How are people so calm about Covid?

[BumbleWumble]

I have written several posts now and been told my reaction is not normal and that I need help for my mental health as I am suffering from health anxiety.

But how do you come to terms with coexisting with this disease, possibly forever if no vaccine is found? A highly contagious disease that you run the risk of catching everywhere you go and might kill you. Even if it doesn't you might be left with severe incapacitating organ damage. Or you might get the long haul version that goes on for months at least. Since the disease is so new no one actually knows if people with this form actually ever get better.

This doesn't seem an equivalent risk to say driving a car. It seems that eventually most people will contract it. True, many people would have a mild version then recover, although even the mild version is supposed to be a nasty experience. But a vast number of people would either die, be left with terrible lasting damage or be ill for months, possibly permanently. Also it's not known whether lasting immunity is conferred, so you might initially get a mild version then get a more severe version at a later date. And as well as this, there is the constant fear of loved ones getting it and that you might pass it on to them. Or that you might unknowingly infect any one.

In addition to this, our quality of life will be awful. As well as the threat of the actual virus constantly hanging over us, social distancing will remain necessary and we will never be able to freely interact with other people ever again. People will not be able to be close with family and friends. There will be no proper socialising, no events where people gather. There will be fear every time an indoor space has to be shared with others. Indoor workplaces especially will be a major risk forever more. As will public transport.

We will just lead a terribly bleak existence knowing that at some point we will likely catch the disease regardless with a relatively high chance of a terrible outcome. Or if not us then a loved one.

I don't understand how people aren't more concerned about this and put it on a par with other daily risks such as driving a car. It is so terrible the whole world has come to a halt over it, and if no vaccine is found quickly, is going to have a catastrophic impact on humanity as a whole as far as I can see.

I realise there will be no choice but to get on with life, but I do not know how to do this without an ever present sense of anxiety and dread. I can think of little else and if this is to be the future then I fear the rest of my life consisting of terrible fear waiting for it to get me and loved ones.

I feel utter despair and terror. It's like a nightmare with no end.

Your American echo chamber is not helping you!

Finding someone that has anxiety as well simply means you will be feeding each other even more fear.

I felt terrified when it all started, I think most people did, but as the months have passed and the facts are now known I have felt comforted by the treatments now available, the progress of the vaccine and the tiny number of children affected. It is no longer terrifying for me, more like something inconvenient we now need to live with.

Hi OP.

Please come back after you have consulted a PROFESSIONAL who deals with mental health difficulties.

There is no point if Person A (with X mental health difficulty) then finds Person D (in a different country but also with the same X mental health difficulty) to conclude that the mental health difficulty is not real. You have simply found a fellow sufferer.

The logic that we must respond to global crisis with paranoia and panic and if you are not paranoid you are deluded - is bollocks.

If the world has genuinely become quite so dire and if the only two options you see are to be paranoid or to be apparently deluded - you need help.

Not from random others.

You need to consult a healthcare professional.

Please stop posting these many many similar threads either way.

I haven't read your other threads but I read your OP entirely as if you are speaking only about yourself, rather than describing what we're all going to face, and that makes me think that your life does sound very bleak indeed. I wonder if your family and friends know how much you're suffering.

I guess I agree, the world you describe sounds like end times, but even if that were the case (which I don't believe btw) people will still make their own decisions about how they will live. Most that I know are just returning to normal lives.

I don't know anyone who is so scared of the virus that they've secured themselves in a bunker somewhere but that doesn't mean they are the virus personified and that you should fear them just because they don't share your terror.

A man in a van hit me whilst I was out on my bike a couple of weeks ago. He didn't even stop and I was lucky I didn't fall off as I'd have been in the path of a bus. I'm more anxious about getting back out on the road than the virus, but it hasn't stopped me actually leaving my home and doing things in as normal a way as I can. Because I would get depressed very quickly if I chose that solution.

Having had Covid early March, all I would say is that yes, it was very unpleasant indeed and 3 months plus on I still have some residual issues but I would liken it (in my case) to the worst case of flu you can imagine and a bit more. But then I’m only 49, above average fitness and no underlying health conditions.

The thought of my mum (72 with COPD) catching it, fills me with dread.

I just think you have to be sensible and just ‘do you’ . You can’t legislate for others who are less sensible and I strongly believe we have to start learning to live as normally as possible now. Otherwise the problems we face will be as big if not bigger then Covid.

The BBC has been particularly bad for the way it has presented this, 'we have to have a degree of paranoia about it' for example, and it's articles on how to live now and overblown speculation and stories about it. It used to be factual and balanced, not so any more It is worse than the Daily Mail at times.

I know of some useful books and resources might help with this kind of feeling;

Feel the fear and do it anyway- Susan Jeffers
Notes in an anxious planet- Matt Haig
Change your Thinking with CBT-

And that any one who doesn't feel that is the problem as they are more liable to act irresponsibly.

Plenty of people are taking neccessary precautions but not whipping themselves into some kind of apocalyptic frenzy. It's probably not doing you any favours finding other people who feel the same way about it as you, you need support and to listen to what people are saying. If you have health anxiety then it's worth trying to speak to someone.

The BBC have been horrendous. There is no rational presentation of risk, it’s unbearable to watch. Loaded with emotive language and hysteria

The BBC has been particularly bad for the way it has presented this, 'we have to have a degree of paranoia about it' for example, and it's articles on how to live now and overblown speculation and stories about it. It used to be factual and balanced, not so any more It is worse than the Daily Mail at times.

