Anxiety after Covid

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My almost 20 year old ds had Covid end of March last year. I have never seen him so sick and he was in bed for 2 weeks, fortunately didn't need hospital treatment.

I am now very worried as he seems to be so anxious about getting it again, he has been having counselling since December. He gets really sressed about people not keeping distance at work and on train/tube and gets angry when speaking to friends if he hears rhat they have not been sticking to rules.
He refuses to talk to GP as he doesn't want anything put down on his medical record, he was fine before Covid, can this be a side affect?

Sorry to read that. Sounds like it may be closer to a form of PTSD than a COVID side effect. I’ve seen some seminars on themes like COVID and anxiety advertised on our local Facebook groups that our local nhs are doing - maybe see if u can find something like he would be happy to attend and give him space up explore his feelings without talking directly to a hcp in first instance?

Covid didn’t cause his anxiety as in, a virus cannot physically cause a mental health problem. However clearly he has some form of post illness trauma in his head! He’s 20 & a grown adult - can you sit down together & have a chat about what it is that is freaking him out? Was he worried about dying? That would be quite a traumatic thing to think..

I was really poorly back in January with flu. Ended up in hospital as my breathing was really dodge. It was scary, I felt quite panicked when I first got admitted & hooked up to oxygen. I have two young children, one of whom is a baby & my biggest fear after losing them, is then losing me. But I don’t think I ever thought this is the end. The doctors all commented I was a fit, a healthy weight & had good blood counts and had no reason why I wouldn’t fight it off.

We’ve not been hounded into being terrified of flu, we just accept it every year & that it mostly kills the elderly. But we have been hounded into being terrified of covid & that we’ll either die or get long covid. But even if it makes us feel pretty awful, a 20 year old is incredible unlikely to even need hospital, let alone die. But we’ve all been made to feel really scared about it.

You could order him an anti-body test and that’d show if he still has some. If he does, he’s so unlikely to catch it again or if he was really unlucky, he’d likely get it much more mildly!