'We've not been out since all this started'

[TheVampiresWife]

I heard this yesterday from someone DH works with (they're all wfh). A couple in their late 40s, no health issues with no vulnerabilities, fully vaccinated but 'you can't be too careful'.

They've not left the house apart from their vaccine appointments since the start of the first lockdown.

I understand how worrying it's all been for some people, particularly if you're vulnerable or have health anxiety. But it's so sad that people are this terrified. I wonder how they'll cope when restrictions end. The MH fallout from all this is going to be massive, isn't it?

I think there needs to be some kind of support for people who are really anxious to get them back out of the door again.

I was shielding and was initially terrified of going out again and really had to push myself to take the first steps. I would say I was bordering on agoraphobia. I would say you also get out of the practice of being around people, being in a room or across a table was initially very strange and I needed to relearn having face to face conversations with people outside my household.

One thing that helped me was looking at the stats, ie 100 in 100 000 means 1 in 1000 people are carrying the virus so the risks of me coming into contact with someone who has it is small.

This is my NDNs. We live very country, and one of them does go for a walk but only when people aren't around at odd hours.

The husband is very bossy and says his wife doesn't want to go out, we are not going out, but no idea how much he is controlling that.

They have managed to get shopping slots by him putting on hourly alarms through the night to jump on any available slots. I felt that was unfair because there are ppl in our village, far more vulnerable and they couldn't get slots back then.

They isolate all their shopping and post still. And their 30yo son works at the local pub and he has to strip off in the garage after every shift and stay in his bedroom and eat all his meals there.

The rates here are so so low and they literally go nowhere.

What a life they've got... well, they haven't got one at all.

If you remember at the height of the beginning some posters were going spare. The initial shielding advice was to stay in and open a window . Some people seemed to lose all ability to think and not realise that govt advice had to apply to all . They couldn’t say, “If you are on the 14th floor of a tower block and need to use a communal lift, stay inside, but those of you with a nice big garden, sit outside to your heart’s content.”

But some posters really believed that even if you owned a country estate, you had to incarcerate yourself in a sealed cell.

@Gingerkittykat

I think there needs to be some kind of support for people who are really anxious to get them back out of the door again.

I was shielding and was initially terrified of going out again and really had to push myself to take the first steps. I would say I was bordering on agoraphobia. I would say you also get out of the practice of being around people, being in a room or across a table was initially very strange and I needed to relearn having face to face conversations with people outside my household.

One thing that helped me was looking at the stats, ie 100 in 100 000 means 1 in 1000 people are carrying the virus so the risks of me coming into contact with someone who has it is small.

Good post! I agree that real, tangible help needs to be made available for those with crippling health anxiety but MH services (as well as Social Services) are woefully underfunded and have been for years, under governments of both right and left.

Well done for getting yourself back out into the world by the way. It can't have been easy x

Another friend is still insisting we meet up outdoors. She’s healthy. Double vaccinated. TBH I’m really really done with trudging round the park with her. I don’t want a picnic in the drizzle. But I don’t know when she will feel any less anxious

I don't think she's being overanxious - I can't see the point of being inside for the sake of it. It's not raining all the time. Today it is a tupperware day where I am, but not raining and relatively mild so fine to sit outside. And if you meet outside you don't have to isolate if there's a positive case at the cafe or pub you meet at. No need to trudge around a park, just find somewhere with outside tables.

Very different to living in a flat without outside space and not going out for 18 months.

@PrettyVacancy

OP, don’t be silly. No one is asking you to end world hunger but, for a family struggling to afford food, one meal from you would be very welcome. Or, in this case one invitation to meet up with the couple about whom you are so worried, possibly outside if that would help them? If ,as you say, you don’t know them I’m not sure why you’re so concerned but,as you obviously are, this might be a good time to introduce yourself to them?

It's perfectly possible to be concerned about people you don't know, particularly when it's a wider issue which is affecting thousands.

A couple who have not been outside for a year and a half for fear of catching Covid are not going to accept an invitation to socialise from a stranger, are they?

They will probably need counselling (like many others) to get back to a normal way of life.

Ive never met anyone like this

@Handsoffstrikesagain

Well I think the first solution needs to be a SS visit where parents have de registered their children during the pandemic. I am no expert on MASH/SS etc but I don’t think suggesting SS should not become involved where parents have MH issues is a particularly good idea.

That's not really what I was saying, but I felt that I had to point out that identifying a problem was good, but not good enough unless action would or even could be taken.

I still don't think that SS should become involved in every family where one or both parents has ever suffered from a common mental health issue though. I think there would be outrage if social workers were calling on practically every family in the country because, let's be honest, there are a lot of people suffering from common mental illnesses at all times. More serious cases deserve intervention, yes, but not the majority of MH problems.

@ssd

Ive never met anyone like this

Neither I think has the OP but she's heard about them!

@Tuberoses

We go to work and the supermarket, and nursery for DC. But we haven’t seen anyone or been to a pub or restaurant or anywhere. It’s non essential and not worth the risk of being seriously ill. Even being told to isolate would be a massive problem for us - we need to be at work.

