SIL still isolating due to covid risk

[dragontears]

AIBU to think this is no way to live now? She works from home and will only leave the house for essential errands with mask on. She is terrified of getting long covid. Feels like her life is very very limited for a 38 year old!

Anyone else have people they know in this position? How to support them?

However, the SIL is not just making a personal choice, but controlling the behaviour of others.

Caution has to be weighed against what is gained. In these circumstances it’s not clear what the SIL is living for.

Millions of people have life limiting conditions but still live life as fully as possible.

But you only get hurt in a train crash if you’re on a train.

This isn’t the same with Covid which is everywhere.

Thanks for ‘indulging’ those with Long Covid👍🏻you sound a very compassionate person

I do know someone like this, OP. Last year she was forced to go back into the office for two days a week and purchased a bespoke medical-grade respirator-style mask with extra filters, which she wears whenever she's out of the house. She's only 47 and her world has imploded. She will go for a walk in the countryside, but stays several metres away from everyone and would die rather than use a public loo or a cafe. She has Type 1 diabetes and is terrified of getting ill.

She's 47 now. She lives alone, her mother died some years ago and her father remarried and lives in Australia and is rarely in touch. I phone her occasionally. She has nothing to say and seems to be content at home, watching TV and playing video games, with her Tesco deliveries each week and two days in her office with the door shut and the window open. Her plan is to work until she's 55 and then just, in her words, become a complete hermit.

There is an online cult which she's presumably a part of. Unfortunately arguments about how unlikely long covid is don't work with these people because they believe we all have organ damage that we don't know about (i.e. asymptomatic long covid). At the most extreme end, some people believe that the reason most people are not taking precautions is that we all have covid-induced brain damage that causes us to take risks. Have a look at the zero covid community subreddit if you want to see the sort of thing she is likely reading.

It's so worrying, isn't it, but what can we do!

The point is that I don't believe that Long Covid is a) common enough; or b) serious enough to curtail a full life. People have their free will, they can do what they like, and I am compassionate to those whose mental illness renders them unable to make a rationale balanced decision. Where I run out of compassion is the point where the irrational behaviour starts to impact others, in this case, OPs brother.

So scary. Thanks for that info. Will look into it.

This is incredibly sad and I fear there are more people like this than we realise.

Op, I'm sorry to dreail but I have a question for another poster

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow
I'm currently in the throes of those fkn adrenaline rushes when I'm actually asleep or when I'm falling asleep and it's just horrible.
Sorry, I know you don't want to think about it too much.
I had covid over 14 months ago and have been awful since- with the odd few days' window of hope before I succumb to the next thing!
I don't know that it's long covid per se- this winter it was 'flu that battered me and just now I have something that feels like covid but isn't.
It's the length of time of these viral illnesses that feels relentless- this last has been about 3 months and still going.
I'm terrified of kids going back to 6th form, I cannot cope with another illness.
Anyway, longwinded way of asking- have things got a bit better for you and any advice?!

I think she needs to see her GP. This is a mental health problem.

I agree with this. Some posters are acting like she is suffering from long covid already which would be a completely different matter. She is not.

I agree.

We indulge the sob stories of posters who claim to suffer with 'Long-COVID

is an incredibly insensitive and condescending post by @Everanewbie

Most of us choose to take the risk of flus, viruses etc by being out and about because the things we want to do or the people we want to support involve doing so. Some meet it halfway and just do less through the winter months.

But why do we have to dictate what others do if they are genuinely happy with what they are doing? In this instance to me the problematic issue is that her DH seems affected by it. But were that not the case, so what, why not?

I do agree that the impact on the DH is troubling in this instance.

But I disagree it is not clear what she is living for. I'm afraid I find that patronising in the extreme. Its not for us to say. She has a job, she has a partner (who she needs to consider, I agree), she gets out for walks. There might just not be anything - pub, shops etc - that she feels that compelled to pursue that cannot be pursued at home.

But she isn’t just deciding to stay at home. She is claiming that her actions are restricted by Covid.

Is she happy living her life? Does she express loneliness or does she prefer to wfh?

I don't think you need to rescue her, in fact it could be quite insulting to swoop in and help her if she doesn't need any help and you're basing a judgement about her lifestyle on what you believe is the right way for a 38 year old to live.

That is not the point I was making. The point I was making was that we should shut out the posts from the people who talk about how bad their experiences of long covid are. This is because their experiences are not typical and elevating the experience of an unfortunate few leads to people making life decisions based on the loudest repetitive worst case scenarios.

