouldn’t it be nice if everything also worked out” kind of way.

At the end of Eat, Pray, Love, Julia Roberts, who has somehow afforded a year abroad despite a costly divorce, tells Javier Bardem she loves him. “I decided on my word,” she says. “Attraversiamo. It means ‘let’s cross over.’”

Sixteen months into a pandemic and six months after my father’s death, I wonder what it means to cross over into what comes next.

IV. Being

On Saturday nights in the mountains, my wife and I drive forty three miles south to a restaurant where everyone knows our name. We are the fat, interracial, queer, vegan couple that drives from a different state to order a sandwich and french fries and call it fine dining. We drive past white folks’ country homes surrounded by empty land with “keep out” signs — as if anyone might think of traipsing through the tick-infested tall grass to enjoy an evening picnic. White people are always worried about someone else taking what they took.

Mura Masa’s “What If I Go” blasts through the speakers of our Subaru. “Wherever you go / I’m going with you, babe!” Bonzai sings. The bass is just thick enough to hold my grief and sorrow; to make me bounce and smile as we drive through more darkness I knew I could — then yell.

A bear lumbers in front of our car, across the street, and traipses through the tick-infested tall grass like he didn’t see that “no trespassing” sign them white folks posted. My wife shrills in half-excitement, half-shock. We check off “see a bear” on our “before we leave the mountains” bingo card and keep driving.

In the woods, we can see stars that are hidden by the clouds, buildings, and smog in cities. When we drive after sunset, I count stars to the beat and get lost in thoughts and rhythms.

“Can I ask you a question?” I ask my wife. She is still reeling from the thrill of seeing the bear, but can hear the promise of tears in my voice.

“Of course,” she says.

“Do you think my dad is with my mom?” I ask. My grandma raised me to believe in heaven, but death, trauma, and homophobia have exhausted most of the faith I had left.

“Absolutely. Scientific law says that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So I imagine that their souls have found each other because that connection is forever,” she responds. My wife is a scientist; sometimes her healing comes from knowing that explanations exist for the most unfathomable grief.

Mura Massa’s track stops and another begins, with my silent tears as accompaniment. Like a broken record, I play my wife’s response on a loop in my head, bringing me equal parts peace and relief – not just in my grief, but in choosing to not to run this time — in choosing to invest fully in my own healing and rest.

V. Choosing

It’s confession time: I never ran the entire warm-up, even when I said I did. I usually jog-walked two laps and called it quits. I think my coaches knew back then what I know now. It’s not about the distance but about knowing yourself enough to push through when necessary, and rest when you need it.

If what my wife (and Albert Einstein) says about energy is right, I’d like to imagine that queer energy (and connection) is the same way, especially for folks like me – queer, Black, nonbinary folks forever seeking home and a soft place to land. That even when we choose ourselves, we do so with the love of a community that will forever exist, even amidst isolation, fracture, and heartbreak.

And ain’t that freedom? That we can fly, knowing the ground ain’t going nowhere; that we can heal, rest, and love ourselves without fearing the loss of what once was; that despite everything that happens — we will always be.

I’m tired of running. You go ahead, baby. I’ll get there when I’m ready.
We — this community, our love, this moment — is forever.
Wherever you go, I’m going with you, babe.

Art by Hannah Mumby

Chicago’s Black Sex Workers Hold Each Other Up

This is Autostraddle’s “How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World” series. In some areas, COVID restrictions are lifting, but regardless of how “post”-COVID some of our individual worlds might feel, a pandemic and its lasting effects rage on. These writers are sharing their struggles and practical knowledge to help readers survive, heal and thrive in 2021.

“$50 and a tre?” CJ texts me at 8AM on a weekday much like the ones before it — at the last minute with hopes of negotiating. I am exhausted, too exhausted to go back and forth with him, but I manage to stand my ground with a quick and simple “no” in response. “You sure?” he asks. “Sure you don’t need anything?”

The framing of this question from a former client who is well-aware of my rates and boundaries during a global pandemic angers me. Him offering far less than what I regularly charge plus a bag of weed adds insult to injury. But what bothers me most is that he knows exactly what he is doing. CJ sees me as a discounted sexual object — one unworthy of boundaries and, more than likely after this conversation, a very ungrateful one.

When he calls, I forward him to voicemail and block him soon after. Though this brings me some level of comfort, I know that we will have to cross paths in the near future. We stay in the same neighborhood.

