Is anyone else still living in strict lockdown?

[laura081008]

Just that really.

Since March I’ve lived in lockdown.

My baby was born in lockdown and we haven’t seen anyone.

Even now the restrictions are relaxing, I don’t want to leave the house.

I’ve had friends asking me to go for a socially distanced walk, I don’t want to go.
Our parents have asked if they can come to our garden, or we go to theirs. I’ve said no.

I suffer terribly with anxiety and ocd and I just cannot face the world again after living in fear :(

It’s just too hard for me.

I can’t imagine going out to a clothes shop / supermarket and feeling comfortable.

My OCD means I doubt myself a lot and I know I would worry that I’d touched something, or forgotten to wash my hands.
It’s just not worth my mental health and the worries it would cause me by getting back into the “real” world, especially since it’s so far away from what I will remember before DS was born.

I feel like my life now will be confined to my living room and garden.

I’m being supported with my mental health but I really don’t think it will ever truly help, as my worries are the virus and until that goes away I will never want to leave my house.

I’m absolutely petrified of catching it and leaving my baby 😔

When will it ever go away.

How does everyone else feel?

OP can I ask, do you feel fully justified in your level of caution or are you aware that it's anxiety driven?

Still far too many for comfort around here.

All jumping to Frauline Sturgeons increasingly eccentric dictates.

Handhold OP. Fellow health anxiety sufferer here, (relatively) new mother - DD is six months old- and I also have mild asthma as well as congenital heart defect. All I’m prepared to do is walks around the neighbourhood at quiet times, and avoiding others. We’ll still get shopping delivered, quarantine and disinfect deliveries etc.
@PowerslidePanda, I’m with you. I’m also risk adverse. We just don’t know enough about this virus and what we do know worries me. I mean that generally, but also we don’t know enough for my heart defect specifically. I don’t want to be the one to find out!
Everyone is entitled to make their risk assessments, and this is mine.

I'm so sorry you feel like this. Can I normalise a bit for you. In the last week I've had hands on treatment from the chiro, a blood test at hospital A, a mamogram at hospital B, chemo infusion - last one yippeee at hosp A. Another blood test at gp surgery plus visit to pharmacy. I have got used to a mask now but find a neck thingy from Seasalt does when walking to avoid huffy puffy joggers. My son is on the vulnerable list but has worked one day a week at a supermarket throughout. I don't do Tesco but have been late on to empty garden centre (lovely experience), and will do Waitrose in the afternoon. That said, shopping is mostly delivered. We looked round a car showroom last weekend! Just small steps. Your liklihood of catching it are small especially if you stick to low footfall places and avoid close contact. Please do go and sit in a garden with a friend or take your baby fora walk in a country park or national trust garden. You are at more risk of your mental health deteriorating if you keep on like this.

Every best wish.

I agree that the “you’ll be fine” responses aren’t likely to help in the case of OCD or anxiety disorders - it’s just not how it works. My husband has a similar degree of asthma to the OP, we have a small baby in the house too, and he is going back to work next week. I have gone into shops when necessary, including with the baby in a sling, but I avoid them more because I find it stressful figuring out which direction I’m supposed to be going in and maintaining all the correct distances so the whole experience is unpleasant, rather than because I think I’m going to contract or pass on the virus. However, it’s easier for me to keep it in perspective because I’m not clouded by OCD etc. It’s a good job my personal risk assessment is fine with my husband going back to his place of work, isn’t it, otherwise we would have no income but my statutory maternity pay.

Same here. Since mid of March, i’ve been home.

I wonder if with babes mothers sense of protection is so strong it adds to it. I felt this when mine were small, less so now they are bigger.

OP risk to children and babies is very low, unlike other flu and viruses

Can't speak for everyone but those of us who have worked throughout seem a little less anxious than those who have been in lockdown off work or furloughed/WFH. I have friends that are definitely more anxious about even coming sitting in a garden.

I work in a hospital, lower risk area but did work with positive patients. I was very anxious March/ early April. Went to work and did one food shop every 2 weeks with a top up or two locally. Local walks.

However time has ticked on, my trust covid numbers are what I consider low. It's busy with other things now. My local cases are slowing and deaths are not daily anymore. I haven't worked with positive patients in over a month.

I'm not anxious I'm ready to live again. Happy to do so gradually though.

Please try some of the suggested tips to help you and your family.

Yes I'm living in a self imposed strict lockdown. I'm not worried about the virus I have got to used to living this life and I have no desire to go back to how it was before.

No I'm not because if I had been I'd now have social anxiety and not be able to leave the house or meet with friends and family.

I'm using my common sense to make sure we're not going to place others at risk but balancing quality of life over the risks which if your under 70 with no health conditions is low.

Treatments are improving which is also lessening the risks.

OP why are you ignoring all the posts that tell you to speak to your GP? You haven't acknowledged this is your responses.

Please speak to your GP. Your anxiety is way out of control and you need help.

