Yes. I started during the pandemic when a significant portion of the people I respected suddenly deemed me as expendable.

I have a lung condition that put me at high risk, especially during the early days when there was no treatment available. Everyone I know with the same condition who got covid during the first ~8 months either is dead or has pretty severe long term damage that has left them practically bed ridden.

So when people I respected said they would not wear masks around me or even just stay the fuck away, I was the problem because sUrVivAl Of ThE FiTtEsT. I was unable to telework due to having a hardware specific job, and apparently it was too much to expect them to just keep their distance and/or wear a mask. Instead they would cough in my direction, literally say “I hope people like you die soon so this can all be over and we can go out to eat again” (ironically that same person still has a cough from their three months bout with covid in 2021). Yes I told them I had a lung condition, that only made the harassment worse.

I went to therapy for specific issues, how to handle the direct harassment and how to deal with having all the respect for a large amount of people disappear in about a month. I went through two different therapists on betterhelp. The first one was good at helping me through it, but they took more than a week to respond to messages. The second one was really good though. They really helped me just write off those people entirely, even if we used to be friendly those times are over and they made their choices. They also gave me some advice on how to convince my manager to provide reasonable accommodations and gave me a different office on the other side of the building.

I’ve been debating going back for some advice on some lingering health anxiety I still have from those days.