I am coping with things very badly

[newwnamme]

Name changed.

I am not a person who talks much about mental health. I am usually of the 'get on with it' school of thought. But we are a few days in to this and I am seriously questioning whether I am coping.

There are times in the days I can't hold back the tears. The platitudes that so many people are throwing around do absolutely nothing to help - whilst I can acknowledge the ways in which things could be going worse for me, the knowledge that someone else is suffering in a way that I am not is not doing anything at all to make me feel better. I have so much I should be doing - supposed to be homeworking from tomorrow, and am in no way prepared. My 2 toddlers are watching TV basically around the clock. My patience with them is at an all time low. The thought of the short term fills me with panic - I do not deal well with even a weekend at home with nothing much to do. The medium term makes me want to curl up and weep. Various non-sensationalist things I've read suggest we could be looking at a second round of this come autumn and the idea of all this but with dark days, cold, rain and a socially distant Christmas just - I truly don't know if I can cope. I feel like the government is being very manipulative with the information they are releasing. They haven't said as much, because they know what the reaction would be, but if you read the advice they have received on which decisions to date have been based, it is coming. Then there is the long term. I will most likely not have a job to go back to when this is over and my industry will be in tatters. I feel like this, on top of Brexit and the 2008 crash has ruined things financially for my generation. Things are never going to properly recover on that front. I will never have the security my parents have, or be able to provide it for my children the way they have for me.

I can see nothing positive, nothing good. I am struggling to be motivated to even do basic chores around the house. I could happily not eat at all but have decided I must force myself as I am still breastfeeding my toddler and none of this is his fault. All this just swirls around in my head all day. Genuinely, I feel like everything I have said here is a proportionate response to the way that life has been ripped away from us and shrunk down to the basic essentials of existing.

Is everyone feeling this way? Is this the default new way to feel? I want to and need to (for the sake of poor DH and children) find a way to summon up some positivity but there is just none to be found. I just need to know if this is the new normal now, or if I should consider seeking out some kind of mental health assistance.

yes go easy on yourself & if you do one thing give yourself a pat on the back. i'm going to try & focus on playing with the dc & giving them as much normality as possible.

Are you also working @mochajoes? (great username btw). I need to somehow find a way to be doing a less crappy job on both fronts. It's so hard now there is no office to go to but also no park / playgroup / soft play etc etc.

thanks 😉

I am still working although I'm not full time (3days) but today no work & it was still really full on. I did however spend about 2 hours on admin, queuing for milk&more, trying to find food boxes, etc. DHs also wfh but he's super busy at the moment so not a great help. he's doing most of the cooking. I'm secretly jealous of my siblings who live with their partners & are doing youtube tutorials, marathon box sets & weight training.

I've entered freak out mode. Been up all night fretting. We've beeb traveling in Aus and we think a lockdown is coming, or flights home are cancelled til at least June. We've a tent and small camper but no loo or shower. Genuinely not sure what to do now.

We are all different and different things get us down. I am self isolating for 12 weeks I am on day 4. I am ok, I am a teacher. Who took very early retirement and now having to home school 13 year old with SN. He is very active child and so he is taking staying in very hard. All his activities are suspended and it has dawned on me all of his activities were physical: cricket, karate and swimming with occasional ice skating and climbing. He does not sit and play with Lego like other children might. I quite enjoy watching a box set or doing a crossword not keen on much exercise so so far not too bad for me. Anyone feeling like you do op should ring GP and get a phone appointment. It is normal to be anxious, these are worrying times. None of us have ever been in a situation like this before. It is ok to let kids watch TV. It won't hurt them. I feel a bit like you at Xmas. I worry I won't have chosen the gifts people were hoping for. No one ever just tells me what they want and yet they seem to expect me to know. Lockdown will be hard but just take one day at a time.

what makes me feel better is a great aunt was sent up north to protect her & her young baby during the war. She said she was so isolated & depressed (imagine no modern conveniences) that she came back to London & the bombs. It's normal to find this hard.

I’ve never really worried about my mental health but I’m really, really struggling with this. I’m either crying or on the verge of tears.
I think that on top of the virus, we’re heading for a huge mental health crisis in the coming months.

