Surviving Monsters
by Psarah Johnson
We are mourning the loss of community activist and self-identified "cripplepunk" Psarah Johnson, who passed away on Friday, April 29, 2022. In memory of Psarah, we are sharing her essay "Surviving Monsters" from New World Coming: Frontline Voices on Pandemics, Uprisings, and Climate Crisis.
Psarah Johnson (center) is joined by fellow New World Coming contributors and editors at Weller Book Works
Halfway through my forty-fourth orbit around the sun, I discovered an alarming truth. I was dismayed to learn that there is no magical point on the timeline when one stops being afraid of silly things. I have to wear socks to the movie theater if I’m seeing a horror film. Otherwise, something will grab me from under the seats. It doesn’t matter how hot it is, I have to sleep with at least a sheet over me knowing this gossamer layer will protect me from the ax blows of a homicidal maniac. I still pole vault into bed to avoid a scalpel-wielding, “undead” toddler severing my Achilles tendon. I avoid the deep end of the pool for fear that a manatee will pull me under, a phobia which remains even after my college biology class taught me that a manatee’s natural habitat is not a chlorinated pool. As for basements, all I have to say is I live in a single floor rambler, and I refuse to go to bed without something heavy wedged against the access panel to the crawl space, which I have never entered.
“In the early months of 2020, I discovered that while one’s childhood fears didn’t necessarily disappear, they could be muted when confronted with a real monster.”
In the early months of 2020, I discovered that while one’s childhood fears didn’t necessarily disappear, they could be muted when confronted with a real monster. As a lifelong immune-compromised and chronically ill human being, I had always known I was at “higher risk.” I didn’t necessarily know exactly what that meant. I was informed one day by an ignorant classmate that I could die of arthritis. Other students reminded me of the “fact” that arthritis was contagious by chanting “leper” and running away if I got too close. Regardless, my mother and rheumatologist reminded me that these children were being a tad hyperbolic. So, dying didn’t seem like a very likely outcome for me. Certainly not as real a threat as the troll that lived in the shower drain and would cut off my toes if I stepped on it. Death, even factoring in my compromised immune system, could be easily avoided. At least such was the case before March of 2020 and the onset of COVID-19. My imaginative childhood fears slowly began to recede as new and very real fears emerged.
It began slowly. Initially, I learned that we could avoid the virus by quarantining. This was certainly no biggie to me. I, along with a large swath of the disabled