I'm sorry if you have 'Long-Covid', but your worst case scenario is not relevant here.

Yes things got better for me when l started properly working with an OT and a hypnotist.

The hypnotist reduced the anxiety which usually goes with LC due to dysregularion od the nervous system.

The OT told me about neuroplasticity
and how the brain gets stuck trying to protect you. I did a lot of vagal nerve exercises but you basically have to ignore the symptoms because the brain gets stuck wants to protect you. Kind of push through but not to exhaustion.

I had awful eye issues. Couldn’t watch tv. I tried to ignore them and it became possible. Then l staeted some knitting and my eyes just went crazy. It was a new thing that threatened the brain. I just ignored it and carried on.

HTH. Or sent me a really interesting webinars which l can send you if you want. The anxiety of LC drives the brain to keep you safe.

I'm in my early forties and have been significantly immunosuppressed since 2021, but I just get on with my life. I definitely get more infections than the average person, but the alternative is no life at all... I agree with other posters that CBT or some form of therapy would be really beneficial for your S-I-L. Very tough situation for you to witness, I'm sure. Xx

Long Covid is real. And like concussion and brain injury, probably an invisible illness that those people who have had the fortune not to suffer won't truly understand.

Having said this, it is hard to keep going but it's imperative to live life as full as possible. I was going through hell at times after my head injury, and to be honest, if I had the misfortune of having Long Covid too and it had been just ad debilitating, I know its impact on my life would have been dreadful.

But it's been a "good" thing in some ways being injured as it's definitely made me feel a lot more appreciative of the good health and well days I have.

I don't have long covid, but I have sufficient respect for those who do to find the words "indulge", "sob stories" and "claim" unkind and condescending.

And I'm not really sure why it's an irrelevant consideration because the lady doesn't currently have it. On one view that would make the precaution all a bit late?

Close us down you mean?

Our experiences are entirely typical but you, like everyone else in the world including health people like to pretend it doesn’t exist.

3m on PIP due to LC. Is their experience not typical either? What makes you such an expert?

This is a difficult balance to strike though. On the one hand, I agree with you that if she wants to live her life like that, is it any of my business?

On the other hand, it does affect my DB. And also my DC. They want to know where their Auntie has disappeared to! (Actually they have now stopped asking, which is even sadder).

Additionally, mental health issues can be tricky in this regard, because the nature of a mental health condition means the person often doesn’t want to seek treatment or even admit they have an issue, so it is a difficult call to know when to stage an intervention or when to just accept that it’s their own problem to deal with.

@Calliopespa

But why do we have to dictate what others do if they are genuinely happy with what they are doing? In this instance to me the problematic issue is that her DH seems affected by it. But were that not the case, so what, why not?

Because it impacts on other people. The DH is clearly impacted by it (and seems to have the patience of a saint but may not do indefinitely). If there were children involved it would be extremely damaging to them. I think people who have children have an obligation not to allow this sort of neurosis to impact on them. (I can't tell if that's the case here or not - it would be really shocking if she was doing this and she did have children). This sort of social neurosis doesn't happen in a vacuum: it has a huge negative impact on all the people close to the person.

There's a separate but related question about whether one can be "genuinely happy" living with this level of paranoia and isolation. Of course this woman should be free to live like this if she chooses to: I would never force her to put herself into contact she didn't want. But the answer to the "why shouldn't she live like this?" is that we don't want people to think this is normal. It's not.

I don't take as hardline a position on Long COVID as @Everanewbie as I know people who are affected by it and I know it can be debilitating. But I think at its most extreme level, that kind of obsessive health anxiety becomes a kind of self-indulgence.

At some point people like this need to be faced with a choice: you can carry on living like this and risk losing your family and friends or you can make hard choices and try to deal with your fears. It's not possible or fair to expect other people to endlessly indulge this stuff.

I'm sorry you're going through that, but the risk of that happening isn't proportionate to the OP's SIL's behaviour. Most people who catch Covid don't get long Covid. Most people who leave their house to meet with friends etc don't catch Covid at all.

OP, it sounds like your SIL has developed an extreme OCD/anxiety issue around catching Covid. She needs mental health support.

How awful that she’s wasting her life like this. I developed an autoimmune disease after contracting Epstein-Barr as a child. My life has been severely impacted as a result and I have lived this way for 30 years now. I function due to a large amount of medication. I will never be ‘well’ but I live the absolute best I can because you get one go at life.
It was just one of those things. People catch what I had and don’t develop problems. Same with covid. Life is for living, you never know what might happen so you’ve just got to enjoy it while you can.