The positive mental health thread part 6

[Bunnyflop]

Morning all! Welcome to the new thread!

And we all have friends and families working in hospitals thanks. My DH included.

Fair enough, this thread was a real godsend to me which my dh was fighting this virus ( which I didn’t share as I was bloody terrified). It’s been really helpful, thankfully dh is now fully recovered for the last month.

I’m sorry if I caused upset but as you say @Arcadia we are all entitled to share our own feelings. At the moment we are full of heightened emotion and i guess having had it in my own home I’m super sensitive.

Sorry guys I'm feeling very emotional today, I think I need to step away for a day or two. Sorry @Benji13 no offence meant or taken x

Glad your DH is okay now @Benji13

I agree @Benji13. I know it's so hard for so many - there are lots of negative knock on effects for my family both economically and in terms of mental health too.
It's such a difficult balancing act, but so many people have died and many more will die if we get this next phase wrong.
And I think there will be some small steps taken to ease restrictions a bit but we're a little behind mainland Europe in terms of passing the peak.
With such a horrific death toll here I think we need to watch and learn.

In case it helps anyone, here's a link to positive news this week: www.positive.news/economics/good-coronavirus-news-from-the-seventh-week-of-lockdown/

I hope everyone has as good a day as possible.

Thanks @Arcadia x
Sorry to rant earlier 🥺 folks no offence meant. We will all have different points of view. It’s scared me though.

So today I will be baking like crazy. No work. - lovely. Plus nice walk with the dog and dh.
I’ve promised ds’s cooked breakfast - for lunch.

If this thread is going to devolve in tone maybe it’s time to step away. For me, anyway. Keep on keeping on, everyone.

In case this is about to disintegrate just wanted to thank everyone here and on previous threads who have made these threads what they were - it’s been a huge source of comfort for me, and it’s been a delight getting to ‘know’ many of you.

I think it’s natural for it to evolve and change and perhaps we need different things now than we used to. (I think I’d still love a non-political /non-news checking-in type thread of animals and dinner roll calls, small achievements and tiny nice things and so on so maybe I’ll look for one or set one up.)

@Spudlet and @Callybrid don't go, we sorted it out!

I hope this thread doesn't start losing lovely contributors :(

It has kept me going through the whole of this horrible time and has been a refuge for me when I've had no one to chat to and just talk about normal, everyday life. We all have our fears and opinions about things happening at the moment, I think today being a bank holiday has stirred up a lot of feelings about what were missing out on, which is understandable.
I think we all needed a space to just tune out, for even a few minutes, to think about and share the good things we still have, the lovely bread you baked, the kind message you got from a friend or gorgeous photos of much loved pets.
Sorry to ramble but wanted you to know how much I have appreciated this and it might seem trivial, to just want to talk about life's little joys but it has helped me so much reading about your days, when I was sometimes drowning in worry. Thank you x

Ok, sorry!

I am about to tackle the washing up and listen to a podcast. Weirdly I have got quite into a podcast called ‘This Podcast Will Kill You’ about different diseases from a modern treatment/prevalence/mechanism point of view and an historical/anthropological point of view. I studied History of Medicine so it is reuniting me with an old fascination for this stuff.

We’re doing art after lunch. One of my DC’s teachers does some great little projects so I’m quite looking forward to gatecrashing a P3 art lesson again

I agree it would be a real shame to lose the thread. It’s ok not to agree with each other on everything. We can only live this experience through our thoughts and circumstances. Those will also change day to day. My husband has been pretty steady from day one, but it’s obvious it’s got on top of him today. He’s going off for a solo walk shortly to clear his head. We are only human.
Remember the whole point of lockdown is to prevent something, rather than make it happen. It’s very hard to really appreciate the difference we’ve made, when we don’t get to see what the alternative truly would’ve looked like. But no matter how hard it has been or continues to be, we have all played a part and it means something.
The sun is shining here so I’m going to try and get plenty of fresh air.
Just keep taking each day as it comes and doing your best.

I haven't contributed much but its nice to read through posts. I have great anxiety about returning to a horrible work environment and this thread is a good distraction.

Sorry, just read that back and I think I'm come across a bit preachy. I didn't mean to.

@chrissieone I didn’t read it as preachy at all.

@chrissieone don’t worry, doesn’t come across as preachy at all!

(Although I get the reading back posts thing - I think a couple of other posters have said on this thread that they’ve opened up more here than elsewhere - this is true for me also (and I’ve been here over ten years) - and it comes with sometimes feeling quite vulnerable or worried about something I’ve written and whether it comes across how I meant it or was the wrong thing to say etc. but I’m trying to push myself to not listen to that worry!)

Thank you Asgoodasareat & Callybrid

But what a selfish attitude lots of people seem to have, it’s not just all about you.

God but this is such an unkind thing to write on a support thread. Over the last few weeks lots of people have had big wobbles and we've collectively got eachother through it and kept the tone positive overall.

I am dealing with an extremely sad and serious situation as a direct result of this virus which I have not brought onto this thread because it's potentially identifying but needless to say it's something which will count as one of the most devastating things I've dealt with across the whole of my life and which very few people will ever face as what has happened is very rare. In the last few weeks I have had had to have input from various mental health professionals to keep me going. You never know what is going on for people writing on here.

I appreciate we all have different views on lockdown and how to manage this crisis but even sitting here thinking it's appropriate for lockdown to start ending I still have a lot of concern around how this crisis is managed so as few people die as possible.

It is never selfish to be struggling very seriously and to voice your thoughts. My particular tragedy would ease a bit if lock down ended. I'm in an age group where I think 0.4% of people die. Of course I'm going to be experiencing serious frustration off and on about not having the choice to do what I want. I'm human and I came into this pandemic in a very difficult situation. I looked back over my comment and think I could have stressed more that I believe we can protect the vulnerable in places like care homes even coming out of lockdown. I genuinely don't think we need to be in lockdown to do that.

And anyway I've just read 3 news articles this a.m. about lockdown isn't the thing that has kept people safe anyway according to some v respected experts. It's not as simple as if you want lockdown to end you don't care about people dying.

Anyway to everyone else I hope you're having as good a day as possible. We are a bunch of strangers who no doubt all have our own stories and worries and strong opinions but this thread has helped so much. People have largely been so compassionate and it's done me good to check in here.

Now would be a good time for a bunny bum. Just saying.

I think the most important thing I have heard was said by a scientist, top of his field, a real expert. (Not in the news media, no link available; this was personal.)

I can't quote him exactly, but what he said was more or less, "People always talk as if all scientists were the same as each other and thought the same. It just isn't true. Even in a single discipline we disagree with each other all the time, and I do get so fed up with people assuming we're like clones when we are just like any other group of people, all different. Nobody expects all lorry-drivers or all folk musicians to agree, so why do they expect all scientists to?"

I don't think we will have a unified scientific view of this pandemic for at least another ten years, if then (we don't really have one about the 1918-1920 one, a hundred years later); I think hoping for agreement about what ought to be done is a waste of time, because we won't get it even among epidemiologists who have been working in the field for forty years. So the best we can do is keep on doing our best, keep on collecting shopping for people who are staying at home because they are at risk, keep on trying really hard not to lose our tempers because everything is so exasperating, and wait for things to improve.

@Noooblerooble glad you're still here and for what you have been going through.

Hugs Noooble.

Hugs to everyone, I think the very fact that those of us on here joined this thread is because we are struggling mentally so we all need to be super gentle and kind and positive on here.

I myself was having a major downer earlier but a long walk to the park to sit by the lake has boosted me no end.

Bunny butt is coming in a min, he is just finishing his nuggets and then he does a big stretch out...