There are other sex workers in the area who also keep their distance from CJ and others like him. He has a reputation on the blade as a boundary-pusher who never pays up the full amount once he gets us (Black “survival” sex workers/ lower-income providers) alone. Some of us experienced threats of physical violence. Others have been humiliated in public spaces or at community gatherings. And while hoes on the South and West Sides of Chicago navigate survival during this particular time, these kinds of experiences are getting worse.

On My Block

Chicago’s racialized geographic history shows over a century of Black erotic labor pockets throughout the city, starting with the Levee’s existence from the 1870s through the early 1900s. Then white flight happened along with post-Great Migration gentrification and the strategic development of segregated neighborhoods. This pushed entire Black communities, including laborers of the sex industry, further south and west, creating the strolls and vice districts we are familiar with today. The city’s segregation established a clear difference in the value attached to one’s erotic labor. The further south or west you are as a Black sex worker, the more likely you are to experience attempts at price negotiation, heavy policing and violence.

In addition to anti-Blackness and whorehobia/ heauxphobia, there is also the stigma attached to labor in lower-income communities and predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods. With that comes limited views on fair treatment, legislation, compensation and what it means for clients to get their “bang for your buck.” We are supposed to be grateful for what we get, even if that means being tossed scraps and disrespect. This is the case whether you’re dancing in clubs or working the stroll.

Sociologist Siobhan Brooks discusses this dynamic in her book Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry: “The criminalization of desire industries, along with intersections of racism, classism, and geographic location, adds to isolation of people and the disruption of communities.” She continues, “This last point is critical to understanding how zoning laws, along with systemic disinvestment in low-income communities of color, affects workers in desire industries, and the larger community that surrounds them. It also affects how customers view strip clubs and the value placed on the women who work in them regarding safety and wages.”

Black sex workers are deemed less valuable, creating environments where they are expected to perform more emotional, physical and erotic labor for less compensation than their non-Black peers and colleagues. This places them at the bottom of the heauxarchy/ whorearchy pyramid and aids in developing environments where harm and violence are oftentimes overlooked. Whenever I see civvies cruising red light districts for laughs and entertainment, I think of this. When I am reminded of club raids and street sweeps, I think of this.

In my neighborhood, there are two strolls with a park in-between them that has been used as disposal grounds for prostitutes in the area for well over twenty years. This, too, crosses my mind when considering the stigma attached to race, location, sex work and value systems.

We Were Here and We Were Loud

Around this time last year, we gathered at Washington Park for a march and vigil organized by Chicago Hoes for Sex Work, Stripper Strike Chicago, Aura House, Molasses, Kopano and Lynzo. “I specifically chose Washington Park because I believe Black Trans people and Black sex workers deserve to sit in the parks of their communities and watch the best sunset on the southside of the city,” Lynzo said.

We mourned community members who are no longer here with us. We celebrated their lives. We built an altar. We sang and we danced. The entire summer, the city erupted in protests and uprising. We were tired. We were angry. We were drained.

Just months before that, COVID-19 had entered the picture, drastically affecting our livelihoods and loved ones. We were already feeling the impacts of recent legislation like revamped loitering laws aimed at prostitutes and FOSTA/ SESTA. I thought about what it meant to be part of Black sex working community and our long history of organizing, mutual aid, protests and movements. I thought about what it meant to stand beside one another screaming at the top of our lungs. Who else but us will remind the world that we have been here rooted in rich soil that we cultivated and nourished?

Fight, Flight and the Gray Areas In-Between

We are now over a year into this pandemic reality. Some sex workers have retired or are on hiatus, and others are making it work with current stipulations in place. I have found myself fluctuating between long breaks and “turbo mode” periods where I struggle with what’s best as a full service provider (and sometimes cam model). My best-paying client of more than ten years no longer frequents my boudoir or smut sites. Other clients have made more attempts at nickle-and-diming than I would like to count. “Freestyling” has been difficult. Violence on the clock has increased and staying caught up with rent and other bills has been an obstacle. I am never satisfied, whether it be full-service, camming or creative projects like @HeauxHistory. I always feel this sense of imbalance, never quite focused on one particular thing, which leaves me with an odd feeling of guilt no matter how “productive” I am. Comrades remind me to be kind to myself. I remind myself (and them) that I am trying.

Offerings

In the past few months, we’ve lost quite a few sex workers. Before we even have a moment to process, we begin planning around funeral costs, survival needs for family and friends and what memorializing and celebrating our loved ones looks like. We gather and mobilize. We pass around the same $20 – $100 to help each other through. We take a second to feel and get back to work. We light candles and pour out libations on the block.

