Mum still in lockdown !!

[Kissingfrogs25]

I am getting so worried about my mum. She is in no way vulnerable, in good health and 72 years old, she lives with my dad, for context she smokes, but is a healthy weight no issues.

Mum has been in lockdown since early march 20 and has not been anywhere inside or outside since this date, she says she is too terrified she will die of covid. She has had all vaccines, its the only time she has been inside a building. She cuts her own hair, hasn't been to the dentist, doctor (will speak on phone if needed) in all that time.

She won't even eat a takeaway in case its contaminated

What on earth do I do? I managed to get her to call the dr, who put her on antidepressants and other medication, but this hasn't changed anything.

I have been meeting up with mum outside, but even then she looks nervous. My dad is not allowed to go anywhere either.

It is now getting colder, I didnt see her for eight months last winter because it was too cold to sit out. She won't even see her friends, the few she has left have to sit on a bench in the park.

Anyone else in this position? What can I do? The years are going by and I feel like I have lost my mum 😥

@Wanttobeanastronaut You GENUINELY need to call social services about this. That's abuse & a form of emotional neglect

Do you think in a way your dad is enabling this behaviour by following her rules not to go anywhere? Can you speak to him about it and get him on board? Your mum obviously needs help but your dad is there full time.

DH was like this after 6 months of isolating the first time.

He had to be pushed to go out even just drive to a carpark and sit there then drive back

We had to be cruel to be kind.
He has never recovered fully

I think those without someone pushing them to return to normal are the ones who are missing out.

Yes, fit and healthy. I bumped into one friend by her house when I was when out walking and she backed away and spoke quickly from a distance.
I used to go round for coffee regularly. Don’t know if she will ever allow me into her house again. I’ve lost my friends through this. I speak and text, but not actually sit inside and have a good chat.

I think it’s more common than is spoken about in all age groups. I don’t think the over 70’s are the only ones still isolating. The mental damage from the scare tactics used to keep us home hasn’t really been undone, no one has ever said it’s ok now. You can go out. Panic over. So people are still living under the fear.

I know a couple in their early thirties like this. I think it’s a mental health issue for many people now. It’s really sad.
For some people without many friends who are anxious anyway, it’s a disaster.

Good point. Sadly there are people fighting for life everyday in intensive care. Most of us were naively unaware of what that looks like. Then during lockdown we were force fed those images.

I am in my sixties, fully-jabbed and I got Covid in July. I suspect its effects were mitigated by the vaccines. I have had worse bugs, though I was tired. I think there are far more people like me than there are people currently dying of covid in hospital. I don't know what you can do for your mother but she is wasting her life. If she isn't getting out and about, her general fitness is probably deteriorating. Is she doing any exercise?

Up until January my dad was the same - then he caught it off my mum and only had very minor cold symptoms.

He's now mostly gone back to normal though he'll avoid indoor meet-ups unless there's no other choice.

It has a really negative impact on our relationship though and I'm so sorry for read that other people are going through the same thing 😞

I wonder if a gradual process of slowly introducing people back into her life might help? After the first lockdown when restrictions eased a bit, my mum really wanted to see her friends but some were very frightened. Mum introduced the 'Covid coffee lounge', a wee space in a side room of their house with comfy chairs 6ft apart. Strangely, the scared friends were happy to come over for a cuppa as long as they sat 'in the lounge'.

Maybe suggest to your mum that isolation and loneliness can be just as damaging (long term) as a potential Covid infection and could you help her create a 'safe space' to see people. It could be outside (with a garden heater) or somewhere else. Once she gets a taste for socialising again, she might gradually ease into it. I think it's a process of easing her way back to normal life.

There is no help for these people - they just get out on medication and on a very long waiting list for counselling.
I thought I could send a pizza as a surprise, but I am not sure she would eat it.
Ultimately she has to be the one to make herself do it, and before I could see there was some enthusiasm for it, but not now. It’s now become very entrenched.
We have been through the stats, the proof you can’t catch covid from a pizza etc but she won’t change her position.

I worry because my father is very controlling and hasn’t always been kind to her. It makes me really anxious thinking of her there unable to leave.

Would adult social services help with something like this?

Well try insisting.

