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.

I'm not willing to take the risk of the vaccine, however minuscule that may be, for the greater good.

But you are willing to reap the benefits of everyone else taking the vaccine, in the form of getting back to normal. That’s what people don’t like.

For me, you wouldn't be the person I thought you were. I'd see you as selfish. You think everyone getting the vaccine doesn't have concerns? But so many of us need to have it for it to work.
I have a relative who can't have it due to previous reactions. That is totally different so if you have medical reasons, fair enough. But in order to protect these people the rest of us have to take it on the chin. If you are not prepared to do that, your choice but don't then moan about the consequences.
Vaccinations aren't really personal choice as they only work with mass uptake

@TheVanguardSix

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.

I'm very sorry to hear about your loss. But at the same time many many more people are likely to die not having the vaccine than having it.

Mine is a mental health issue.

Have you taken any steps to address this?

I’m with you op! I put it in the don’t talk about it camp alongside religion, finance and Brexit! It’s totally your decision and I’m fed up of all this it’s for the greater good bullshit. Tell that to the people who have lost loved ones due to the vaccine who would probably not had much reaction to catching COVID itself. Most of us get in a car daily which kills thousands of people every year is it selfish to drive?

OP seriously. Step away from this thread and don't post something like this again, you're just opening yourself up to a world of abuse.

This time will pass. There's a huge push to get the maximum number of people vaccinated, and this has included rolling out a narrative that those who do not are selfish, to be shunned, and extending the crises. It's the same psyops they used to get people to comply with the lockdowns.
It won't be forever. The rollout will finish and people's attention spans, never long, will move onto other things.

Just keep your head down and your medical history to yourself for the next while is my advice to you.

Bit like finding out your friend voted Brexit, it's like you've revealed an ugly truth. I've a close friend who won't get vaccinated, I am not comfortable spending time with her because I have a CEV parent, plus I now question her intelligence!

What is your reasoning OP?

What if the majority of people made the same decision as you OP? Can you imagine how hospitals would be? Totally overrun, life saving treatments indefinitely postponed, death rates soaring again, lockdown, schools closing. We have been vaccinated to elevate this. So yes, I would judge you too if I knew you.

Pattypan - at present they think antibodies last 8 months but many expect longer. I will keep testing but the WHO stats are the antibodies offer comparable protection to the vaccine. As we have seen the vaccinated are catching covid for a second time now with the delta but it’s milder. Seemingly people who have had covid are too. It’s something to watch for sure but from my experience in my family having the vaccine post covid seems to have made people have reactions to the vaccine. No one I know who hadn’t had covid had more then a sore arm/headache etc post vaccine.

All feelings are ok so sure, it's ok to feel sad that you have made a choice which will isolate you from friends, family, society etc.

We have been vaccinated to alleviate this

Yes and it isn’t like those who have had their jabs have no concerns. It’s just that they know they need to get over those concerns so that life can get back so some kind of normality for everyone.

@Sleeplessinsaltend Youve got that right. No one cares about this guy.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9760519/Family-demand-answers-father-fights-life-ventilator-having-AstraZeneca-jab.html

He is still getting texts from the NHS to go for a second jab and he is lying in a NHS hospital paralysed. This is how impersonal it is. It's wrong on all levels

This HAS to be talked about and not minimized otherwise it will permanently affect trust which can take years to earn and seconds to lose.

" I'm not willing to take the risk of the vaccine, however minuscule that may be, for the greater good."

You said it youself. You don't mind catching covid. You don't want to take miniscule risk of vaccine. Your friends don't want to take miniscule risk of socialising with unvaccinated person and catching covid.

Very simple to understand, I am sure.

I've been double vaxxed, I have worked full time day to day in the community with some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

We went in to lockdowns to protect the NHS, then we were offered a vaccine to come out of lockdown and protect the NHS.

You just want to come out of lockdown but not do the "protect the NHS" part.

I won't socialise with people I know are not vaccinated, it's not worth the hassle of you potentially giving me a mild dose of covid, I then have to be off work for two weeks, my income is affected and the people I support.

You made a decision, live with the consequences of it. People will now not "hang out with you" because you are a higher risk.

Personally I feel lower about a world where dying people who are desperate to get vaccines in the less developed world can't get it. Not much sympathy left over for friendships that have gone awry. It's the firstest of first world problems.

I'm not willing to take the risk of the vaccine, however minuscule that may be, for the greater good.

But you are expecting that other people should take a minuscule risk just to be around you . That is quite a confident view of yourself and what you have to offer a friendship.

@Lissy23 I'm so sorry you feel that way. It's awful to be anxious about anything like this. That's part of the reason I try and avoid medication ( if at all possible and obviously I've been lucky not been seriously ill and needed medication)
I consider myself quite unlucky and think it would be just my luck to get a side effect from the vaccine. Equally, Covid could do the same to me, but I for one made the current decision to leave it up to chance rather than voluntarily getting vaccinated.

I promise I didn't start this thread to cause a
fight or to antagonise people with my decision. I honestly just wanted to see if anyone else was feeling like me.

I fully understand people disagree with me and have reasons to, but as I've already stated, I am still a person with feelings and I can't help how sad I am.

@headintheproverbial

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.

But as the vaccines are NOT 100% effective surely vaccinated people can also catch covid and pass it on. What if you spread it to someone vulnerable and cause deaths

Mercybooth this is my greatest fear. 1300 people have died from this in the uk and 900,000have been injured. To say it’s not risky is untrue. If I’d not had covid I said to DH I would have taken the vaccine as I would have been worried about transmitting the virus but I know statistically I’m unlikely to catch it again and be a danger to people. DH replied there is no way he would let me take the risk.

@TheVanguardSix I remember you posting a few months ago.
Im so sorry

If you are convinced you are right and you are not an increased risk . Just tell people you have had it ?

You think you are not a risk so why not lie if asked ?

I am getting a bit fed up of people moaning about it . It’s not compulsory. You are free to chose . So either have the courage of your convictions or have the vaccine .

Members of my family have not had it and I am not judging them ( except some of them are influenced by false internet information)

They just test before visiting and we carry on .

But why is your body so special and so much more precious than the bodies of all the people who are getting vaccinated? Your friends all took that gamble, but you are more special than them. No wonder they don't want to see you. It makes you reevaluate what people really are like.

My young adult sons are getting vaccinated not because they are in the least bit worried about getting the virus personally, but because they want their grandparents to be able to relax around them. And they want life to get back to normal.

@TheVanguardSix I'm very sorry to hear that. That is really awful for your family.

[quote blue12345]@CaramelFlat

I haven't changed. I'm still the same person. [/quote]
But if you haven’t changed and are still the same person, it’s that your friends were deceived about you. Now they see you for what you are and they don’t much like it.