The Club DJ Who Lost It All

From our friends at COVIDStoriesArchive.org

I bring you one of the submissions over at our partner site: COVID Stories Archive. IF you care to you can support us as we strive to make these stories known by becoming a paid subscriber to Rational Ground. Read the story below and decide what you are willing to do to help us keep at it!

---

Below is the full text of a submission detailing the physical, financial, social and psychological pain faced by one man as a result of the virus and the hysteria around it. It is edited only by redacting the state name for privacy and breaking the essay into paragraphs. The submission was written in the spring of 2021.

I am a club DJ from [state redacted here for privacy] that had the whole world in his hands. Good money, steady work some of the best venues in the country, a beautiful (inside and outside) girlfriend that I always dreamed of having that I was getting ready to propose to, a family I still kept in touch with, and so many more amazing things. Life was beautiful. March 16th [state redacted] becomes lockdown and from there on out, my life changed forever.

I contracted covid19 shortly before lockdown and because I am obese, it did hit me hard to where I was bed rested for a couple of weeks. I have never been bed rested in my life nor did I ever feel like at 35 I thought I was going to die from a virus. I pulled through thankfully but the toll it took on me mentally and physically destroyed me.

I was absolutely paranoid the first few months of the pandemic especially do to a history of health anxiety. I wouldn’t see friends or family, I wore a mask everywhere including gloves, washed my hands 100 times a day, sanitized everything constantly, and that paranoia is what ruined my life. Even when we were allowed to see others again, I wouldn’t shake hands with anyone or go near anyone and being a DJ, that fear was killing me because I am a big people person.

Governor [redacted name of governor for privacy] became my public enemy number 1 with his lies and I let the hatred I have for him show more than any other emotion in my body during that time period.

Unfortunately the love of my life couldn’t handle how I was being anymore and left me and that was the biggest hit I ever took in my life. That is something I will never recover from. I love her (even still to this day) more than I ever loved myself or anyone else and that will stay true for the rest of my life.

Because I am a DJ, money wasn’t coming in and a very under-discussed subject through this pandemic was how low the amount of unemployment compensation was to workers of the nightlife industry. A “gig worker” would only get 231$ a week before taxes. 231$ is not even a quarter of what we in the industry would make a week. I began gambling my life savings online and at first, I was doing extremely well with it. Fast forward a few weeks later and it was all gone.

My family won’t talk to me to this day for being so stupid and I don’t blame them. The combination of losing the woman I thought I was going to marry and all the fear of covid, losing my savings, and fear that life would never be the same again, I began drinking heavily which I haven’t done since I was In my early 20s and fell into a deeper depression than I could imagine. I attempted suicide on December 28th and was saved by one of my close friends.

Since then I have been doing my best to improve my life but it has been extremely difficult knowing that I destroyed myself and have nothing to show for it. Now that we are allowed to have regular nightlife and pretty much regular life again, I pray that I can build my life back to what it was before covid although the toll that it has taken on me. I’ll never be the same again and I just sit here praying I can get my life back including the love of my life.

Again, please consider sharing your own stories for preservation in our archive.