When I got the news about my grandmother passing, my heart sank. Although my family had planned around this and I was able to get in some bonding moments before she left, I knew I was losing a certain kind of understanding that only existed with her. Granny survived and provided for her family through multiple gigs, including erotic labor. When I got into the game and was ostracized by other family members, she took me in. I always had a home with her.

Already feeling the loss of two community members (rest up V and Nona), I prepared for another memorial event of a fellow Black sex worker. It wasn’t saying goodbye that was difficult — it was recognizing that this particular part of her history and life would be ignored, erased, glossed over.

When I spoke at her funeral, I shared the last voicemail she left me. I wrote a letter, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it. Instead, I placed my message to her in the coffin along with a crystal I carried for weeks. I went to the water and sprinkled orchids and peonies into the ripples and waves. I thanked her for loving me, for showing me what it means to build community, for teaching me how to stand my ground, for showing me how to apply make up, for gifting me my first set of silky slips and pajamas, for waiting up for me during late nights to make sure I made it home safely (and to gossip).

When I made it home, I could not eat or sleep much. Sex worker friends checked in, offered their support, reminded me that I am loved and that “the work” can wait. For days I sat with how many of us have had to say goodbye to our loved ones. I thought about the ways Black sex workers impact their communities, the way we share our stories, the urgency in our cadence and how important it is that we celebrate ourselves and one another. When I am asked how we are surviving COVID-19 I consider the ways we pour into one another and band together. We survive hand in hand, side by side.

Art by Hannah Mumby

What Long COVID Taught Me About Mutual Aid

This is Autostraddle’s “How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World” series. In some areas, COVID restrictions are lifting, but regardless of how “post”-COVID some of our individual worlds might feel, a pandemic and its lasting effects rage on. These writers are sharing their struggles and practical knowledge to help readers survive, heal and thrive in 2021.
On May 1, 2020, I was tested for COVID. This was part of routine testing across our Minneapolis social service agency following positive COVID cases among our clients. My positive test was a surprise to me — I didn’t have any symptoms beyond what I thought was pandemic-anxiety creating shortness of breath. I completed my ten days of isolation at home and returned to work. It was remarkably unremarkable. And — given that two weeks later George Floyd would be killed, the city would ignite in flames and hundreds of us would take over a hotel to get unhoused people indoors and off the militarized streets — it goes without saying that the “asymptomatic” COVID case I had was quickly forgotten. Instead, we were creating mutual aid networks to get supplies to neighborhoods whose groceries stores burned down. We activated community defense networks to protect homes and respond to fires. We raised thousands, then millions of dollars for abolitionist efforts around the city.

It wasn’t until around July 2020 that I started noticing what I would come to understand as some combination of Long COVID and post-viral fatigue. I started wearing a pulse oximeter when things like walking to the kitchen sink would leave me breathless and spike my heart rate. I missed two days of work after walking my dog one July afternoon because I got so sick afterward. I was experiencing shortness of breath; heart palpitations; tachycardia; night sweats; changes in taste, smell and appetite. Even the smallest exertions required recovery time. Every single entry I wrote in my journal during the month of July references my fatigue.

This pattern of vague, diffuse symptoms that left me completely wiped would continue for months to come. An entry in my journal from October 14th reads, “Well, I think a lovely evening drinking with my brothers brought on a relapse of symptoms. I’ve been off work Monday and Tuesday this week and I’m feeling like crap today. I wish I had started keeping a symptom log earlier in this process because it feels silly to try and start one nearly six months in”. It continues with a list of symptoms: short of breath, chest pain/ pressure, shaky hands, flushed face/ itchy skin, fever feelings/ chills despite no fever, brain fog, palpitations (“not racing heart, but pounding heart”), muscle weakness/ heavy limbs, headache (“dehydration? COVID?”), fatigue (“as usual”).

Despite this list of symptoms, no doctor or test found anything wrong. My blood work was normal. The Zio patch heart monitor I wore for two weeks was normal. In September, I took myself to the ER thinking I had deep vein thrombosis due to swelling in my ankles and a severe calf cramp that lasted almost ten days. My CT scan and the ultrasounds were normal. Every additional COVID test I got was “not detected.” With a litany of normal tests, it was hard not to question my own sanity. Am I actually sick? Am I making it up? Do I really even actually feel that bad? And yet, I was still missing multiple days of work per month and the time between sick days was getting shorter and shorter.

