This isn’t your average Long Covid survival guide. This text isn’t a promise of healing. It’s not a collection of biohacks. And it’s definitely not a shortcut back to life. I’m writing it because living with an illness that turns everything upside down, leaving nothing in its place, was almost more than I could bear.
Long Covid isn’t just a collection of hundreds of symptoms that no one believes you have. It’s a new reality. One with no clear way out. It takes a lot from you. Sometimes, if you’re unlucky, the same thing more than once.
I tried to fight my way through with everything I had. And I kept breaking down again and again.
In this text, I’m sharing what helped me. Not as a checklist of tips you “should try.” But as thoughts you can sit with. Maybe they can point a way when the ground under your feet has shifted. Maybe they’ll offer a moment of permission. Or simply reassurance: You’re not alone. And if you’ve never dealt with a chronic illness before consider this a field report.
So, have you let go of an expectation today? No? Then now’s the time.
Get comfy. Let’s begin.
Stop searching – rest.
You’ve probably tried it all: diets, supplements, cold, heat, meditation, brain training, therapy.
Maybe even a few things that live somewhere between desperate hope and semi-legit science.
Welcome to the club. You hoped something might help. And maybe something did — a little.
But nothing really changed. Not at the core. Maybe the problem can’t be solved by trying harder.
“You should just get off the sofa.” I’ve heard that more than once. Always from people who don’t know me. Because truth be told, I’m not much of a sofa person to begin with. But the sofa isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s the only place where you can come back to yourself. Not to give up, but to actually come to rest. Stillness isn’t the same as being stuck. And some things only begin when everything else goes quiet.
And maybe it’s not the sofa. It could also be your bed. At some point, you might decide to stop googling, stop trying to save yourself. This is not me taking away your right to keep searching for answers. After all, I started a biohacking blog. But don’t turn hyper-productivity into a religion.
Expecting nothing can be liberating
My New Year’s resolution last year was simple: no more expectations. No secret deals with the future like, “If I follow this protocol, I’ll be better by spring.” No inner deadlines: back to normal by summer, by autumn, by the end of the year. I wanted to free myself from the pressure of constant self-optimization. No goal, no spiritual hustle, no obligation to reframe everything into a lesson. Just permission to exist without needing to earn it. And for the record: “mindset” is my personal hate-word of the year.
Of course, no one sticks to their resolutions. And naturally, I tried anyway. I’m not someone who sits still easily. My mind runs like a racehorse stung by a wasp, convinced it’s all for my own good. So I struck a deal with myself: to skip the wasp and try something new. I followed joy instead of duty. I did what felt light and alive. I thought: If I follow this feeling, nothing can go wrong.
And then I crashed. Harder than ever before.
It was the worst crash of my Long Covid story which is now entering year four. And it wasn’t triggered by overexertion. It was triggered by hope. By that feeling of: I’m finally getting better. I’m allowed to move again. I’m back. And that’s what made it so painful. So existential.
People don’t talk about this part much because it doesn’t fit the usual narrative. That it’s just a lack of discipline keeping you sick. (Even if it’s just the discipline of thinking positive.)
But no, a high can be just as destabilizing. Been there, done that. Left the t-shirt on the shelf.
Even “good effort” can be too much
At first, there was the classic kind of effort: performance, discipline, structure. Society hands out gold stars for that one. Then came the health-focused effort: fasting, breathwork, supplements. Then the joyful kind: dancing, creating, talking, seeking lightness. What could possibly be wrong with that? And of course, the “mindset” effort: affirmations. Gratitude journals. Positive thinking. Surely, my system couldn’t take offense with those!
If nothing else, I gave it my all. And I believed for a long time that effort was inherently good. That trying meant dignity. And character. That it proved I was doing my part.
Until my body said: enough. Not in words but in complete depletion. In the shocking experience that even joy became too much.
And so I had to let go of all of it. What remains when you let everything go? At first, nothing. One breath. Not a perfect box-breath kind of breath mind you. Just breathing.
And, of course, the panic that maybe I would dissolve altogether.
There comes a moment that’s just… void
I’m talking about the kind of emptiness where nothing works anymore. You wake up and don’t know why you should get up. Not out of sadness. Not out of drama. It’s the total absence of will. Not wanting to live. Not wanting to die. Just… nothing.
And somehow, in that silence, something shifted. No breakthrough, no insight, no big “aha!” moment. I didn’t want anything anymore. Least of all the act of wanting. At first I felt more alone than ever. I was of course sure it was only happening to me. But slowly, something delicate and unmistakable emerged: I wasn’t separate. I ended up feeling more connected than ever.
The feeling of being completely alone and at the same time knowing I could never really be alone because I am, whether I like it or not, part of something bigger has stayed with me to this day. More or less that is. Like I said I am not claiming to be full of wisdom.
