I’m sure they feel that’s part of it, but they never leave the house, got fired, got dumped, don’t see other people, and only read/consume media about covid, so I don’t exactly think they’re setting themselves up for good mental health there.

They stayed at my house for a week a year ago and took a COVID test every day despite never going inside or unmasking. My wife and I also took a COVID test the day they arrived, and similarly didn’t go inside their whole time visiting us, and yet they still requested (and we honored it) to wear masks in our own house for the whole week, despite all of the negative tests. If they don’t accept negative COVID tests as proof someone doesn’t have COVID (but still take them constantly), I’d say we live in different realities.

They’ve never actually tested positive for COVID themselves, but did go to five different doctors until they found one that would tell them they had long COVID. The first four all said they were too stressed. Since they got the diagnosis they wanted they have stopped leaving the house and been fired from their job. I also believe their partner dumped them and moved out. Before they got the diagnosis they were rock climbing and backpacking regularly (even during the period where they had decided they had long COVID already).

Before COVID this person was a self-aware hypochondriac, but they’re well and truly gone now. So that’s why I’m mad. I’ve lost a friend to their neuroses. And where they were previously aware of and working to mitigate their neuroses, they’ve now decided that their neuroses are correct and should not be a therapy target, so the outlook isn’t good they’ll ever come back.

So my friend is a hypochondriac who self-diagnosed with long COVID despite never having been infected. The symptoms of their supposed disease changed drastically after they got the result they wanted from doctor shopping, and they do not trust results from COVID tests.

So that’s why I get mad at them, not because I’m trying to gaslight them.