Are you taking this seriously?

[nolovelost]

Are there any people that aren't clinically vulnerable/vulnerale taking the virus seriously?

It seems like there aren't enough people thinking "well I'm not vulnerable but I'm taking it all on board and think the pandemic is horrendous".

It's all quite soul destroying, the whole thing isn't it but I'm hoping that people are rising above the relentless boredom and realising that the restrictions are for a good cause.

I know a few people that think everything has been exagerated and before the stricter mask rules came in the other week, refused to wear one.

I'm vulnerable, but not extremely clinically vulnerable, and was wondering how many on here think it's all a waste of time because they don't think they're at risk?

Yikes! This thread got mean!! To the poster who had a lovely Sunday, thats great! My Sunday was spent with my family, a long walk in the mountains with a friend, cooked a roast etc etc. We've all had a really fun day. I enjoyed it. To me that is living, not just existing.

To the people belittling her for enjoying her life even during a pandemic: don't begrudge people their happiness just because it isn't your happiness. Look for joy in smaller things. A person who can find joy in a nice breakfast with their children is very lucky indeed.

@GalesThisMorning

Yikes! This thread got mean!! To the poster who had a lovely Sunday, thats great! My Sunday was spent with my family, a long walk in the mountains with a friend, cooked a roast etc etc. We've all had a really fun day. I enjoyed it. To me that is living, not just existing.

To the people belittling her for enjoying her life even during a pandemic: don't begrudge people their happiness just because it isn't your happiness. Look for joy in smaller things. A person who can find joy in a nice breakfast with their children is very lucky indeed.

Did you actually read the thread, she isn’t being belittled for enjoying her Sunday that much should be apparent.

@Fembot123 She was basically told that her idea of a nice time was boring as shit, and that she was a stepford wife!

What's wrong with gratitude and acceptance? Yes times are tough right now. If you can find happiness in the small every day moments good for you!!! If you can't, you can't. But surely bringing other people down for their enjoyment won't help anyone

In answer to the original question, it depends on what you mean by taking it seriously. I am following the rules (because they are the rules), but I'm not terrified of the virus and am not dousing my shopping in disinfectant or curtain-twitching.

[quote GalesThisMorning]@Fembot123 She was basically told that her idea of a nice time was boring as shit, and that she was a stepford wife!

What's wrong with gratitude and acceptance? Yes times are tough right now. If you can find happiness in the small every day moments good for you!!! If you can't, you can't. But surely bringing other people down for their enjoyment won't help anyone[/quote]
If she'd simply said 'I had a great day pottering and baking cakes but I totally understand that this is a miserable time for many' nobody would have had a problem.

But she didn't just say that, did she?

[quote GalesThisMorning]@Fembot123 She was basically told that her idea of a nice time was boring as shit, and that she was a stepford wife!

What's wrong with gratitude and acceptance? Yes times are tough right now. If you can find happiness in the small every day moments good for you!!! If you can't, you can't. But surely bringing other people down for their enjoyment won't help anyone[/quote]
Error did you miss the bit that she called anyone who is struggling to the point of not wanting to carry on a shit parent?

[quote GalesThisMorning]@Fembot123 She was basically told that her idea of a nice time was boring as shit, and that she was a stepford wife!

What's wrong with gratitude and acceptance? Yes times are tough right now. If you can find happiness in the small every day moments good for you!!! If you can't, you can't. But surely bringing other people down for their enjoyment won't help anyone[/quote]
That’s simply not what happened.

Telling other people that they are shit parents when they are on the edge is cuntish. I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy my day too, not what the thread is about in any event so irrelevant for her to detail in the first place.

I think she said that wallowing in misery is not great parenting. Look, I get it. I've been in a really bad way with my mental health to the point of having several episodes of hospitalization for it. I truly truly believe that gratitude and acceptance are the only way through. I'm sorry if that sounds trite. There were times it would have to me too.

This is a very tough time for the majority of us. I know that walks and baking cakes may feel boring, but if I am able to walk in the fresh air and bake cakes with my children I'm lucky. That's how I see it. That's how the other poster appeared to me as well.

I dont think focussing on how shit it is is healthy. It is shit, we can acknowledge that, but we just need to keep moving through it. It truly won't last forever.

I truly truly believe that gratitude and acceptance are the only way through.

Good for you, but enforced positivity can make things worse for a lot of people.

is a very tough time for the majority of us. I know that walks and baking cakes may feel boring, but if I am able to walk in the fresh air and bake cakes with my children I'm lucky. That's how I see it. That's how the other poster appeared to me as well.

Go back and read her posts. She asked what was so exciting about all our lives that we were missing, as though this were simply about spending 'lovely Sundays' doing online yoga and 'pottering'.

