Dementors Begone!

[ThatLibraryMiss]

Take your shaming and your doom and gloom somewhere else.

Pink, you did absolutely the right thing. My son has promised me exactly the same thing in similar circumstances. Someone said here a couple of weeks ago “Living is more than just not being dead”. Such wise words.

Pink I don't thin you have. It's a powerful reminder of quality of life, which is so important. My Mum has end-stage COPD. Her and my Dad are shielding but they are both finding it really hard; they are lonely and it's taking a huge toll on their MH. My Mum is now at the stage of wondering whether it's worth carrying on shielding because she feels that the life she's living is so empty and she's so unhappy.

Interesting development here. Back at the start, there was a quite unpleasant chap I knew who turned into a sort of proto dementor.

He was quite fussy and negative anyway, I saw him with in the supermarket with disposable gloves on looking really mad at the start of the panic buying, I'm in a club with him and he was posting on the club pages dementoring about gates to the club property being death traps and that sort of thing.

I was astonished to see him at the beach today! The beach is probably the most likely place that lockdown flouters will travel to, well, flout.

Hes the sort of person who will walk around judging everyone else for being there, but I was impressed that an early onset dementor has been spotted out somewhere that's relatively busy (even though it's much quieter than normal and everyone was social distancing).

Does this mean that dementors can recover? If you are a recovered dementor are you likely to relapse or is it just something some folk need to go through to process the world changing?

@Tappering I think there was actually mention in the rules or guidelines that people near end of life might choose to ignore shielding??

And @Pinkflipflop85 I've just made a power of attorney along with my will and shall now add a letter giving my attorney specific instructions on that point to avoid them having the worry.

Though I'm not planning to die just yet 😃 I might pop from all my lockdown food and wine though. I've eaten things I would never normally countenance as too fattening on a regular basis 😳

Tappering, I'm sorry to hear about your Mum. I completely understand why it's affecting her mental health and there's a fine line between whether it's best to follow the guidance or to make the most of life.

@Alsohuman DH has been told to do the same for me.

You haven't brought the thread down at all pink

The one thing this situation has shown is how much people prefer to shield away from death and the uncomfortable conversations around quality of life. Any time someone raises it though it is immediately shot down with accusations of ageism and being disabliest. For some it seems that death needs to be avoided at all costs.

(Sorry, just mulling things over)

According to office of National statistics in England only 215 out of 23,000 ( not UK) deaths have been in people under 60 with no underlying conditions this is less than 1% of those that died considering the fatality rate at worst is about 3% and probably much lower the risk to someone under 60 is less than 1 in 3,300 ( 1% of 3%) or 1 in 10,000 with a fatality rate of about 1%, the normal fatality rate in any year for someone aged 45- 60 is about 1 in 200
which shows that covd is really not a big risk to people under 60 and so for the vast majority going back to work is not a bigger risk than it was before really (but dementors don't want to know about maths or statistics facts spoil the theories)
under 20 the risk drops to about 1 in 62,000 which is much less than the risk of a fatal car accident in any one year
Every day 450 people in the uk die every day from cancer for perspective

My grandma is 94 and chooses to spend every Sunday with my aunt for company. She's pretty much blind, and quite deaf, and has been banging on for years about how she'll be dead soon, despite all evidence to the contrary, but she is now quite frail.

I think it is vital for her to enjoy what remains of her life as much as she possibly can - particularly as her main love, gardening, is no longer really possible - due to frailty, not the virus.

@Tappering from the guidance

@TeacupDrama

Yeah I did some working out earlier too. None of the dementors responded to maths though.

So I got simular but I worked it out of population size. So if you're under 65 and have no health conditions you have a 0.008% chance of dying from covid19. That's based on total population of under 65s not just those that have contracted the illness.

Only 14% of deaths were in people with no KNOWN health conditions. Only around 3300 people under 65 have died.

@CaliforniaMountainSnake the dementors will say "well that's only because of the lockdown, if we lift the lockdown then THE STREETS WILL BE LINED WITH BODIES". See also: "it's not about you, it's about protecting the vulnerable but clearly you care more about cancelling your trip to Benidorm than your ELDERLY RELATIVES SUFFOCATING ALONE IN A COVID WARD".

Life is definitely for living, not existing.