Orangeblossom78 I know lots of mothers who have had babies at the same time as me (so during lockdown) who have quite bad PND/PN anxiety. I don’t know if rates are worse than usual but certainly the lack of support from family and community are contributing factors for many

Hmm ... From reading this thread one would conclude that every single one of the black and Asian people who has lost their life to this disease died of poor mental health. If only they'd spoken to a therapist they'd be happily picnicking now ...

Outside MN not everyone is young and white. And not everyone has been or will be properly protected by what passes for a government in England at the moment.

Many people will be drawing their own conclusions and acting as they see fit (whether that means shielding or protesting) regardless of MN scoffing.

How did you reach that Perdita? If anything, this thread implies that those with poor mental health are less likely to contract COVID19 as they are restricting themselves more. Though of course that just reflects those responding to the thread title, and the OP’s own circumstances.

Really not sure how you have reached an implication that BAME people “just need a therapist”

This isn't about CV, it's about your MH. You can confine yourself to your house till you think it's 'safe' but it never will be because your thinking is distorted by your illness. If they announced tomorrow that CV had disappeared you'll just find another reason to not go out.

We are still being cautious, but I find it helpful to look at the local statistics. You can find a UK cv map on the Guardian website which updates every day, and which counts the cases in each local area. I've found that helps to put it into perspective a bit, and make it visible. You can see at a glance from the colour of your area what the risk might be, and hopefully that's reassuring.

I would try to keep going out a little bit, just down the road and back, as I do think it helps. On the days I've gone out, I do feel less anxious, even if it's just for a minute or two.

This will get better, but I don't think it's unreasonable to be slightly cautious for the next few weeks, while we see what happens after lockdown has been lifted quite a bit.

If you cannot take your baby outside you really really need to make sure that someone else does, for your baby’s own good.

In the first few months of lives babies brain’s develop at an amazing rate, and it is so beneficial for them to be exposed to a range of environments and variety of visual stimuli. I think it encourages the creation of new links/synapse in the brain. Just think how your eyes & brain feel when you look at sun-dappled trees or sunlight glinting off water. Humans are not meant to be indoors 24/7. Please don’t deprive your child.

I am but this is basically how I lived all of last year too so no difference really and don't plan to change until there is a vaccination or an effective treatment... I live alone, work from home all the time anyway, and do my shopping online (no car). I don't have any family in this country and keep in touch with people online/by phone, it's fine.

I'm not particularly in an at risk group for the virus but equally I have absolutely no one who could help if I did get ill. So... don't really want to risk it when I don't have to.

OP, I think there's a fine line between sensible caution and anxiety that controls your life. It's good you're being supported with your mental health.

This might cheer some of you that are worried up
covid.joinzoe.com/

Total daily covid cases in uk is down 47% on last week.

The risk of going out is falling significantly at the moment.

@Catastrofuck "If anything, this thread implies that those with poor mental health are less likely to contract COVID19 as they are restricting themselves more. "

Surely if people stay indoors they will not be getting vitamin d from sunlight and won't be exercising and their immune system will become weakened. If they stay like this for months and then go out they might be more at risk of getting seriously ill with cv than those who have been out and about exercising and going to the shops etc within the government guidelines.

Ffs I don’t agree with it - I was just responding to the strange conclusions reached by the previous poster

@Catastrofuck - No need to be rude. Maybe I misunderstood your post.

GreekOddess Thu 11-Jun-20 05:30:07
Yes I'm living in a self imposed strict lockdown. I'm not worried about the virus I have got to used to living this life and I have no desire to go back to how it was before.
.......
I'm like that too though at seventy, I daresay I would have been considered 'vulnerable', despite there being nothing wrong with me. I enjoy the peace and privacy and have no desire to see people. It's quite nice to come on here and find someone else who feels the same though, if you are still fairly young and employed, yours will not last.

I've managed to be helpful to others at a distance, not totally selfish but I like my reclusive life.

This has nothing to do with the op, though so I don't want to divert the thread - but it's interesting.

I'm the same as you - asthmatic but not very clinically vulnerable (I had to shield for four weeks at the start until they changed the criteria). It is hard and it is for you to accept the risk you feel comfortable with. I won't be going clothes shopping or to the hairdressers any time soon, but I know that fresh air and green spaces are great for mental health and much much lower risk. So for me I stick to walks outdoors, and I have twice been to a garden centre and once to a post office (which I didn't like and will avoid!). I'm lucky and can wfh so that's my routine for the foreseeable future. Good luck OP.

There is much we could have done better in hindsight. However, it is not at all obvious that earlier lockdown would have achieved anything.

20% of the people in hospital with the virus caught it there. Half of all COVID deaths will turn out to be of people in nursing homes.

So more than half of the deaths to date were caused by routes of transmission that were not remotely linked to lockdown.

It is sad to see the creeping attempts to avoid acknowledgement of the failure of lockdown by arguing that it would have worked if we had only done more of it.

On balance, I just about think that imposing lockdown was probably the right thing to do but it has now served purpose and the quicker the remaining restrictions are lifted the better.