I finally collapsed in January 2021. I had been sliding down a hill picking up speed toward this inevitable collapse for a while, but I just hadn’t been able to admit it to myself. It wasn’t until I literally shit my pants at work that I finally admitted defeat and requested a short-term disability leave. January 29th, 2021, was the first day of what would end up being a three month medical leave.

In May, I returned to work part-time. It turns out that the medical leave wasn’t actually enough to cure my Long COVID symptoms, but it did give me enough space to reflect on which COVID lessons are worth carrying forward into the post(?)-COVID world. Going back through my journal entries, notes in my phone and blog posts from the last year, it surprised me to realize that the same things I need in order to manage my Long COVID are the things we all need for the future we are creating: mutual aid, seasons of receiving along with our seasons of giving, self-care that is directly connected to community care, less work, body trust and disability justice.

If you’ve never had a health crisis like this before, it’s quite humbling. I’ve never been good at asking for help, but when you’re so collapsed that you literally can’t manage, you’ll be amazed at how much help you ask for and how the help you ask for still won’t be enough. I had always believed in mutual aid, but I can’t say I had fully comprehended the mutual part. Mutual aid is mutual because, as much as I hate to admit it, we all need more support than we can provide ourselves. I had to ask for help not just once, but repeatedly for months, and I’ve come out the other side as a mutual aid evangelical. People ordered me dinner — not once, but weekly; delivered me meal boxes; brought my flowers and sent me care packages. The more we can think about our personal resources as resources that are meant to be shared, the more we can get our own needs met in our own seasons of receiving; our “winters,” as Katherine May calls them in her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.

I spent weeks in collapse mode, unable to even consider “active recovery”. I watched eight seasons of Supernatural in the first three weeks of my leave and showered only three times in that same timeframe. And do you know what I would find myself thinking about in moments of quiet? Work. How fucking miserable is that? It’s like even though I knew I was off work, my body didn’t know I was off work. It occurred to me that there is a part of my body that has been made to feel unsafe by the chronic demands of work under capitalism. Intellectually, I know I feel safe at work and, arguably, it sounds ridiculous and even dangerous to throw around phrases like “feeling unsafe” so loosely. But my body’s autonomic responses to stressors don’t know the difference between “real” threats and perceived ones. The pervasive demand by society to Do More left me feeling trapped and even — as my therapist sometimes suggests — traumatized by insidious pressures to work, even as my body continued to wear down. In a March 4th blog post, I wrote, “Tonight I did a really casual search for ‘social work’ across a couple of job boards just to see how it felt. I started to cry.”

I did eventually stop watching Supernatural and turn toward healing. It turns out that the diagnostic and treatment process for Long COVID, even in a very mild case such as mine, is practically a full-time job. My process has included a post-COVID doctor that I’ve seen every six weeks since February, an MRI of my brain, a neurology appointment, chest x-rays, an overnight sleep study, multiple sleep appointments, a referral for a neuropsych exam I still haven’t had, a pulmonary function test, a pulmonology appointment, weekly physical therapy, weekly occupational therapy and, coming up, voice therapy for my damaged vocal cords and breathing muscles. My occupational therapist prescribed me fatigue management tools like blue light glasses and note-taking, an 8:30pm bedtime, sunglasses in the grocery store, smell and taste training and more. My physical therapist prescribed me a maximum heart rate of 120 (now, after two months, 140) beats per minute, thoracic stretches, breathing exercises and 20 minutes of walking every day. The sleep doctor prescribed me iron supplements to help with restless legs — supplements that also cause digestive distress. The neurologist told me nothing was wrong “except for the obesity.” The pulmonologist prescribed me an inhaler and suggested that it will be awfully hard to lose the weight I gained when my heart rate needs to stay so low.

Throughout this entire process and as of this writing, the short-term disability claim I initiated in late January has never been approved. I had zero income during my leave because the insurance company still doesn’t have the right medical documentation to prove that I needed to be off work. Even with relatively good health insurance, healthcare is prohibitively expensive and disability insurance benefits (not that I ever fucking got them!) only cover 60% of wages. It was here that the mutuality of mutual aid really came into high relief. After years of facilitating things I call “barnraisers” on Twitter, I needed my own barnraiser. I created a Plumfund, emailed a pointed ask for help to 36 people and shared my ask on Twitter. In four days of fundraising, my community put together over $12,000 for my partner and me. Caring for myself and asking for that help allowed me to get back to the business of recovery and has kept me connected to my community, even in my season of receiving.