I had a relative who lived his adult life in a residential home because he couldn't live independently. He had two major bereavments in 18m and never recovered from that, especially as she did so much work to help him past the first. Over his final decade, he slid deeper and deeper into a depression and less and less connected to his surroundings. It was less painful seeing him looking restful for the final time in ITU than it was the previous time in his home slumped in a chair with barely any recognition. It may have been a cancer causing the blockage, but it's a moot point. Treatment would not have been in his interests because he'd exceeded the point of being interested in life and able to participate. That's not ableism, it's respecting his dignity as a human albeit one with profound differences. He may have had dementia like so many of his peers are prone to.

His life had reached a natural conclusion, and on his own personal timeline he was an old man. He was in his 40s.

I hope his friends are safe at present. We still visit his best friend as he has no family of his own. (Obviously not right now!)

Not sure why my post was deleted - I confronted someone about “literally shaking and sobbing.” Perhaps the person who wrote that took umbrage. Okay for them to call me liar and to get my comment deleted. I specifically didn’t mention any names or posts!

Yet I’ve reported far worse posts and they remain.

Thanks Mumsnet.

My Top Ten, in order from 1 to 10:

Stay the fuck at home
Which part of … don’t you understand?
Worst death toll in Europe
Holiday? Not until 2024!
Relative works for NHS
Normal is a very, very long way off
Italy
I am shielding so you can't go out
Herd immunity is a murderous idea
New normal
Christmas will be cancelled and a good thing too!!!

@Drivingdownthe101 I am sceptical that that is genuinely from a healthcare professional.

It's certainly not the way that any I know would go on.

I imagine the chief dementor to be the character Miriam Margolyes played in Blackadder - she slapped their faces for real and it hurt, the actors said!

We had a fab VE Day here, socially distant but lovely to see so many out and you could move around and have a chat (flags and bunting aplenty in our small road). I hope my DD is having as much fun as possible during this lockdown, that's our aim - I don't see the point in the competitive misery that I see so often on here at the moment. I would hate to look back on this unprecedented period of history with regret about how we spent it and our attitude through it. I'm absolutely about making the best of it and that includes chocolate and VE Day parties here.

Agreed Nighttimefreedom

Is it Wrong that I end up thinking the roads lined with bodies might fill in the potholes around here?

Just had dd2 in floods of tears sobbing because she misses her friends again- this is every day now and she is really suffering

A while ago, we were clearing out the desk of a retired colleague who was a massive paper hoarder. Among all her papers, I found this '70s memo which had obviously gone around the whole institution, pulling people up on not reporting unattended items (presumably IRA times). It ended, "You may personally feel that your own life is of little value, but this does not give you the right to put at risk the lives of others." We had a bit of a giggle over it because it seemed so melodramatic!

I remembered it recently and I thought how much the dementors would love the government to put out that very memo...

@Nighttimefreedom was just thinking literally that very thing.

hoping that Maths teaching improves after schools go back so children if not dementors understand that 1% of 1% is 1 in 10,000 not 1 in 100 or 1 in 3 and is nothing like Russina roulette it is more like winning between 4-5 balls on the lottery ( 4 balls 1 in 2000 5 balls 1 in 150000)

@CaliforniaMountainSnake agreed 14% of all deaths had no known underlying condition but this drops to 1% for under 60's and of course some of those with no known underlying conditions may have had hidden underlying conditions and it seems from around the world data that 85% recover even if over 80 and with more than 1 underlying condition ( but no dementor will ever EVER EVER accept that it is not almost 100% fatal in the elderly)

but no dementor will ever EVER EVER accept that it is not almost 100% fatal in the elderly

Very true. I got called a liar because the dementor refused to believe that, despite being with mum 24/7 before she died, he had no symptoms before or after she went. Apparently he "must have had it because you can't be with someone that long and not get it, it's a FACT!!! "

Well, it didn't rain here after all so we'll be going on a murderous rampage walk after dinner. Nice 5-miler. If I see any people on the trail I'll trip them up so they can burden the NHS.

We're getting the silly "Oh its as if the lockdown has been lifted?" stuff on our local Facebook page too. Luckily most of the responses are pretty sensible & politer than I would be

1 Stay the fuck at home
2 Which part of … don’t you understand?
3 Sweden
4 Relative works for NHS
5 Won’t go to work/send kids to school until vaccine available
6 Easing lockdown would be murder
7 Worst death toll in Europe
8 When schools go back social distancing ends
9 The only thing that’ll change when lockdown is lifted is they’ll have space for you in ICU
10 If you want to go outside then you should pick one of your relatives to DIE