Sky haven't been much better and at least two of their news presenters I could name have been totally over the top on Twitter, so over the top, you could question their intelligence.

I also think they should have had much more reporting of mild cases rather than the extremes. It would have been reassuring for people.

But that might not have been in line with their way of getting people to stay at home.

You’re not listening op. You asked how others cope and they’ve told you.

Anyway, your anxiety is more of a health risk than Covid

www.verywellmind.com/worry-and-anxiety-impact-longevity-2223983

Look, there's LOADS of global research going into treating and finding a vaccine. Measures are being put into place by the government. Schools have systems that they'll using and trialling. Businesses are opening with precautions implemented. Masks are mandatory on public transport. Masks are advised where the 2m rule cannot be easily applied.

There is always a risk of catching disease. Even with vaccines, going abroad always bears some risk in terms of disease or kidnapping or whatever. Food poisoning is always a risk when you eat out, home or abroad. Just being in any big city is a risk - terrorism, murder, abduction into trafficking.

You cannot let Covid 19 completely take over your life! I knew when shit started to get real there would be massive waves of health anxiety. You need to address this ASAP with your GP or other trained professional.

OP - your anxiety has distorted the facts completely.
Around half of people who catch the virus will be completely asymptomatic. No symptoms and no effects. And the vast majority of the rest who have it will have a mild mild illness. The VAST majority who have died from this are over 80. (And let's face it, once over 80, you have a 10% chance of dying each year anyway). The number of people under 45 with no underlying health conditions who have died from this virus stands at 32. There are more deaths from cancer, traffic accidents, other random viruses, suicide in this age group.
Of course there is a very very small chance you will get serious effects from covid. But there is also a small chance you will get ill from a while host of other things. Living with a level of uncertainty is part of life.
Your mental health is more of a risk to your health and quality is life than covid.
You must find a way to live with this

I suffer anxiety and depression anyway but for some reason it just doesn't bother me.

I don't have any high risk or vulnerable people in my loved ones or family and we are all be careful.

If I get it I know it's more likely to end up like when I had the flu than do me any serious damage.

I mean this kindly, please get help for your anxiety over this otherwise it'll get out of hand x

In in Nz life has returned to normal
Most bottles of sanistoser are walked past.
We carry on as we have to because fear is a unhealthy way to live.
Realisation covid cases will be around and some won't vaccinate.
If I catch it I do.
I am glad our boarder is closed I admit to wanting that to take as long as possible as it's where the cases are coming from now.
Limit your news and information on covid do not let it consume you.. as We were advised by our psychogist the news often had on advice to get thru our lockdown

No, OP, the lockdown and helping the NHS to cope is not because the virus is so deadly and will kill us all. It was to stop the NHS being overwhelmed and allowing for bed space, much like the NHS can struggle to cope with flu season! Or are you terrified of flu as well?

It's really not healthy for you to live in these chains of anxiety and "terror" you describe. Get some help from your GP.

I'm not that bothered because the thing most likely to kill me prematurely is probably a car accident. I don't have underlying conditions and all my relatives have lived to their 80s at least.

I could be unlucky and catch this and be one of the ones who has lasting effects, or I might not. I'm not going out of my way to catch it, I've largely followed the rules and wear a face covering in enclosed spaces. But I am not anxious, just take precautions.

I suspect, sadly, that dementia is the thing most likely to get me but hopefully not.

People have offered you helpful advise and reassuring data on your other two active threads but you are not listening.

OP you need to stop feeding your anxiety by stopping these ridiculous posts and getting some help. I really hope you don’t have children and are projecting this madness onto them.

@Orangeblossom78 I agree with more reporting on mild cases! My DH has had the positive antibodies test. He can’t even pin point when he had it..he felt tired for a few days in March. And he didn’t self isolate from us his family, so we may have got it too..no symptoms at all.

I find not bothering watching the News or COVID related things helped me when it was really getting me down at the height of lockdown. I felt so angry at this stupid virus, how much it had messed with my plans and life. My keyworker told me to just not watch the news. I unwillingly did so. Best decision I ever made.

From my own viewpoint, OP (and I have an autoimmune disease and really, really don't want to catch Covid-19), at first I was pretty nervous, but I also know that 'all things will pass' and if I did catch it and die, well that's my lot - I'm mid 60s and although not ready to go yet, I accept that I'm a lot older than many people reach worldwide and we don't have any guarantees of longevity.

When you look back at past generations, their life span was inevitably shorter and there were many threats to health. I think people in the West expect to live long lives now, but in reality there are no such guarantees as we don't know what the next day will bring. I very much look at the first and second world wars and that has to have been far, far worse for people - you could die from bombing if at home, or in active duty if at war. How did people live with that? Yet they did somehow and I expect many hold the mental scars of that time, layered over by later, happier events.

We too will come out of this phase, the next 'big thing' will become the news. Life is a risky business, we seem to have forgotten that in our age of shopping and socialising.

I do think you should get help OP, and talk through your anxieties with a professional.

But if there had to be a lockdown, it must be because the virus is genuinely very scary.

No, it was because of the exponential growth. Less than 1% of people with the virus die. The problem is 1% of a lot of people is a high number.

To be fair the OP has mentioned she has some health risk factors and of partial South Asian origin too so that does change things a little

I wonder if there is any specific help at the moment for more vulnerable groups, could ask the GP perhaps. But it would not mean you could 'never see others again' etc just may need to take care.