waitinginthealley

I have reached a point of suicidality where I absolutely need to get some sort of friendly human contact, so I'm breaking quarantine to see a friend and stay with her for a few weeks (she will also be alone, as her mother who lives with her is off to take care of a relative with cancer, and also needs the company because she doesn't do well with being alone). Everyone around me is actively encouraging this and so is everyone around her, but I can't help but feel oppressive feelings, not really of guilt since I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, but of like... fear of being shamed? I really feel like I'm putting on my own oxygen mask before helping others but I've already had a couple of people who know about this accuse me of being selfish or terrible. What do I do to counter these things? For the most part we've just mutually decided to keep the trip a secret as much as possible so no one knows about it. I'll be traveling entirely by car and not staying in any hotels etc.

EDIT: It's not illegal, we've checked travel restrictions etc for both our areas and every area I'll pass through and I'm fine legally speaking.

This is probably a really stupid question because I am ignorant on several different levels required to ask it:

In some less-hard-hit areas of the country, apparently hospitals are struggling with keeping people on because so many procedures are being suspended to help "flatten the curve" and make resources available to COVID patients, who aren't coming in at the numbers originally projected.

One thing I've been having a very hard time figuring out from my googling and looking around is: are there plans for helping these nurses come back? Like, if we lift lockdowns and the curve spikes again, are these people getting re-hired? I imagine it varies from hospital to hospital but just as a ballpark scenario.

TLDR I am really worried that people being laid off in places that are CURRENTLY under capacity will result in there being a staff shortage LATER.