I have had extended periods of being stuck at home previously and there are some other things I have found that helped:

• Digging out my old Fitbit and making myself do 10,000 steps a day. This means marching on the spot a lot, looking daft, but it gives me a sense of minor accomplishment
• Every time I pass the kitchen I make myself have a drink of water, even a small one. Keeping hydrated makes me feel better and keeps headaches at bay.
• Making my bed. A small thing that lifts my mood incrementally.
• Limiting the caffeine. For me that's one coffee and two teas per day.
• Filling in my eyebrows. It makes looking in the mirror less scary.
• Lighting a candle. It smells good. I have teenagers. Enough said.
• Looking on Pinterest. It makes me feel that there are still beautiful things in the world, many of which are at home.
• Having a night routine to look forward to. For me that's a cup of tea in bed with Mumsnet or a book.

But most of all I think it is important to recognise OP that you are not coping badly. You are coping. That is enough right now. We are all going to go up and down, with good moments and bad moments. You are doing the best you can. It's shit. It's truly shit. Anything to make it less so, is a win.

If anyone needs something instantly comforting, reassuringly normal, lighthearted, watch this little clip of an elderly married couple entertaining themselves with music and dancing whilst self-isolating.

twitter.com/age_uk/status/1242147206121033728

Made me want to hug them both for their sheer wholesomeness.

Scary times we're in, from today even more so: but remember there are small and lovely things happening too.

Stay safe everyone, reach out for RL help if you need it: there'll be more of it available to get us through this bloody hard time.
And nobody should have to feel alone.

For most people It's a totally new and frightening experience..the worst thing we have ever bad to face. I think its totally normal to feel as you do, but as humans we are good at adapting fairly quickly, As time goes on you will be able to cope with this differently.

For me I've never felt so strange and panicked and hopeless, I feel totally broken by it, and it seems like everyone else is coping better but I'm not sure that's true really.. it just looks different from the outside.

I'm a mental health professional (although currently off sick with suspected CV) but I've had colleagues texting me all day asking me how can we do this, how can we help other people cope when it feels so horrendous, what can I possibly say to help them.For now, it's just getting through each day, whatever that looks like, it's enough just to survive at the moment and as time goes on hopefully we can do a bit more than that:Get a routine, find meaning in things, connect with the people we love, stay in the moment more..but that might take a while and I think that's totally fine

I know how you feel OP. I live in a very isolated place where I don’t speak the language. In winter, there are often long periods when I can’t leave the house for days. I was desperately looking forward to being able to go out when the snow melted, but now I can’t. Also, the baby groups for the very small English community have been cancelled, and they were my lifeline. Stuck indoors indefinitely with a toddler and a newborn, I often feel like I am going to lose my mind...

What helped me was (a) buying a huge amount of craft materials for the toddler and letting him make a mess with them and (b) going running at night when both babies are asleep - I recognise that the latter might be difficult for you in your situation. I’ve also found that having structure and discipline makes things run smoother. No TV (it makes him whiny and bratty), no junk food, lots of exercise, set mealtimes, fixed routine with lots of variation within that, etc.

This thread is helping me, actually. Thank you everyone for having the guts to say it like it is. And for the suggestions.

Just knowing others are feeling similar, and being told that that's normal while we try and get our heads round yet more massive changes before even the last lot has had time to sink in.

I feel the same OP
I'm so frightened.
I cry all the time. So does my DH and he's not a crier. If I'm not crying, I'm on the verge if crying.
I cry in front of my children. It makes them frightened too but I can't help it.
I'm a shit person in every possible, conceivable way.

@FATEdestiny you are not a shit person, you are just a struggling human. I think it helps to think of it as a natural disaster, like a earthquake or a tsunami. We are trying to cope in a terrible situation.
Tommorow is another day for us all. Get up, have a shower, get breakfast..try and have a routine for everyone, even if that is tele for x hours, play time, bath, walk round the block and stick to it regardless of how you feel. It helps us to know what we are doing each day, it might make you feel safer. Xxx

Oh @SinkGirl, posts like yours make me feel like the most selfish person alive for complaining in the first place. Your situations sounds so tough, even without corona virus.

Please don’t say that! I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. I just meant to say that we all have different challenges to face right now and all of them are causing so much anxiety for so many people.

We are lucky in many other ways - we have a stable home, food in the cupboard and fridge and DH can work from home. We don’t have those worries when so many others do. I spoke to my neighbour yesterday (at a distance from my garden) - she works in the local hospital and he is self employed and on the most vulnerable list, and their son is going to school. I feel really scared for them.