I returned to work in May — not because I was physically or spiritually ready to go back to work, but because that was when my short-term disability benefits were due to run out (not that I ever fucking got them!). And, in order to potentially qualify for long-term disability benefits, I had to return to work at least 20 hours per week. If I’ve become an evangelical for mutual aid during this health crisis, I’ve become a zealot about the need for all of us to reduce how much we work. I learned from Long COVID (and my occupational therapist) that my body is my compass and also my captain. If I don’t submit to my body, it will shut the lights off regardless. From my March 19th blog post: “My body has been very clear with me in it’s absolute refusal to participate in work. I said to a fellow disabled friend yesterday that the level of bodily refusal to even entertain the *idea* of work feels so strong that I actually feel like I will be abusing myself if/ when I have to return to work.” My body gives me very clear cues (fatigue, malaise, brain fog, tinnitus, body pain, nausea, hand tremors, etc.) when I exceed my capacity. While I used to be too stubborn to listen, I am listening closely now. My body no longer cares about what is expected of me by society, about how my bills can’t get paid while I’m trying to prioritize my health or about any obligations or guilt I feel toward my job. I am no longer in control of this body (was I ever?); it is in control of me.

My sense is that many of our bodies are reaching this point. A year-plus of pandemic living has revealed just how much our bodies can bear and the end of what we can bear no longer. People are tired, and our bodies will not be forced against their wills. We are all long overdue for a transformation of our working conditions, and our bodies know this. Your body might not have reached outright mutiny the way mine has, but it will — give it time. It has become an essential part of my thoughts to find a way out of this way of working because working like this will literally kill me if I don’t. Becoming disabled by the world is radicalizing, and I already thought I was pretty radical.

Perhaps if you take all these things together — the COVID, the mutual aid, the community care, the body trust, and the urgent need to divorce our health and living from our ability to work — what you get is what disability justice movement has been trying to tell us forever: our bodies are the site of that we carry. As Aurora Levins Morales puts it in Kindling: Writings on the Body, “What our bodies require in order to thrive, is what the world requires. If there is a map to get there, it can be found in the atlas of our skin and bone and blood, in the tracks of neurotransmitters and antibodies.” Looking forward to the world we are shaping (hat-tip to adrienne maree brown) beyond the pandemic looks pretty similar to the radical roots all bodies require for living.

Art by Hannah Mumby

How To Fight An Eviction

This is Autostraddle’s “How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World” series. In some areas, COVID restrictions are lifting, but regardless of how “post”-COVID some of our individual worlds might feel, a pandemic and its lasting effects rage on. These writers are sharing their struggles and practical knowledge to help readers survive, heal and thrive in 2021.
Loss of income, untreated mental and physical health issues, unemployment, lack of family support — these are just a few reasons why people end up evicted. When it happened to me in 2012, I was a year out of college pursuing a career in both music journalism and in the non-profit social impact space. I spent part of the year covering bands and live music in Detroit and another part of the year in Central America freelance writing while also working and volunteering at an arts and human rights organization. I came back home to Michigan after my contract ended, and only six months later, shortly after signing my lease, I was being forced out of my home.

On the outside, I probably looked like I had my shit together. But in reality, I was depressed, unemployed and grieving the loss of my brother who had died earlier in the year. I was ashamed, so I told no one about my downward spiral. Like so many people who live with depression, I felt uncomfortable bringing attention to what I was going through. I didn’t want to inconvenience or burden anyone with my problems and I was afraid of making people worry about me. In my silence, I wanted to be stronger. But because I wasn’t taking care of my mental health in the aftermath of his death, I missed deadlines and forgot about events and assignments. I lost the main writing contract that had been my financial life raft, and slowly over time, the bills started piling up. As a first generation college graduate, I didn’t have any family to fall back on. Eventually, I received an eviction notice, and though I secured new employment and tried to explain my situation to my landlord, it was too late. I was swiftly kicked out.

My story, like so many others, shows the way a single life event can create a ripple effect that leaves an already vulnerable person to deal with housing insecurity. As COVID-19 spread across the world, many people suddenly found themselves unemployed, scared and searching for answers amidst a chaotic political environment. As of today, hundreds of thousands of Americans have already been, or will be, evicted from their homes since the pandemic led to widespread job and income loss in March 2020. Given the poor protections for tenants, the economic fallout and the chronic lack of access to affordable housing and healthcare, America’s housing crisis has only deepened since the pandemic began. Over 6000 evictions were filed last week alone.

