Feeling so low about this new world of vaccines

[blue12345]

Just wondering if anyone else is in the same boat as me? For many reasons, I've decided not to get the Covid vaccine. I' have all my vaccines and all my kids are vaccinated. I state this to show I'm not an anti-vaxxer, although I increasingly feel like one.

I'm feeling very isolated from my friends and family as a result of this. Everyone I meet asks me am I booked in yet, am I double-vaccinated. I don't bother getting into conversations about it , but it still causes me anxiety and has led to friction. A very close friend has asked me a few times have I got an appointment for my vaccine yet and I've tried to brush her off, as I think she will be unlikely to want to spend time around me after she finds out I'm not getting it. I've also found that lots of friends have cut back on their contact with me.

I am very comfortable with my decision, but I'm just so sad that we now live in a world where the segregation of vaccinated and unvaccinated people is allowed, in both interpersonal relations and also looking more and more likely that services like restaurants and travel will be similarly restricted.

This is anecdotal I realise, but I can't help how it's made me feel about the Covid vaccines. As someone currently trying for a baby, the issues around menstrual cycles changing for some women after the vaccines also worries me.

As someone also trying (going through IVF), I would avoid you socially knowing you aren’t vaccinated. I would find it very selfish that you were willing to transmit Covid and potentially risk my unborn baby to try and better your own chances of conception.

Vaccine efficacy, correlates with the numbers vaccinated. Particularly if it's the sole intervention.measure, which it looks like ots going to be here.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7361120/

Everyone's choices have consequences for everyone else and themselves. However, it's still your choice and should be respected. Your friends are making a choice too.

I'd just think you seemed like a selfish, precious snowflake and I generally try to avoid people like that.

I agree... This is how you're coming across OP. Maybe you're not, but if you don't want people to think that you need to explain your position better.

@Porridgeislife

This is anecdotal I realise, but I can't help how it's made me feel about the Covid vaccines. As someone currently trying for a baby, the issues around menstrual cycles changing for some women after the vaccines also worries me.

As someone also trying (going through IVF), I would avoid you socially knowing you aren’t vaccinated. I would find it very selfish that you were willing to transmit Covid and potentially risk my unborn baby to try and better your own chances of conception.

I wouldn’t tell you of course - I’d just make lots of excuses as to why we couldn’t meet in person. Just like your friends have.

Your friends don't want to hang out with you because you're selfish and don't think of them or there loved ones. They took the vaccine to protect themselves, family, friends and strangers. Why should they have to take any risk for you?

Given the government's policy now to let it rip you have effectively elected to get immunity by natural infection unless you can hunker down to the max for the next couple of months. Good luck with that for me and all my family and friend's we have elected to protect ourselves and others by vaccination.

@vegas888

I even refused a blood transfusion after giving birth even though that decision nearly killed me.

Why, just why?!? Are you a JW? Your "healthy" choice nearly killed you and left your newborn without a mother! It's bordering quite literally on insanity.

You can say "my body, my choice" til the cows come home, but that doesn't mean that your decisions aren't crazy.

You clearly state that you think you’re fine socialising with your friends because they’re double vaccinated! Unless there’s a medical reason why you can’t have the vaccine, then I’d be avoiding you too! I didn’t have the vaccine for me, I had to it prevent the spread, and keep other people safe. I don’t understand how some people seem to think that because they’ve googled they somehow know more than the medical experts who’ve spend years training!

I would assume you're selfish if there are no medical reasons and I don't want to associate with anyone who is selfish, so I wouldn't be friends with you anymore

I think you just have to be pragmatic about this and realise it's not you as a person they are rejecting, it's purely that you're unvaccinated and they don't want to risk getting /passing on covid. This is nothing to do with what you're like as a person, or whether you're a good person or not. Let's face it, people have spent over a year being careful, not mixing with others etc, we see normality in sight again now, why risk it.

I'm vaccinated , my partner (don't live with him) isn't. That's fair enough, up to him. However, I have a family party in a couple of weeks and I would usually go with him. I know 100% they will ask if he's vaccinated and when I say he isn't they will ask me not to bring him. And that's absolutely their right. No doubt he'll be pissed off and have something to say about it but I'll just point out that it's his decision not to have the vaccine and it's their decision not to want to mix with him.

[quote Warhertisuff]@vegas888

I even refused a blood transfusion after giving birth even though that decision nearly killed me.

Why, just why?!? Are you a JW? Your "healthy" choice nearly killed you and left your newborn without a mother! It's bordering quite literally on insanity.

You can say "my body, my choice" til the cows come home, but that doesn't mean that your decisions aren't crazy.[/quote]
I refused because I’d been in labour 24 hours, had my vag tear sown up by a trainee whilst most of the effects of gas and air had all but gone and at that point I just couldn’t stand the thought of any more procedures. Probably wasn’t even in the right frame of mind then to make the correct decision.

There is so much sensitivity for people who are scared of Covid, but not the vaccine. Why is that?

Because COVID is a more rational and understandable fear. It has killed more than 4 million people.

Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions...

Unfortunately OP, this just goes to show how shallow some people's friendships really are, if they would not be friends any longer because of your vaccination status (which by the way is none of their business). Vaccination status seems to have become public property, when in fact it's your private medical data.