I just lay awake last night thinking about the future and what on Earth it will be like but I need to stop that - I already worried so much about the future for my boys but now I’m worried for all of us.

I am hoping that, like any emergency situation, the initial terror will wear off and we will adapt to this new way of things. I’m trying to use some CBT techniques to stop myself thinking about the future and falling into that spiral.

Sending to everyone - i think the way we all feel is completely normal given the circumstances, but I feel hopeful that when things settle down somewhat we will all feel more able to cope.

I had a similar blip yesterday morning.

I had a bout of cfs a few years ago and my eldest watched a lot of tv.

Honestly, it's ok. Use it at the moment to help you feel more centred and keep them happy. I think many will find wfh hard at first.

We are all in a shit place together, it's especially difficult for parents. It's ok to admit you're finding it really hard.

I'm thinking if this as similar to the blitz except that we at least have online stuff including amazon. It's a fucker we can't go out but air pollution is right down.

I bought a bubble machine and a lot of bubble mixture (easy to make at home though) and that entertains them outside. See if you can get a bag of play sand in an old baby bath or similar.

I'm literally taking it one day and week at a time. I'm a teacher and in the last 6 days we've closed and opened and semi closed 3 times! I'm not in and wfh.

Admitting all this and talking it through is a first step to coping with this.

I think it's going to be like layers of grief for many people. You are processing this right now. By the end of the week you may well feel very different.

Last year I made giant bubble mix and wands - they were such a hit I was planning to start selling them this spring... obviously that’s out.

The more complex mix I used and the really big wands used things you probably won’t have around the house but there are lots of recipes online with things you’re more likely to have.

If you have a garden it’s a good way to keep kids entertained - my 5 YO niece was obsessed! You can make a wand with sticks and string, or even a wire coathanger. Might be a fun way to kill some time if you have kids who’d be interested :)

Sinkgirl the bubbles look fab. I wish I could get it together to do things like this with my children.

I called the doctor this morning, managed to get a telephone appointment, and have been offered setraline (sp?) I need to have a think about whether the likely side effects are going to be worth it. I am leaning towards it has got to be worth a try?

I took Sertraline for years. I suppose you could say it saved my life but it was extremely hard to come off it. Personally I don’t recommend them - they made me feel very blank but I only realized after I came off them that I’d basically missed 10 years of my life - but they might help you. Best of luck with everything!

Pretty much everything you describe OP is 100% normal psychologically for a human being who finds herself in the situation we're in. You aren't coping badly at all. You're just on a learning curve to find a way to cope, in a situation that you've had no practice coping in just yet.

Doctors sometimes call this "adjustment disorder", where a person experiences sometimes really extreme distress while they're trying to adjust to a new set of stressors. But it's not a "disorder", that would be a weird thing to call it. It's literally just a human being trying to work out what the fuck they are going to do. And understandably feeling overwhelmed, during that learning process.

I'm probably the strongest and most resilient person I know. I am able to wfh quite easily, my DC are very good while I'm working, I have a supportive DP, I have savings, I am objectively pretty secure...

Am I crying every day, feeling hopeless, feeling daunted and small in the face of the future? You better believe I am.

You are so 100% not alone. I can't even tell you. I would say at least half the people you know, feel the way you do right now. If they don't feel it now, they'll be along shortly, as the lockdown becomes real.

In terms of your practical life with the DC - I direct you to the last time I had adjustment disorder - when I got divorced, toddler DC:

• TV is wonderful. Watch it. Let the kids watch it. Watch with them.
• It's OK for your kids to see you cry. Love them, hug them, hold them, and if they notice you're crying, you can say "I am feeling sad right now. I'm working on feeling better but I'm just going to let myself be sad today. Everything is OK."
• It's OK for your kids to be sad. You don't have to solve it - think of how you feel when folk tell you not to be sad, etc - it doesn't help does it? You just have to love them, they will survive their sadness.
• Phone it in, as the Americans say. Do the bare minimum at work and at home. Focus on being close to your kids and being kind and gentle to yourself.
• Bath, soft comfy clean clothes, comfort food, and a bit of exercise each day.
• Try to do something artistic. Colouring in or doodling counts.
• Write down how you feel, until the feeling passes. This really helps me.

Sending you love OP