Syndemic in a pandemic: An autoethnography of a COVID survivor.

This paper provides my personal experience as a COVID-19 survivor during and postrecovery periods. The stigma that my children and I underwent exposed us to the fragility of a social system that we struggle with all through our life to remain a part of. My story revealed a strong symbiotic relationship between the disease (COVID-19) and the patient's low acceptance in society, primarily attributed to misinformation and xenophobia around the COVID-19. This autoethnography speaks for several other COVID survivors who met with the same fate of being discriminated against and stigmatized. As a COVID patient and survivor, the traumatic experience was creating a fear psychosis in me, the effect of which I presume will stay beyond COVID-19. This condition of a syndemic seems to linger and negatively affect my outlook toward society. If COVID survivors develop a syndemic condition in a pandemic situation, it will require significant efforts to reserve it or sometimes even become irreversible.