Are we all living this way or have I gone mad?!

[stardrops007]

Okay, so I'm not sure if I've just lost touch with normality here or if actually I'm living the "new normal"

Today was the first time in months that I met indoors with a friend (I know )

It was in the centre so I had to pay for parking, I found myself using a wipe to touch the parking meter.
Before entering the restaurant I sanitised my hands, once in the restaurant I sanitised my hands as I'd touched the chair before sitting down and became aware of possible contamination!

We then ordered a drink and I found myself sanitising again as I'd touched the glass.

We were there for two hours and I just couldn't stop sanitising.

I've come home and taken off all my clothes to wash them straight away.

My friend only sanitised before eating, but I noticed she'd touched the chair and other surfaces a lot!!!

Am I being OTT? Or is my friend quite relaxed?

You're doing what you're supposed to.

People are being awfully flippant about the smallest of things now, almost like their blase attitude is a little protest against the virus (a virus that is still very much thriving and to which anyone's 'opinions' are utterly irrelevant).

People are starting to be more and more sloppy with the rules the longer they are OK, but case numbers are soaring and the number of people in ICU's is going up too. It's ALL of our jobs to protect each other and that means doing exactly what you're doing.

We should still be being very sensible, washing our hands or using anti bac on the way in and out of shops and not getting too close to people outside.

It's just common sense but millions of people don't seem to have any.

What GoldenOmber said, 100%.

I went into the office yesterday. Went to m&s and bought breakfast and lunch, used the touchscreen till things. I think I washed my hands when I got back to the office before breakfast but not sure.

Used lifts and lift buttons, etc around work.

Went and taught 30 odd students, sharing equipment and not socially distanced. But did wear a face covering. Had 10 mins between student groups for lunch and ate a sausage roll and forgot to wash my hands before eating it.

Came home, think I washed my hands before tea. Not sure. Went and played tennis with 3 others, no hand sanisitising at all even though we were all touching the balls, etc.

I have relaxed a lot from initially being worried. I'm possibly too relaxed.

OTT I didnt do that much when working in a hospital treating covid patients in April, the height of the crisis. I did wash my clothes and shower when I got in then but not now.

I would always wash my hands over sanitiser as I hate the stuff and it dries my skin.

Always wash hands before eating and when home from being out anywhere.

@myrtilles I don't sanitise. I'm not particularly happy about DS having to santitise all the time at school but I'm not going to kick up a fuss, I'm just happy he's back.

Massively OTT and completely illogical tbh. What's the point of taking your own knife and fork if they are going to go into your mouth after touching the plate and the food which other people have handled?!

All the sanitising is OTT too. Soap and water is better anyway. I'd sanitise on going into the café if it said to, and then wash my hands when I got home.

These sorts of posts make me really sad. Another person whose mental health has clearly been so negatively affected by this pandemic. It actually scares me far more than bloody covid19 because mental health is such a precious and precarious thing and once you’ve developed these kinds of illnesses it is such a slippery slope.

OP, the fact that you posted in the first place - even if you’re not now taking on board any of the comments - suggests that you are, deep down, aware that your behaviour is not normal. That level of obsessive sanitising is very extreme and your anxiety levels are clearly extreme too, to the point that you are not thinking clearly or rationally. Please seek some help.

You're doing what you're supposed to

No she isn’t. We were never told to wash our clothes and shower every time we went out or to take our own cutlery. Let alone sanitise glasses. It’s ridiculously OTT.

I do similar

Apparently hand sanitiser one my works on clean hands and not on sweaty or dirty hands. Our hands sweat a bit even if they don’t feel it. So what is even the point of sanitiser our and about?

Not possible to sit on the same table as your friend and be 2m apart inside a restaurant!

Right, that's (part of) my point. It's nonsensical to be obsessive about cutlery and touching a parking meter, almost zero risk of transmission, whilst choosing to do the one thing that will put you most at risk: being in close proximity to other people indoors for an extended period.

No, we're not all living like this.

I send the kids to wash their hands on the way in from school (mainly to wash all the bloody sanitiser OFF) and whack some moisturiser on (to try to undo the damage caused by the sanitiser wrecking their hands). Other than that - business as normal. I'm not at all happy with the sanitiser overload going on at school but I grit my teeth on that front.

I was more at risk commuting on a packed commuter train to do placements in schools with very small very tactile children than I ever am now - but long term we're more at risk of bacterial resistance with the way we're all going on.

Cleaning/ santising at transition points is sensible. E.g. when entering/ leaving a venue. There's little benefit to repeated sanitising in between. Also at points frequently touched by multiple people in close sucession (e.g. pay machine is higher risk than a remote farm gate)

OCD is Obessive and Compulsive. If you don't satisfy the compulsion, obsession and anxiety kick in. While the behaviours can be damaging in themselves (such as damaging your skin), the intrusive thoughts that can't be settled until the action is completed is consuming, damaging and disproportionate. I've had close friends with it and it is so intrusive into life, routines and relationships. It really isn't a harmless precaution when anxiety and habits stray into this territory.