At this point you have two choices: Either lie and say you have had the jabs, or tell the truth and see how many of your friends really are friends. Or you could just keep stonewalling but I think that'll quickly end up reaching the latter option.

I don't think we'll be out of this phase of scapegoating the unvaccinated for awhile yet, so you may have an uncomfortable time going forward.

@want2bemum Why focus on the countries with a minority not getting vaccinated as places to be concerned about the virus mutating? There are billions of people all over the world not vaccinated, that's what will lead it to mutate, irregardless if 100 percent of the UK was vaccinated.

I also want to point out that I came onto this thread to ask was there anyone else out there like me? I did not look for sympathy for my decision, I am just trying to find some other people to chat to about it.

Your medical information is private, to the point that if its impacting other people or posing a danger to other people, they should be aware.

You CHOSE to not have the vaccine. People are reacting in the way they choose to.

Half of the problem here is that you don't actually have good reasoning. It's all a bit wishy washy and not really based on facts.

Vaccines have always had this impact on groups of people. Non vaccinated people often choose other non vaccinated people for their closest friends as they share common values. Vaccinated people have often not wanted to be friends with unvaccinated people. It's not surprising. Wether to vaccine or not is an important issue. It does impact other people and its a sign of someone's values and thought processes

Put far more eloquently than I could.

I've always found the anti-vaxx stance to be very selfish because you aren't willing to have the vaccine but you're relying on others to have had it to offer you some protection.

The people that ask others their vaccination status and they said they were not vaccinated due to medical reasons for not having it, would you expect them to divulge their medical reason?

Either lie and say you have had the jabs

This really would be beyond despicable, giving false information to someone who may be assessing the risk to themselves or a CEV loved one. If you're happy with you decision not to be vaccinated and can justify it to yourself, why would you need to lie? Own it.

but why? I'm the same person, I have known many of these people for decades. I'm not endangering them. I'm making a medical decision for myself.

For me it wouldn’t be about you as a person, it would be about risk. Same as I would be keen to avoid my 3-year-old mixing with other children who haven’t had routine vaccinations through parental choice rather than medical contraindications. My reasons would be unnecessary increase of avoidable risks at a population level, and a reduced chance of effective herd immunity for those who actually can’t - rather than won’t - vaccinate.

@XenoBitch sorry, just read your post where you made the exact same point as I did about the vaccine mutating everywhere and not just in the UK.

I agree with your posts, but I find that people have very little want to discuss this, particularly when you point out certain facts about the age profile of deaths.

This is from a consultant in palliative medicine, writing in the BMJ in February of this year:

However, Covid 19 deaths have put mortality into the spotlight. Deaths have been in those with existing co-morbidities, in over >65 year olds, with the number of deaths from this virus in the “healthy” under 65 year old age bracket equalling 772 individuals in 2020. The average age of death from Covid 19 in males is 81 years and females 85 years.
I am not trivialising Covid deaths, however perspective is required. The media has trivialised the deaths from all other causes

Being completely honest, if Covid had killed millions of children and young people, I would stick a rusty needle in my arm to protect them. To me , that would be worth the greater good. Even if the median age of death had been 60, I would still think it was taking it away people in their prime. But with a median age of death of 81 for men
and 85 for women , to me, it is not as
much of a public health crisis as the media has led us to believe.

[quote blue12345]@XenoBitch sorry, just read your post where you made the exact same point as I did about the vaccine mutating everywhere and not just in the UK.

I agree with your posts, but I find that people have very little want to discuss this, particularly when you point out certain facts about the age profile of deaths.

This is from a consultant in palliative medicine, writing in the BMJ in February of this year:

However, Covid 19 deaths have put mortality into the spotlight. Deaths have been in those with existing co-morbidities, in over >65 year olds, with the number of deaths from this virus in the “healthy” under 65 year old age bracket equalling 772 individuals in 2020. The average age of death from Covid 19 in males is 81 years and females 85 years.
I am not trivialising Covid deaths, however perspective is required. The media has trivialised the deaths from all other causes

Being completely honest, if Covid had killed millions of children and young people, I would stick a rusty needle in my arm to protect them. To me , that would be worth the greater good. Even if the median age of death had been 60, I would still think it was taking it away people in their prime. But with a median age of death of 81 for men
and 85 for women , to me, it is not as
much of a public health crisis as the media has led us to believe.

[/quote]
Goodness ..... you're veering into conspiracy theory territory now

OP I really wouldn't engage with anyone on here, so many people are so indoctrinated and scared that their behaviour is volatile. Give people a couple of weeks, if the news feeds them something positive they will settle back down.

Yeah, it's getting easier to see why people swerve you w every post OP . The truth is you wouldnt piss on your friends or their kids if they were on fire and this is just another today anti- vaxx thread.

@VodselForDinner

You’ve decided not to be vaccinated.

They’ve decided to minimize contact with you, because you’re unvaccinated.

Why do you feel that your decision is so much more important than theirs, and that your wish to remain unvaccinated negates their wish to protect themselves?

Yes! You feel you’re doing the right thing to protect yourself but are upset at them for doing the same thing!

Yeah, I agree with BarbarianMum. More you post, more it makes sense why you lost your friends. It's all about you, while everyone else take risk for themselves and for others, to get out of this pandemic.
Please stop acting as if you are a victim, you made your choice, you are not a victim. Stay strong and hold your head high, and stop whining.