@MynephewR Well said.

The only way I can obey the Covid rules is to break nearly every rule in my personal parenting code. They are becoming screen-addicted, housebound, undersocialised, clingy little people who are unlearning all the healthy diet and exercise habits I taught them for years. 10 minute Joe Wicks videos without their friends are completely not the answer.

I know that. I think enforced positivity is fake - smiling and pretending to be happy, but gratitude goes much deeper (for me anyway). I'm genuinely grateful for so much even when I'm having a shit time. Reminding myself of that keeps me grounded.

I'm not putting that out there to make anyone feel bad for feeling bad, but just as something that helps me as someone who has really battled with poor mental health in the past.

@YukoandHiro

I really can't bear this "I'd rather die" nonsense from anyone under the age of 65 and certainly not from anyone with children. It's absolutely pathetic. This might be - at the very worst - three years of an otherwise long life.

And for those not vulnerable to death, long covid is no joke. Your life could be a hell of a lot worse with it. In fact, you may find yourself alive and having to live like this for years even when society has reopened because your health is so shit.

Why take the risk?

I really only understand this attitude from anyone whose already had the bulk of their healthy life behind them eg retirement onwards

Yes this. I really understand why people are at the end of their tether, and why they just want to forget it all and meet with family. Believe me, I'm there too. But saying you don't care of you get it and get hospitalised with it/die of it because that would be no worse - it's illogical thinking and also really offensive to those who know what it's like to have it so badly you almost die. I know what it's like to almost die of pneumonia and it's the most painful, dreadful, agonising thing, drowning in your own lungs. It's not 'easier' at all. It is hideous.

And yes people may well become so disabled with long covid that they are forced to become housebound and live like this for good.

One of the things I've found repeatedly difficult about this is the constant assertion that life indoors without doing anything nice is no existence at all. Many, many of us have lived like that for years already, and we don't think it is a lesser existence, we just find ways to cope.

But according to many of these posts lately, we are not worth saving anyway because our lives are worth less when we are vulnerable.

It's just unbearably sad at the moment for the chronically ill and disability communities. We are made to feel as if it is our fault, as if everyone else are sacrificing for us, then hated because we take the vaccine first, then told we shouldn't take up hospitals and just die at home so younger healthier people can get treatment.

It's just so sad.

@DappledOliveGroves

I don't care if I get it. I don't care if I'm seriously ill. Don't care if I die. All I know is that I cannot live in lockdown much longer.

I care if I get it and if my neighbours or family or friends get it as some of them may die or suffer long term. I would hate to think I contributed to the spread of a disease that is causing so many deaths and is causing so much pressure on the NHS. I will stick to lockdown to protect others from DYING.

@GalesThisMorning

I know that. I think enforced positivity is fake - smiling and pretending to be happy, but gratitude goes much deeper (for me anyway). I'm genuinely grateful for so much even when I'm having a shit time. Reminding myself of that keeps me grounded.

I'm not putting that out there to make anyone feel bad for feeling bad, but just as something that helps me as someone who has really battled with poor mental health in the past.

I’m glad that works for you and who knows it may help someone but defending someone else’s posts when you don’t seem to have read them fully and understood the agenda behind them is not helpful.

Ohhh @OwlWearingGlasses 🤦🏼‍♀️ You realise Covid isn’t the only thing people are DYING (why the shouty capitals, makes you look nuts) of.

@GalesThisMorning so if, when you were at that point of really struggling with your mental health, someone had have come along and said "well today I did xyz, why can't youuuu just do xyz, I think you're a shit parent if you don't do xyz" would that have helped you in any way? I honestly think that you must have been reading completely different posts to what I have to defend them.

@AnarchicLemming I know exactly what you mean. The mum guilt is crippling me atm. I am quite literally doing the opposite to what I feel is best as a parent right now. I try to make things as normal as possible but they need to see and play with other children, it just feels so wrong and I feel awful about it.

No. But people telling (or teaching) me to stop protecting my depression and anxiety did help me.

Look there is clearly a lot of emotion on this thread. I bowed out of this thread earlier because I didn't want to argue with possibly suicidal people about what the impact of that would be, and I think it's best if I do that again.

Yes I am taking it seriously, as are quite a number of my friends and family and neighbours

I get so cross with those saying they would rather catch it than carry on as we have to at the moment. It’s so selfish for a number of reasons. They don’t know how the virus will affect them, if they live with people they will in all likelihood share it and we don’t know how those members would react, if they need hospitals they are putting paramedics, and hospital staff at risk, plus taking up a bed others who don’t have covid but need a bed for whatever reason could have. They don’t know if they would end up with long covid, and serious issues that causes with long term sickness and being unable to work, they don’t know that they could end up dead, and how that will affect their family.