Our immune systems need regular updates through exposure to function. Colds and flu mutate all the time so isolation and having an over sanitised environment make it more likely that you will become ill when exposed. Hence the proliferation of colds within the first week of school, far worse than usual. There is also developing science around gut bacteria, health, weight and its influence by exposure to a varied environment.

All that hand sanitising and you met inside?

The being inside bit was the risky bit. It's nice weather (I think, I can't speak for the entire UK), I would choose to sit outside every time at the moment.

I'd wash my hands before going out and wash my hands on my return home. That's it, unless the pub or cafe insisted your sanitise your hands going in.

I think you probably do need help, but mental health services were on their knees even before covid, so I am not sure what to suggest, maybe others will have low cost ideas you can access away from the NHS.

And our parking meters all went card only or pay by a phone app at the start of all of this which is bloody brilliant for me cos I never had cash for them. Sit in car, tap location on phone, time wanted and job done.

@myrtilles

How do those of you who don't hand sanitise feel about your kids having to hand sanitise continually at school and have their desks cleaned several times a day. I worry a bit about exposure to chemicals/antibiotic resistance with all the sanitising that schools, restaurants etc are required to do by government legislation. If it really can't be caught from surfaces surely it is government/WHO advice that is a bit OTT?

I hate that mine uses the hand sanitiser. I get it for the secondary school child its easier for the school to check it.

The primary school children I think should use soap and water. Sanitiser doesnt clean visibly dirty hands which younger children are more likely to have. The gels tend to be alcohol based and very drying.

You sound like me. I do everything you say you did. And I still haven’t been into a shop or restaurant since March!!

long term we're more at risk of bacterial resistance with the way we're all going on

Yes. All the anti-BACTERIAL hand-sanitising needs to stop. This is a virus, not a bacterium, and if our antibiotics stop working we'll be in a much greater pickle than we are now.

@cologne4711

long term we're more at risk of bacterial resistance with the way we're all going on

Yes. All the anti-BACTERIAL hand-sanitising needs to stop. This is a virus, not a bacterium, and if our antibiotics stop working we'll be in a much greater pickle than we are now.

Well said

My view in March (when I did in fact get covid) was: we're all going to get it sooner and later, why not just get the thing over with and then I won't be worrying about it all the time. Whether the antibodies detected in my blood in the summer are still there, and whether even if so they would protect me, I don't know. But I'm not sanitising things that I didn't sanitise last year. I am prone to health anxiety, so I will say that this is a happy outcome for me. I've made a huge fuss about illnesses that other people get on with stoically (and everything to do with pregnancy and childbirth). But covid wasn't that bad, so I'm not especially worried about getting it again. (At least, I have far far larger worries, most of them caused by the pandemic.)

I went to take some stuff over to a friend who had a positive test a few days earlier last week. Left it at the end of her drive but we had a chat from a few metres away, and apart from a dry cough she looked and seemed healthy. This is an illness with many faces. The media has shown us the most frightening side, over and over, and that's absolutely real. But most of us wouldn't get bronchitis and then watch loads of videos of elderly and immuno-compromised people struggling and even dying from bronchitis. We'd be more likely to form our expectations on the basis of friends' and family members' experience of the same illness.

OP, is there any reason why you haven't been out? If you were shielding then obviously you should continue to be very careful. Otherwise I think it might be a good idea to speak to someone about these behaviours.

Genuinely wondering how many people on this thread are qualified to diagnose OCD 🤔. I am & I wouldn’t offer that diagnosis on the strength of the OP’s post. It’s incredibly unhelpful & as for the comment suggesting that her friend is now at home discussing her “weird behaviour” with her husband... Not remotely supportive or helping someone who is struggling.

Yes, the OP is stressed & clearly uncomfortable & possibly overthinking but actually I do think that all of that IS normal when taking your first foray into an activity that you haven’t done for ages during a pandemic. Perhaps everyone else on here has been going to bars/cafés/shopping for many weeks already. You’re acclimatised to whatever your new normal is. That doesn’t mean that others will have the same experience.

I don't sanitise very often anymore tbh. I wash hands often instead - obviously after the toilet, before and after food, after coughing / sneezing. I've eaten out a few times (within the rules) and if I trust the cafe / restaurant hygiene enough to eat food they've prepared then I trust that their glasses and cutlery are clean. The only surfaces I wipe before using are gym equipment and if I'm sitting at someone else's desk. Obvs I wipe after using them too!

@Havaiana

Apparently hand sanitiser one my works on clean hands and not on sweaty or dirty hands. Our hands sweat a bit even if they don’t feel it. So what is even the point of sanitiser our and about?

Was just about to say the same. Soap and water is more effective.

Just found this article about the effectiveness of hand sanitizer.

hand sanitiser effectiveness

I don’t mean this in a flippant way, but I do think you should seek help. It sounds quite a long way from ordinary caution. Even quite cautious friends who were shielding are not going to these extremes.

You have a child in a pram OP so you’re not elderly. Do you have any other health problems that make you high risk? If not, you seem to have lost sight of the actual level of risk you face.