My path isn’t yours. And that’s okay
I was never completely bedridden. I could still be a mother in a fragmented kind of way, still go for walks, still laugh. And I had family. A husband who stood by me, and parents who believed me even when I no longer knew what was real. I also had the privilege of being able to pause both in terms of time and money.
But my inner experience was a different one. No longer being able to stand on my own two feet took away any illusion of safety. And my career didn’t survive it.
All in all, my situation was a gift. A huge one. And still: you’re alone in your body. No one can rest for you. No one feels your micro-crashes. And no one really understands how you can still go for a walk yet need to sleep for sixteen hours after half an hour of mental effort. (I do have a possible explanation for that by now but more about that later.) If someone hasn’t been through it themselves, they can’t truly relate. That’s what makes it so lonely.
Maybe you don’t need advice. Maybe you just need one sentence: I see you. You are not broken. You’re not too weak. You’re exactly right, right now. Especially now.
Don’t forget: You are not a flaw in the system. You are a human being. And that gives you dignity no matter what.
What you can’t see from the outside
What you also don’t see are the plans I canceled. So many that I eventually stopped making any just to spare myself the pain. You don’t see the tears I cried while lying in bed, listening to my family laugh outside in the sun. You don’t see the guilt when my child asked why I wasn’t coming along. Not the hesitation in every “maybe,” not the tiny hope that crumbles again when my body won’t cooperate.
You don’t see the balancing act that plays out every single day between retreat and hope, between acceptance and longing. And you don’t hear the thoughts that creep in at night, quiet and relentless: Is this just how it’s going to be now?
But what you do hear, sometimes, are the comments. Sharp sentences like wasps for that racehorse I mentioned earlier: “I’m 40 too. Off to go climbing. Your life is what you make of it.”
My life is what I make of it
Yes, my life is what I make of it. But not in the sense of setting a goal and pushing through. Not discipline, comebacks, or self-optimization.
Instead, I try to accept what is. Without judgment, without urgency. I don’t build a bridge to a better version of myself. I meet the present moment as it is and stop negotiating with it just because I’d prefer a different future.
Yes, I have plans again. But I don’t pressure myself to already be where I want to go. I don’t need a better version of me to be whole today. I stay even when it’s hard. Maybe especially then. Not out of resignation but out of connection. With myself, and with the moment. Because surprise: life keeps flowing, even when it feels like you’re stuck in a holding pattern.
I haven’t regained control. But I’ve learned not to abandon myself like a rat leaving a sinking ship just because nothing seems to be working. And that’s not surrender. It’s radical acceptance. A decision not to lose myself even when life is offering completely different terms than the ones I would have chosen.
It’s not your fault. And you are not powerless.
Most of what happens to you is out of your control. When it comes to illness: the symptoms, the course, the setbacks. But still, you are not powerless.
You have influence over your attitude and the way you treat yourself. And maybe, just maybe, there’s more strength in that than it might seem from the outside.
Power doesn’t always mean action. It doesn’t mean constantly doing, fixing, or pushing. It means living with awareness. Making your own choices and owning them. Whether they’re big or small.
Don’t hand over responsibility to fate too quickly in the places where you still have agency.
That was my trap: trying to conquer the illness with all my might while quietly giving up the little things that are actually within my reach.
Maybe so that later, someone else can be blamed. But honestly? There’s no real benefit in finding someone to blame. You don’t need permission. What you need is to take the first small (huge?) step. And it starts with this: This is my life. And I’ll shape it right here, right now as best I can.
Two quotes that have stayed with me
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it—and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
These quotes sound harmless. Almost too simple to be true. And at the same time, incredibly hard to live by. That’s true. But I can honestly say: life gets a lot lighter when you manage to apply them. I don’t see it as a goal to master once and for all. But it helps to keep coming back to the power you do have. That’s what it’s about. Not shrugging everything off with a “whatever,” but making a conscious choice in how you respond.
Marcus Aurelius was a wise guy. And hey if it worked for a Roman emperor, I figure it counts on my sofa too.
If you’re looking for something to hold on to
Maybe you’ll find grounding in a philosophy like Stoicism or Viktor Frankl (personally, religion was never quite my thing). Maybe in a look that doesn’t judge you. Or in a sentence that stays with you. Or in a walk.
I don’t say that lightly. There was one sentence that changed something for me. I heard it in an audiobook, walking through the winter woods. I remember the exact spot.
And the sentence?
“If you have to choose between guilt and resentment—choose guilt.”
That one shifted something. It lifted the victimhood off my shoulders and gave me strength.
I hope this text offers you some kind of support too. As I said: feel no pressure to take anything from these last few paragraphs. I’m me, and you’re you. This is my path, but you may walk a very different one. All I can offer is understanding. You’re not doing it wrong just because you don’t see a way out right now. Let go of the expectations.
Sofa-style.
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