Is it Covid? Is it Allergies? Is it just me?

I think I speak for all millennials when I say... what the fuck!?

What exactly is going on lately? What is wrong with me? Why do I feel so shitty all the time? I wake up any given day and can name at least 2-3 ailments that really don't seem like they should be there. Bad sleep. Lower back pain. A headache I haven't been able to shake for two weeks. A slight cough. A dry throat. A weird pain in my side. Jaw pain from teeth clenching. Stiff legs from sitting too long. Eyes that feel like they are bleeding from all the screen time. Indigestion. Cramps. An unwavering and unrelenting feeling of complete dread.

And then you sit there asking yourself... is it covid? Is it allergies? Is it my period? Is it the flu? Is it seasonal depression? Is it actual depression? IS IT JUST ME BEING ALIVE!?

These are all pretty much based on real life experiences so to be honest, I still don't know the answer.

I realize this isn't exclusive to millennials... I mean throw a stone in any direction and it will hit someone who is feeling pretty tired lately. But us millennials have been living in a fight-or-flight mode for the majority of our lives and honestly, we are barely hanging on by a thread lately. We are constantly stuck between "Oh, another major life-altering catastrophe AND aliens are invading the planet? Cool, cool. You're going to have to do better than that to phase us." and "Just used all my savings to pay the deposit on a $2,500/month annual lease for a 500 sq.ft. shared house with holes in the floor so I'll never be able to buy a house or be a parent or travel or pay off my student loan debt and I'm having heart palpitations but I can't afford to go to the doctor because I have terrible health insurance and I'm still paying off the $5,000 dollars I owed from an ER visit 5 years ago and my retiring parents are worried about losing social security during their retirement but let's face it - I'll NEVER have social security so I better hope I can keep making more and more salary even though wages haven't gone up in decades and I'm barely making enough to get by much less afford anything fun like... food... I mean have you seen the cost of groceries...."

It's like... nothing phases us because everything is crumbling apart around us and has been for decades... but also the horrifying realization that everything is crumbling apart around us and we can't fathom how on earth we can all possibly go on like this.

And I haven't even really gotten into the political climate of 2025... so really it's no surprise that we are feeling exhausted and run down.

Last week, I had some chicken soup and orange juice because I had a cough and was really tired, and both tasted off to me so I took a Covid test. It was negative. The next day, my cough was gone and I felt like my stomach was out of sorts. The next day, my throat was scratchy again and I was exhausted. Somehow, I also had a headache each of those days. But... flu/covid are going around. It is also is going from 60-degrees to 30-degrees... pollen is out... I was working extra late hours... and I accidentally turned on the news and saw the Zelensky meeting.

It's truly impossible to know. It feels like there are so many negatives coming at me from all sides that I just can't pinpoint the root cause of feeling bad anymore.

I think I just have to accept that I am going to feel low-key bad all the time now and stop trying to make sense of it because there is some sort of peace in acceptance. Anyone else feeling this way lately? *insert emotional support lol here*