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.

Op if you so dismissive of others feelings, in real life, it's not surprising you think YOU should have a choice and others have to just go along with it.

You may a choice. You are entitled to make that choice. But like all choices they have consequences.

No one has to spend time with you. Especially, when they have realised that your views are so opposed to theirs. Previous to this, your views were something they could accept. This is not something they can accept.

That's their choice, you need to respect that. You made yours. They made theirs.

I feel very very sad for you OP. I would be questioning what kind of friends these people were/ are? I struggle to believe that a close knit of friends could just abandon you like this over a vaccine.
I have a close group of girl- friends. We all currently have young kids ranging from 2-8 years old, 2 are pregnant. 1 going through a bad divorce. We all have our own problems and lives. Covid worries are not in the top 3 for ANY of us- we have other life issues that take priority. Some of us have had the vaccine others haven’t. We kinda shrug our shoulders - no big deal. We trust each other that we would never meet up if one of us had cold symptoms- vaccinated or not. More so as we don’t want our kids off school/ nursery getting covid tests for the colds we have passed around. Covid just isn’t this huge thing that’s in the daily mail or on mumsnet. In reality we try to live our lives as normally as we can.
I completely agree with my friends who don’t want the vaccine their reasons are absolutely understandable and personal to them. As are my vaccinated friends (although when I questioned one particular friend how come she finally did it (after not wanting to for the best part of 6 months) it was ‘because everyone else was so she thought she will as well’🤔 Just like that.
Vaccines HAVE caused injury and deaths worldwide but most is covered up as it’s better to sacrifice a few people in order to help save the majority. Would I risk death, serious illness or injury just to save a strangers life, leaving my 2 children without a mother, husband devastated? Of course not. I get it.
But Covid of course harms too. Does it harm 30 something year olds so much though that they need 2 vaccines? Those same vaccines an 85 year old needs who probably has multiple health issues? It makes no sense to me. What about the people who have naturally recovered from covid and have natural antibodies, why do they need 2 more vaccines on top? antibody overdrive in their immune system. So many questions un answered.
Find new friends OP- and the vaccine may have just been an excuse and their were already cracks in your relationship with them.

Antibiotics have saved many lives. Painkillers make people's lives easier. Vaccines have saved many lives and even led to the eradication of previously very dangerous diseases. Your point of view is illogical and unscientific OP. Probably what many are thinking when they discover you haven't been vaccinated for Covid.

@Audo 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ I don't even have words. I'm done with the Internet today.

I'm going out tomorrow for a meal in a pub garden. I'm going with 2 friends. We are all double vaccinated.

Another friend has chosen not to be vaccinated. She isn't invited. None of us even mentioned asking her.

I'm afraid I don't want to spend time with people who have chosen not to get vaccinated. Imagine the mess we'd be in if too many had made that choice.

I would think of you as selfish, piggy backing on the herd immunity of others, so yes I might not want to see you.

Your life , your choice though

Freedom to choose is freedom to take the consequences.

"There is always a choice."
"You mean I could choose certain death?"
"A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."
Moist & Vetinari. Terry Pratchett, Going Postal.

I'm not having it. No-one I spend time with and care about gives a fuck, fortunately. I can see why this is very hurtful for you.

But I don't see why you'd really need to tell a lot of people your personal medical information, and I really think it's not the best-judged post unless you're a raging masochist, it's just fodder for people to give you a verbal kicking.

I have had so many falling outs about not having the vaccine OP and it is completely ridiculous. It is my choice and ive decided not to have it but my DH has told me that i wont be able to see my DFIL who has end stage liver cancer and i also wont be able to attend the funeral. This isnt coming from my in-laws, my fil is dying anyway and would love to see me, its coming from my DH and im so upset with him.

The risk to your friends in spending time with you likely isn’t significantly greater than not spending time with you. On the other hand pre vaccination being available the risk of spending time with anyone working from home was the same so it was a case of take that risk or be isolated. Now there is a choice to meet someone else for less risk or you for more. People aren’t great at risk assessment generally and there are loads of situations where people won’t do things associated with very minimal risk. To me it’s actually a fairly similar way of thinking to everyone who has decided they not having the vaccine because it’s too risky. I’ve no idea why you don’t want the vaccine but if it relates with not wanting to take a minimal personal risk when evidence suggests it will benefit others to do so you can hardly be annoyed others don’t want to take a minimal personal risk when evidence suggests it could harm others.

Personally I think it's selfish to not want to risk yourself but rely on others taking that risk to keep you and your family safe. I wouldn't be friends with someone I considered selfish. So yes if you were my friend it would absolutely change how I felt about you.