Eviction laws vary state by state, but there are steps to understanding and fighting eviction that can apply to everyone. Though the CDC extended the nationwide pause on evictions through June 30th, 2021, state and federal protections are not automatic. If you’re one of the millions of people experiencing financial insecurity right now, there are many steps tenants need to take to secure their housing. Let’s break down what you need to know:

Your Housing Rights

• Your rental agreement is 100% the most important source of information about your housing rights and responsibilities as a tenant, so make sure you read it carefully to understand what’s expected of both you and your landlord. When in doubt, you can contact a housing counselor with questions or search for laws relating to your state via the Housing and Urban Development website.
• Advocate for yourself — document EVERYTHING. Make sure to take photos of your unit before you move in so you have proof of any potential damage that occurred before you got there. If you ask your landlord for any sort of accommodation, send it in an email or do it in writing. Receipts aren’t just for catching your shady ex in lies — they’ll back you up and provide evidence if anything with your landlord gets taken to court. If the landlord agrees orally, send a letter to them confirming details of what you discussed.

If You Can’t Pay Rent

• Check your lease or rental agreement to find out if you have a rent grace period and how long it may be (five days is usually standard). Communicate with your landlord about your struggles as early as possible to see if they are willing to accommodate you with a flexible payment plan. If you have any documentation of your loss of income or unemployment, present that information to help your landlord understand the situation. Tell your landlord when you believe you can have the payment or suggest a payment plan to pay some of the rent now and the remaining rent in installments over a period of time. When you reach an agreement together, put it in writing immediately.
• Ask your landlord if they are getting mortgage help. If your landlord is receiving mortgage forbearance relief from the federal government during the pandemic, they have responsibilities to their tenants and aren’t allowed to evict them. To find out if your property has an HUD/FHA mortgage use the  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) property search tool.
• If you live in public housing or if you have a housing choice voucher, contact your public housing agency to let them know that there has been a change in your income, and they should adjust your portion. If you live in a federally assisted property, contact the property management to have them adjust your portion.

How the Eviction Process Works

The eviction process varies state by state, but in most cases, the first step of the eviction process is a written notice. Keep in mind that even when you’re facing eviction, you still have rights. Use government resources to aid your fight. All states have unique statutes and laws regarding eviction, so check with your local court system for more details about the eviction process.

In most states, there are specific guidelines about how landlords can present eviction documents to their tenants and exactly how long the tenant has to respond. If your landlord fails to meet any of these requirements, their eviction may be dismissed, which means they’ll have to start all over with the whole process. Keep in mind that if your lease has expired or if you have a verbal lease agreement, the landlord can simply give you a written eviction notice.

Attend your eviction hearing. Though most were closed during the pandemic, eviction courts are beginning to reopen across the country to process the increasing backlog of evictions that were filed in the last year. It’s important to show up, especially if you hope to fight and hopefully win the case. It’s at the eviction hearing you can advocate for yourself and present any evidence that may be helpful to the judge.

Seek out legal help. Find out if you’re eligible for free legal services to be able to speak to a lawyer to learn about your rights. A lawyer can help explain whether you’re protected by the CARES Act or other local mandate, as well as how regular eviction laws apply in your situation and what exactly you need to do to fight an eviction. Just be sure to collect any information you have regarding your rental property, including voicemails, texts, emails, letters, pictures, receipts, lease agreements, notices, etc., before reaching out to a lawyer, as they’ll want to have a clear understanding of the situation. Your local tenants’ rights organization regularly helps people facing and fighting eviction and can offer resources on any pro bono help available to tenants as well.

Regardless of what your situation is, don’t ignore the eviction notice. Make sure to check and double check the document date, including the one for the actual eviction, the court date and, most importantly, the date by which you must notify the court that you want a hearing. The earlier you ask for help, contact organizations and apply to rent assistance programs, the sooner you can feel some relief in finding a solution.

Federal Eviction Protection

Through the CARES Act, U.S. tenants are protected against eviction for nonpayment of rent through at least June 30, 2021. Renters seeking federal eviction protection must meet certain requirements, sign a form and give it to their landlord. If you break certain terms of your lease, though, like damaging property, you can still be evicted. The CDC order doesn’t apply to homeowners facing foreclosure, and the CDC protections don’t apply if you live in an area that already has the same or better eviction protections, which is why it’s important to check on your local housing policies.

State and local protections can widely vary, and several states have extended eviction moratorium dates. Find out if your state extended protection and research and apply for any rent assistance programs that may be available.

Check with local housing officials, tenants’ councils or other similar non-profit organizations to see if they have additional resources to share or any other enacted protections for eviction or foreclosure that potentially give more protection than the CARES Act or last longer.