You're going to the supermarket, work etc though. Evidently from this thread there are lots of people who aren't leaving home at all, for any reason, and haven't for over a year.

It's hugely concerning.

Meeting up outdoors seems a reasonable compromise. Lots of parents around here are still only doing outdoor playdates.

@unwuthering

Some people are naturally more introverted, more self-sufficient, more conscientious, more cautious, more risk averse, more health-conscious, and so on.

I don't think playing it safe during a major pandemic is a bad choice, really, if your circumstances allow it. They may also have risk factors or health problems you are not privy to.

DH's colleague was very definite that there were no vulnerabilities, and they were just being 'careful'.

Staying in a flat with no outside space for a year and a half is a little extreme, not 'playing it safe'. Of course it's their choice but it's clear that they're too scared to go outside and many feel the same. Do you not think that from a MH point of view that's worrying?

TheVampiresWife sounds like my friends. They are very wealthy child free professionals. They havent been out at all and only seen one person from there family and that was in the drive way. They have the luxury of living in a lovely place with alot of space however it has affected relationships with others. As they simply closed themselves off. My DH still had to head to hospital during lockdown depsite being in the high risk shielding group as he was receiving cancer treatment. He doesnt understand there attitude at all. As others have mentioned they happily hid and didnt care a jot about those delivering there food and other goods to them.

The BBC website had lots of pictures of people with their nose pressed up against their windows sadly looking out. They actually made me feel a bit brazen and foolhardy for going on a quick walk round the block. I can imagine that these images encouraged some to batten down the hatches far more than was really necessary back then, let alone now.

I've been pretty phobic and isolative because I have been able to be (fully WFH, live in countryside, large garden etc), now I am double vaccinated I am basically making myself go out and do things, and it is getting better all the time. It is certainly good for my mental health. Walking down a high street and seeing people shopping and sitting in cafes for the first time was scary but left me feeling much better (still wore a medical-grade mask though!).

But my parents, who live in a country that has just gone into hard lockdown again, have to go back into the whole don't set a foot outside thing. I feel so sorry for them, but have to keep exhorting them to follow the (very strict) rules.

BTW someone who said upthread about their mum (presumably in the UK) actually thinking that people "in charge" were going to stop her when she was driving on the road and ask her where she was going, here in Ireland we had roadblocks doing just that for months, and where my parents live there are military roadblocks, so in some countires it actually has been like that.

*Can you explain exactly what you mean by this statement please? Are you saying that parents with anxiety should just 'pull themselves together' for the sake of their children? I don't think this is how mental health works is it?

Or are you saying that social services ought to step in if a parent suffers from anxiety to prevent them passing it on? Would you like the children to be removed? If so, to where?*

Nobody is saying anyone should 'pull themselves together'. But people clearly are in need of support to reintegrate into normal life. And isolating healthy children from their peers/family and not allowing them outdoors may be seen as abusive, yes.

And nobody is suggesting that children be removed, either. Simply that families in this situation need support.

I think a lot of people are being dramatic and claiming they haven't been out/haven't spoken to another human being face to face/are too worried to go to the pub just yet when it's patently not true - they just say it for effect or pity or to get brownie points from other obsessives (not talking about vulnerable people who do need to shield).

I know someone who just a few weeks claimed she'd seen no one and gone nowhere since March 2020- she went camping with friends the day after the first lockdown ended and has met people in her garden/pub garden/gone on walks with them all the way through lockdowns (since it was legal) and restrictions. Another goes on about being wary of going to the pub as numbers are going up, but I know from Facebook that she's been to bars and cafes regularly over the last few weeks.

I think people like to be dramatic or to get sympathy from others, or if they know others are very cautious they feel the need to reassure them that they aren't doing anything either.

My poor grandma is like this, she's mid 70's, no health problems, BMI in a healthy range etc and now double vaccinated but she never wants to do anything because she's so worried even when it's just a walk. Me and my children miss her so much :(

I was told to shield. Thankfully my lovely GP said I could continue to walk the dogs as long as I maintained careful social distance.
I’m now double jabbed and slowly getting back to normal. Book group meeting this week. Yay!!!
I will still do things to try and reduce risk. Avoid overly crowded places and maintain hand washing and wearing a mask where I have to. But I refuse to spend the rest of my life cowering in the house. That’s not a life. It’s hardly an existence.
I also have anxiety. Thankfully I’m well medicated and have effective coping mechanisms.

Well of they're choosing to stay in I'm not sure their mental health is being greatly effected? One example is hardly indicatibe6of how everyone is behaving.

I think you're being a bit dramatic op.

I have a friend who is 50, lives alone and since March last year has only left the house to go to work. We've asked her loads of times to come out to lunch, go for a walk, sit outside but she says not til its safe.

The crazy thing is she works in a supermarket so she's at more risk from work than any of the activities we have suggested

This thread is a lesson to us all.