The guilt card

Would it upset you if someone's uses the guilt card to make you do something you aren't sure you want to do at this time? Or worse, when they use their guilt from some past incident to push you to a corner so you agree to what they believe is good for you?

It was not a conversation I wanted to have. And had I known that was how it would go, I probably would've lied just so we never got into such conversation at all.

For the record, unlike many out there, I know COVID is real. I've heard and read so many stories about people getting infected, dying or losing their loved ones because of the disease.

And for my part, in those very rare times I have to go out for some necessary errand, I do everything to protect myself - mask, shield, physical distancing, alcohol or hand washing, and even rushing to get out of any establishment to lessen my risk of exposure, aside from boosting my immune system.

All too confusing

Since March vaccines have been rolled out, and in our neck of the woods, every available brand is being shipped in, although only less than 20 percent of the country's population have been inoculated. However, I don't quite understand the system, allocation, and distribution that government - whether national or local - has in place to carry this out most efficiently.

At the same time, supply is still not enough to meet demand and new studies are constantly surfacing about efficacy and the length of protection a vaccine can offer. And then there is the emergence of more variants, often stronger than previous ones.

In the meantime, being the hardheaded folks a lot of my countrymen are (pasaway is the term used for them), many ignore minimum safety protocols, and think that getting vaccinated means being invincible against the coronavirus so they go about like everything was pre-pandemic normal.

That's why after more than a year, we've had to go back to strict lockdowns due to rising cases, especially with the more transmissible Delta variant.

It doesn't help that contact tracing efforts here leaves much to be desired so instead of being able to find whoever may have had contact with infected individuals to get them tested, these people are not being quickly rounded up.

My dilemma

So where I do fit in all these?

I have not been jabbed. Aside from system lapses and shortage in vaccines, my mind and heart have not been made up about the vaccines that were developed then rolled out in a relatively short amount of time.

Since I am not, I take precautions very seriously and avoid going out unless absolutely necessary to protect both myself and others from an invisible but deadly enemy.

Then a cousin, who is, like he pointed out, the only doctor in the family, called to say there were two slots for vaccines and he wanted me and my sister to take it. Apparently, he ordered vaccines from a private initiative nominating someone else but these people already went ahead and got theirs, thus leaving the available slots.

He gave an impassioned argument about why I needed to get it, saying I was at risk because of my age, and it was to protect my mom (who's already been vaccinated), and that everyday he saw dialysis patients dying because of COVID and was helpless about it.

He related how these patients were infected even though they didn't leave their homes, but someone else in the household contracted it and passed the virus on.

Having to face this scenario every single day kept him away from his children and he was already so tired of the situation. I acknowledged his sacrifice and the difficult circumstances he was in as a medical frontliner and respected his arguments.

When I continued to say I was not ready at this time, he suddenly pulled this guilt card - how helpless he was when his father was ill and he could not do anything to help him because he was far away, and my uncle ended up dying. (There were so many other factors that led to his father's demise, none of which were in his hands really). He added that he felt the same when my youngest sister died because she refused to heed his advice to go for medical consultations and take meds.

Now, if something happened to me or my sister because we didn't want to get vaccinated at this point, this would again weigh on him like the two previous cases!

Wait, what?

And he kept hammering that point, his voice cracking with frustration, just to convince me to change my mind and see it from his point of view.

I fully understand how stressed he is given that he's either called in to intubate or respond to a dialysis patient of his, infected with the virus. And to watch so many expire on his watch will definitely weigh on him.

When I told him that I understood his feeling of helplessness when it came to his patients, he said he didn't really care about them because they were strangers, in the way that we mattered because we were family.

So, what I got is that if we refused to be vaccinated, got infected and died, he would be guilty because like his dad and my sister, he wasn't able to do anything about it.

Is that fair?

By playing the guilt card, I am now supposed to give in and get inoculated to ensure he won't be weighed down by guilt yet again because of me since he was able to do something to supposedly keep me safe?

But what if something else happened to me that was not COVID-related, would he still feel the same way? Or worse, if the vaccine caused some reaction in me that put me in danger, how would he take it?

I don't like being stripped of the power to decide for myself when it comes to my body. And I fully get that it is my responsibility and mine alone if something bad happens to me because of something I did, or did not do.

I like it even less to have the burden of protecting someone from being weighed down by guilt by doing something that was against my will.

My prayer is for people not to be terribly inconvenienced should something happen to me, and for them to accept there are things they cannot prevent and should not be responsible for.

So, do I have a right to be upset?

Images: Unsplash