Art by Hannah Mumby

Editor’s Note: On ‘How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World’

An inside look, just for A+ members, from Autostraddle’s editors on the process, struggles, and surprises of working on what you’re reading on the site. We learn so much from this work before it ever even makes it to your eyes; now you can, too!

We do not live in a “post-COVID” world.

While some parts of the world resume normal activities, the virus remains alive and mutuating. As you read this, India’s COVID death toll has climbed past 300,000. South America has lost over one million. COVID variants, which are more easily transmissible, have spread across the globe. The wealthiest nations are still hoarding vaccines. In the US, more than half of residents are still noxt fully vaccinated, some of them by choice, and AAPI communities are facing a heightened level of violence and discrimination in the name of COVID-blame. And regardless of how “post”-COVID our individual worlds might feel as restrictions lift, we are all still living through the trauma of a global pandemic.

We are grieving those we lost to COVID. We’re facing ongoing health complications after surviving the virus. We’re unemployed and in debt. We’re readjusting to in-person work and school. We’re recognizing the failings of leaders who did not and will not protect our most vulnerable communities from the pandemic’s wrath. This series serves as a reminder that we’re not alone.

“How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World” came from my own fears and frustrations. My family members live in a state where only 36% of the population has been fully vaccinated. I live in Chicago, where our mayor spent $281.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief money on the police. I’m watching my city and my loved ones continue to suffer from the mental, physical and financial impact of the pandemic, and I’m trudging through my own ongoing pandemic-related struggles. Still, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but for so many people, that light won’t be visible for a very long time.

The writers featured in this series share their pain, their coping skills and their practical knowledge to help Autostraddle readers work towards stability in a COVID-stricken (and perhaps, someday, a truly post-COVID) world. I’m grateful for their vulnerability and guidance, and I hope that you’ll find some help and healing in their stories.

Remote Learning Is Over, But I’m Still Disabled

This is Autostraddle’s “How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World” series. In some areas, COVID restrictions are lifting, but regardless of how “post”-COVID some of our individual worlds might feel, a pandemic and its lasting effects rage on. These writers are sharing their struggles and practical knowledge to help readers survive, heal and thrive in 2021.

I have been disabled for several years now, though I didn’t recognize it. However, disability has been a large part of my life. A considerable part of my friends and family are disabled or have medical conditions that are legally disabilities. For years I have witnessed the ableism they were subjected to in academic spaces and workspaces. They were expected to perform despite the detriment to their health, and their requests for accessibility were treated like favors or inconveniences. One opted not to seek accommodations as I did. In their case, it was to avoid the stigma of disability in the workplace. Often, the accommodations or services provided were of no use to them. And if they were unable to function as abled people do, they were blamed or reprimanded. In my academic setting, my physically disabled classmates were forced to attend courses in barely accessible classrooms in hardly accessible buildings at an institution with poor infrastructure.

I’ve been aware of how resistant the corporate and academic world is to remote work, and I was confused by this expectation that people be physically present in the age of emails, smartphones and video conference software. But when the pandemic reached Puerto Rico and the United States, suddenly remote work and remote learning became viable options. I was angry for the people in my life that had been denied the possibility of studying and working in a modality that was accessible to them. A year later, that anger would apply to me.

I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depression during my late teens. Both disorders were a result of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which I began experiencing in my freshman year of college. Even though my academic performance was occasionally impacted by my mental illness, I refused to seek out accommodations at my college’s Disability Services office. I was acing my classes and was convinced that I had no need for accommodations. Requesting them would make me yet another person that abused the system. The pandemic reached my homeland of Puerto Rico in mid-March, the beginning of my last trimester of college. The isolation, the loss of my routine and the tragedies at a global scale pushed me into a month-long depressive episode that made completing my final semester extremely difficult. I submitted most of my work late and almost lost the opportunity to defend my honors thesis. Nevertheless, I graduated (with honors!) and was admitted to my current master’s program. Both my depressive episode and my degree had ended, and I was thrilled to begin my move to Atlanta for graduate school with my partner.

But between late May and early June, my health began faltering. I started experiencing sudden weakness, headaches, dizziness and light-headedness. Running errands left me extremely fatigued. My (former) endocrinologist was inattentive and unhelpful during our telehealth appointments. The cardiologist found nothing wrong. Laboratory and radiology tests did not indicate anything out of the ordinary. Appointments with other specialists were unavailable for months. My move to Atlanta came, and I did not yet have answers.