With my Aunt, I mentioned upthread I cannot insist.
She is unvaccinated. This seems to be through a fear of needles and wariness of vaccines.
She has changed the narrative and told me last night that Dr wouldn't vaccinate her because she may faint.
This is not true.
It's made more difficult as I am not her child, but she doesn't have any living adult children who could insist more.
As she is unvaccinated I don't feel I can advise her to go back to normal. I have kids at school so she doesn't want to meet me, even outside.
I feel I cannot help her because she doesn't want to be helped.

@thaegumathteth my friend doesn't recognise it as anxiety at all, but a very reasonable reaction to the danger that is Covid. She's not into conspiracy theories and doesn't spend ages watching the news, so I'm not entirely sure how it's come to this. She is very introvert and I wonder if it's become a good excuse to avoid going outside. At one point I was doing her shopping but she is doing that at least now. The supermarket is walking distance to her home.

The kids are still going to school so I'm not sure the school would be interested. And I'm not reporting her to social services as suggested elsewhere, that's ridiculous and wouldn't help them at all.

I agree with other posters that operation fear has meant some people can't readjust to life again.

my friend doesn't recognise it as anxiety at all, but a very reasonable reaction to the danger that is Covid.

My father is the same.

There was a point we needed a lockdown. Then some partial lockdowns. But in the general scheme of things, the only full U.K. lock down was late March 2020-Early July 2020. Even the Jan 2021 one was less rigid. The vaccine programme was founded on the idea that having the vaccines would make it more mild/less change of severe disease. Lots of campaigns were pro vaccines. So the idea it was a full on brainwashing that lasted for 2 years is nonsense. It was a novel virus and it was killing people in large numbers. But most people did a risk-benefit analysis and got on with it at some point. This is mental health related. It’s rather like a phobia or ocd. It probably needs treating as such.

OP I do think she could do with an appointment with her GP. They might be able to refer her and get her appropriate therapy. (Not sure if you have already or not, I haven’t read the entire thread)

I do hope she gets sorted. It sounds horrible. Thinking of you all 💐

I wonder if it really is fear of covid, or if there is an element of people actually enjoying the isolated lifestyle? Remember during the actual lockdowns there were people on here saying how much they were enjoying it. Just very sad and upsetting when it's parents not seeing children, and parents preventing children from having a social life.

That’s so sad.

I wouldn’t say it’s the media as such, as now they’re all much more “covid’s over, we’ll done Boris” (I write that as criticism, as Boris did almost nothing well in my view)

I think the dr putting her on medication sucks a bit - people always seem in such a rush to medicate women. Surely some sort of counselling would be better if she could be persuaded?

I think some people were very vulnerable to being made excessively anxious in this way, and it must be very hard to come out of it. I don’t have the answers but it’s very sad.

My dad is prone to being this way - they still wash the shopping - but thankfully not anything like as extreme.

Remember during the actual lockdowns there were people on here saying how much they were enjoying it.

I always thought those people very lacking in empathy.

However it feels like OP’s Mum is more scared than happy to stay in.

Sad as it is, I would let them get on with it and live your own life. I know a couple like this, wouldn't go to their son's PhD graduation.

I am extremely vulnerable to Covid and several other illnesses, but out and about all the time.

I found the media reports in Jan 2021 to be very scary. We actually were shown dead bodies in the hospital mortuary sliding along in the trolley. For people already anxious, this was terrifying.

Very sad thread. People are so scared of dying that they're refusing to live anymore.

[name changed] I was like this too, though I'm not their age. Managed to end it about the end of 2021. I will say, though, that I've had covid twice since "breaking isolation" and I can't exercise anymore due to getting badly out of breath, and I wasn't like that before, so it's difficult to say if it was the right decision.

My parents AND siblings are the same. They are slowly driving me insane and I have resorted to screeching at them, totally at the end of my rope on occasion.

I worked on covid ward the whole way through and have never had covid.

They treat me as though I'm typhoid Mary - won't come anywhere near me. Its been three years since I saw any of them.I was 60 recently and had to spend my birthday on my own because of their absurd paranoia.

This is so sad. My parents were a bit like this. What helped, ironically, was getting covid. (No idea how they got it as they were seeing noone!) Now they do go out a bit, albeit not as much as before.