Ok we don’t know what the long term will bring, how long we have to live like this for, but personally I am happy to do it for as long as necessary, it’s difficult in these winter months, but it’s getting lighter earlier in the mornings now, and is light for longer at night. We are heading for Spring, things will get better, but for now we all need to step up

@Sethy38

Ha I can assure you that a a single wiring parent of two primary children - my life isn’t about pottering about baking.

But seriously - on a wet jan Sunday with children - what would these posters have been doing that was so unbelievably exciting pre covid, to make their current Sunday so utterly shit and bleak?

The problem is it's not just one Sunday. I think most people would happily spend one day pottering and baking with the kids. The problem is that's all we have been doing for the best part of a year. Some people havent been able to see their loved ones for 10 months. Others have seen their business and/or livelihood go down the toilet through no fault of their own. THAT is what is so bleak. Surely you realise that it's not about one day, but months and months of this.

@BonnesVacances

The needs of the many (the 99.9% of the population that won't die from covid) outweigh the needs of the few right? Wilfully (or ignorantly, who knows?) ignoring all the other stats re life long harms, Long Covid etc. Typical!

That's still "the few". Far fewer people will be very ill with covid/long covid/whatever than are being affected by the lockdown.

The needs of the many = children who need education, adults who need jobs and businesses and homes, people who are losing the will to live.

Do people realise that the virus could mutate to affect kids more? Would all those people who care so little about 45-80 year olds and those with pre-existing conditions who are most at risk of Covid, suddenly care then?

@Chloemol

Yes I am taking it seriously, as are quite a number of my friends and family and neighbours

I get so cross with those saying they would rather catch it than carry on as we have to at the moment. It’s so selfish for a number of reasons. They don’t know how the virus will affect them, if they live with people they will in all likelihood share it and we don’t know how those members would react, if they need hospitals they are putting paramedics, and hospital staff at risk, plus taking up a bed others who don’t have covid but need a bed for whatever reason could have. They don’t know if they would end up with long covid, and serious issues that causes with long term sickness and being unable to work, they don’t know that they could end up dead, and how that will affect their family.

Ok we don’t know what the long term will bring, how long we have to live like this for, but personally I am happy to do it for as long as necessary, it’s difficult in these winter months, but it’s getting lighter earlier in the mornings now, and is light for longer at night. We are heading for Spring, things will get better, but for now we all need to step up

What if? what if you caught it? what if you passed it on, what if...

What if one of you got it very mildly and didnt pass it on?

What if, right now , today, your sporty, sociable child couldn't cope because they've had their life reduced to a laptop for several hours a day. Not for a week or a month but nearly a year with no end in sight.

Hmm. Which do I care about most?

@MadameBlobby

I really think that the vast majority of people can cope living like this in order to save lives and allow the NHS to function.

For how long though? I’m afraid I don’t care about the lives of random people I don’t know to live this way indefinitely which is why once my parents and I are vaccinated we will be meeting freely.

I think that maybe meeting close family is the exception to my 'I think most people can cope living like this' actually but I don't see a solution to that until everyone is vaccinated.

Provided the vaccine works and both you and your parents have been vaccinated I guess the chance of you meeting causing any problems is very low. I don't believe in rules/laws for rules' sake. I believe in taking measures to stop the spread of this illness.

@Chloemol

Yes I am taking it seriously, as are quite a number of my friends and family and neighbours

I get so cross with those saying they would rather catch it than carry on as we have to at the moment. It’s so selfish for a number of reasons. They don’t know how the virus will affect them, if they live with people they will in all likelihood share it and we don’t know how those members would react, if they need hospitals they are putting paramedics, and hospital staff at risk, plus taking up a bed others who don’t have covid but need a bed for whatever reason could have. They don’t know if they would end up with long covid, and serious issues that causes with long term sickness and being unable to work, they don’t know that they could end up dead, and how that will affect their family.

Ok we don’t know what the long term will bring, how long we have to live like this for, but personally I am happy to do it for as long as necessary, it’s difficult in these winter months, but it’s getting lighter earlier in the mornings now, and is light for longer at night. We are heading for Spring, things will get better, but for now we all need to step up

The risk of covid is minute to the people in my immediate family. The relatives to whom it is a slightly higher risk live far away and I barely see them (since covid). My main concern is my children and right now the problems of not being at school, sitting in front of screens all day and not seeing family and friends are far bigger than the teeny tiny risk from covid. If (when) we get it the chances are very high that we will not need hospital treatment. We will just isolate for whatever the isolation period is.