After I had paid my deposit and booked my flight, the institution I had enrolled in announced that my classes would be taught online. Being able to socially distance eased my anxiety about the pandemic. My fear of contracting COVID in an unfamiliar city in a country where healthcare is so expensive was significantly lessened. I was able to remain in my home for weeks at a time. However, the loneliness and the challenges of virtual learning, along with my poor health, sent me into more depressive episodes. Time that I meant to spend reading and writing papers was instead occupied by medical appointments for vertigo and migraines, and frequent naps. I was sleeping most of the day and waking up feeling tired. I couldn’t concentrate. I fell behind in my classwork. Fortunately, my professors were understanding and accommodating. I took incomplete grades for the semester and flew to Puerto Rico to visit my family, visit more specialists and have a tiny marriage ceremony.

The end of the semester and the Caribbean sun improved my mood significantly. I also adopted an emotional support dog, which gave me great comfort. The migraines virtually disappeared. But the dizzy spells continued. The fatigue that overtook me at the smallest physical exertion persisted. I spent the larger part of my summer vacation in bed. I had yet to find a specialist that would heed my concerns.

Upon returning to Atlanta, I had to rebook my return flight twice because the U.S. Department of Transportation had recently allowed airlines to ban Emotional Support Animals (or ESAs) in the passenger cabin, and my dog was too large to fit under the seat. The ruling was meant to culminate years of passengers claiming their untrained pets as ESAs to avoid pet travel fees. This was perhaps the first time I began to think of myself disabled. If I benefited from accommodations for disabled folk, and the removal of said accommodations impacted me, it made sense to think of myself as having a disability, even if I did not always find it to be disabling. When I learned the news about ESAs, I shared the indignation of other disabled people about the injustice of the situation. Why were people with mental, emotional and intellectual disabilities being punished and forced to incur more expenses because abled people exploited the accommodations for convenience?

Recognizing my disabilities didn’t prompt me to seek accommodations for the spring semester. I already knew what to expect and I was convinced that I could handle it. In addition, I knew that professors were being — or attempting to be — flexible due to our collective circumstances. I had appointments lined up with more specialists, hopeful to obtain a diagnosis. A month into the semester, I was getting worse. The fatigue worsened and I started experiencing joint pain, muscle aches and brain fog. This once again worsened my depression and anxiety. My general physician referred me to a rheumatologist. The laboratory results were “abnormal,” but inconclusive. I was caught in a cycle of mental and physical unwellness that made the most mundane tasks an incredible chore. And even with a lighter workload, I concluded the semester with two more incompletes and failed a class for the first time in my life.

Despite all the difficulties that I faced this past year, I consider myself lucky. I’m lucky that I have a supportive, attentive and understanding partner who encourages me to rest. It pains me to say that I’m lucky to have access to healthcare. Moreover, I’m lucky that I became physically disabled during a year when I wasn’t required to be anywhere. It’s very possible that if my first year of graduate school had not been remote, I would’ve had to drop out of the program I was thrilled to be a part of or risk becoming more ill. Even on my worst days, I could attend class by logging into a virtual classroom from the comfort of my bed. Some of my professors recorded their classes, allowing me to revisit them if I was too weak to take notes or was unable to focus on the lesson. So when the university I attend announced a return to face-to-face classes, I felt afraid.

I haven’t yet received a diagnosis to certify that I have a physical disability that requires accommodations. I’m afraid I won’t have the spoons for the one hour commute and the three to six hours of sitting in a classroom. I’m afraid professors’ empathy and understanding ended along with remote learning. I’m finally requesting accommodations, but they are limited to disability-excused absences and I fear that this won’t prevent me from missing material and possibly falling behind.

Most of all, I still fear COVID. Recently, people who suffer from PCOS have been identified as high-risk patients, although we’re not included on the CDC comorbidity list. I don’t know if my yet-to-be-diagnosed illness also puts me at higher risk of contracting the disease or suffering severe symptoms. My loved ones who, like me, obtained relief, rest and safety from remote work will soon be expected to return to taxing and ableist environments. COVID is still a threat, especially to disabled and chronically ill people, because we are considered disposable. Our world is more than eager to go back to the inaccessible “normal” of before instead of building a new one where disabled people can use the numerous technological resources of today to learn, work and live our lives on our own terms.

What now? I will keep wearing my mask. I will not push myself to meet impossible demands for me and my body. I will continue to advocate for myself in ableist spaces. And I will continue to rest in a world that devalues me because I cannot go without it.

Art by Hannah Mumby