AIBU to think things feel a bit apocalyptic?

[SundayGirlB]

Covid-19, unprecedented flooding, raging bushfires, Syria, state cyber warfare, rise of populism, stock market crashes...not looking good is it? Genuinely felt anxious last night after watching the news.

YABU = get a grip
YANBU = start prepping

[DaveTheDesigner]

"Some people on the Daily Mail (that effing rag) are saying it’s a made man virus - either accidentally released or released on purpose to cull overpopulation." yeah and some people believe the earth is flat. FFS!

[TSSDNCOP]

Dave I think the Venn diagram in those two groups would be almost one circle.

[The80sweregreat]

Dave, I've heard people saying this. All man made to ' cull' the population or released on purpose. I can see why people think this to be fair. After all nobody knows !
Always a conspiracy theory for everything.

[duffeldaisy]

TSSDNCOP

Definitely a flat circle, rather than a ball....

[TSSDNCOP]

If that were true 80’s someone would have thought to make a cure at the same time and make gazillions surely.

[isabellerossignol]

I think my life is fairly carefree compared with my parents and grandparents. My grandparents were raising their children during WW2 and my parents were raising me and my siblings in the middle of what was effectively a civil war locally, with the cold war in full flow internationally.

[TSSDNCOP]

Quite a lot of people on their holidays are getting it though, perhaps it’s a sign not to go on holiday!

[bellinisurge]

Fingers crossed absolutely no one on here gets it and the worse that happens for a tiny minority of people on here is that they and their household have to self isolate because someone they have come into vague contact with might have it.
If you end up being one of the tiny minority in that positive non-scaremongering scenario, are you and your household set up to do that. If , yes, fine. If not, shut the fuck up complaining about other people's reactions and take some steps to ready yourself. Tips available across MN on a number of threads.

[The80sweregreat]

Yes to the cure being ' invented' at the same time but then again this way they can justify the deaths up until a vaccine for it is ' found'
'They ' are ahead of us I think!
(I've no idea , but I can see why people think like this ! )
I remember thinking we would all die of AIDS in the 80s though as others have also said.
There have always been these pandemic situations but this one does feel worse.
Not sure why really! ( guess it's the wall to wall news and all this rain!)

[MurrayTheMonk]

Well I'm of the school of thought that when it's your time it's your time...no amount of worrying will change any of it I guess...it does have all the ingredients for the end of the world though....#cheery

[TSSDNCOP]

Bellini my plan is to watch Netflix, finally write that book that’s in me and order Ocado. What on earth else can you do?

[bellinisurge]

And Ocado drivers are magically immune from similar problems and certainly don't have childcare issues if the schools their kids go to close.

[TSSDNCOP]

80’s I did slightly wonder if the tipping point might be if the Pope has it. He’s currently poorly and lives in Italy.

[The80sweregreat]

I'm on the wine and chocs after a long and difficult week! I may as well die fat and happy ( with clean hands)!
Then try to diet in the summer when we get ' the hottest summer on record' as we probably will ( again)
I am worried though and I know I can't do anything about it but it's still not good.
Any of it.

[percheron67]

Also plague of locusts - quite biblical!

[Zoidbergonthehalfshell]

@adaline

Sorry, Phil...

[The80sweregreat]

I saw that about the Pope. Poor man.
I Feel for folk that have lost relatives as that is nasty.

[TSSDNCOP]

Who do you think has bought all the hand sanitizer Bellini?

[MitziK]

Prepping in the 1970s meant a larder cupboard bursting at the seams with tinned food, dried milk, flour, sugar, everything you could afford, along with a mould for making fire blocks out of old newspapers, having a tin of candles and matches ready all the time, a large can of paraffin for the heaters and essentially, having as much stored as you could in case the power went off or there was another strike or shortage. And growing loads of vegetables in the back garden, along with trying to get as much from the coalman as you could and buying a padlock for the coal shed.

If you lived rurally, you also stockpiled wood, had even larger tinned and preserved food stores, swapped jams or extra vegetables from the garden without asking too many questions about the origin of various game that appeared late at night and made sure that the hens were well locked up for the evening long before it got dark. And you made sure that the range was kept in good nick, as if something went wrong in midwinter, you'd be without heat or hot water for weeks. In some places, you also had a plan for what to do in the case of floods, being snowed in as you still remembered the winter of 63, if not the earlier ones that your parents told you about, and you hoped that it would all work itself out before long, as there was no way you could do anything about it if deliveries couldn't get to the village shops.

You also had a large sewing basket for repairs, as many tools as you could get and if you were any good at knitting, you wouldn't just be making cardigans, mittens and hats for babies/your own children, you'd be able to get some extra money for knitting extra items for other people's children.

Prepping in itself isn't a bad thing - because at least those who do it aren't hysterically piling chilled pizzas, milk and loaves of bread into shopping trolleys at the first sign of snow; or bitching that there's nothing for tea because the supermarket shelves were bare.

[TSSDNCOP]

I think that’s the right way 80’s. Plus we have the I Hate Summer threads to look forward to. I hope by Christmas Corona will be this years ash cloud/AIDS/enter catastrophe of choice.

[bellinisurge]

@TSSDNCOP , I assume that sadly you are starting from pretty much zero of stocks in your house. You might have some stuff but not everything you need. So you will have to spend a bit of money.
Look at Jack Monroe's Tin Can Cook. Or her website which has a few recipes on it for free. cookingonabootstrap.com/
No reason to think power or water is going to go so you don't need only shelf stable stuff and can put bits in your freezer.
What do you actually like to eat?
Don't forget to have toiletries in. Toothpaste is something I often forget.
And treats because it's boring.
Good luck with the book.

[TSSDNCOP]

We lived rurally in the 70’s and didn’t do any of those things. We had candles and Tilly lamps for the power cuts and that was it.

[The80sweregreat]

On other threads they are saying this is the same as SARS etc etc. I don't recall this level of panic then but maybe I just didn't watch the news as much?
I'm sure this is worse , but my memory isn't what it once was.

[Straycatstrut]

I've got anxiety but I benefited (so much!) from CBT. At it's worst I thought every noise in the night meant the world was ending, we were being invaded, a bomb was going to go off, a volcano was erupting on us (yeah I know) and it's how my heart and my body reacted. It was exhausting and terrifying and absolutely life destroying I thought each bus I was on was going to crash. I couldn't travel by train unless I was boozed up - head on train wrecks were one of my biggest fears. Couldn't travel at all by car. I was on high alert all the time waiting for the huge disaster to strike any second.

I can't imagine what it'd be like to be right in the middle of GAD right now. I wish I could help all those people so much.

As ridiculous as this sounds this is where I benefit from having chronic depression. I don't care about coronavirus etc... I really struggle with the "caring" and "worrying" emotion now to be honest. But being in a numb bubble unable to feel anything beats anxiety any day.

[bellinisurge]

Stuff disappears from shops easily because we have a Just in Time system of stocking stuff. Shops don't hold masses of stock . Maybe three days worth. And they respond to demand. Usually able to do that quite flexibly and according to likely seasonal demand. Sometimes they get caught out.
Like when Delia has a few recipes with cranberries on one of her programmes and shops didn't have enough stock to match demand.
Or some posters were whining on here about there not being enough ice cubes for sale at supermarkets during a heatwave last summer.
Hand sanitizers are running low because people are getting more. Because government advice is "wash your hands and use hand sanitizer as an alternative ". Nothing alarmist about that.
But you prefer to scoff at people following low key government advice because it seems to make you feel good.