I've seen so many posts like this now, if you don't want to get the vaccine that's your decision but don't expect others to validate your reasoning. Keep your head down, stop flaunting your decision, and know that whilst there 'are many reasons' for you not getting vaccinated there are 'many more reasons' why you should.

Before I leave OP - if I was your friend I wouldn't give a shit about what you decided to inject into your own body, as-long as you were happy with your decision. Hope you feel better about it all soon. X

[quote blue12345]@CaramelFlat

I haven't changed. I'm still the same person. [/quote]
You’re not though, because you used to do normal things like get yourself and your kids vaccinated against dangerous diseases where possible, and now you do weird shit like not doing that. (I mean, I’d have thought you were batshit before for avoiding painkillers, but your headache means nothing to me so whatever.) Very few normal people are going to want to hang out with anti-vaxxers (and you are an anti-vaxxer). You have to accept that as a consequence of making a weird, short sighted choice.

@Jasmine11

I've explained my view on the greater good below. I completely agree with that for lots of things, like childhood vaccines and the flu vaccine, which are things I've done. In this one decision, I have decided that I am not worried of catching Covid, I don't socialise with vulnerable people and as a result, I'm not willing to take the risk of the vaccine, however minuscule that may be, for the greater good.

This is at the current point of time but I may change my mind.

You have all made it very clear why my friends and family have been very off with me. I appreciate the honestly. It's easier knowing than just getting brushed off via texts in real life.
I can't help that it makes me sad, but I have thought really long and hard about the vaccine and it wasn't a decision I took lightly.

[quote blue12345]@CaramelFlat

I haven't changed. I'm still the same person. [/quote]
And that is someone so special that other people should be willing to take risks just to be around you? I'd like to have some of that. I have various people who know me and seem to like me well enough, but I definitely don't think of myself as someone that is so amazing that they would want to take risks to be around me.

You might be the same person you always were, but they clearly didn't know those aspects of you that mean you have a very very different set of values from them. If you discover something like that about friends, then you have to really weigh up how badly you want to carry on a relationship with them.

I'm sorry but I would judge massively and wouldn't socialise with you.

I don't understand how you think it's safer and preferable to catch covid.

@Tana433

I have had so many falling outs about not having the vaccine OP and it is completely ridiculous. It is my choice and ive decided not to have it but my DH has told me that i wont be able to see my DFIL who has end stage liver cancer and i also wont be able to attend the funeral. This isnt coming from my in-laws, my fil is dying anyway and would love to see me, its coming from my DH and im so upset with him.

You can’t be serious

@GirlAloud

I'm actually getting anxious reading all the comments. It makes me so upset to think that people think of me like this.

Tough.

Actions have consequences. Your refusal to be vaccinated puts others at risk, therefore people think less of you and don’t want to be around you.

This. It's really very simple. You made a selfish decision and that has consequences.

I very much judge people who choose not to get the vaccine.

Ah do you now? My brother died a couple of days after his jab. Artery burst. Bled out on the bathroom floor that his now fatherless kids still have to use.
I’m not in a hurry to have my jab.

@Londonmummy00 those aren’t unanswered questions. The antibodies from having covid don’t last longer than about 8 months so people are catching it for a second time. The vaccine should give longer lasting protection especially if they introduce boosters as I think they will. The chance of death or serious illness is much higher from covid at all ages than from the vaccine.

You're an idiot if you think only the clinically vulnerable should be worried.

Do you not realise that the whole bloody point is not to stop healthy people getting ill? The point is to stop the vulnerable getting ill AND to not overwhelm the health system.

I'm glad you feel good about your piss poor selfish decision making, prolonging the agony, keeping families apart and causing deaths. Well done you.

I would not socialise with you either. Shared values are a big part of friendship and if you no longer have the same values as your friends, it's understandable your friendship will suffer.

I’m not having it either as I can’t bring myself to have it. I’m terrified, I’ve always had really bad health anxiety and I avoid taking most medication unless I seriously have to. I stopped taking the contraceptive pill because of my fear of blood clots, I was in a&e every week as I was convinced I had one while I was on it.
I’d be getting the Pfizer as I’m in my thirties and I’ve also read it can cause period issues. I have a lot of problems with mine anyway and I don’t want to make them worse, they ruin my life as it is every month.
I haven’t told anyone I’m not having it, they’ve just assumed I have, whenever anyone brings it up I just change the subject.

Mine is a mental health issue. But despite some of the same people supporting mental health previously, they’re now acting as though it doesn’t matter and those of us who have real fears and anxieties about it should just snap out of it or pull ourselves together and think of the greater good.