Post by SusanBAnthony on Jul 9, 2020 11:45:07 GMT -5
It actually hot me about a month ago.
Now I am ok but I anticipate falling apart this fall because winter is always hard on my mental health anyway.
@@@@@@@@@@@ at this point for school I'm just giving up hope and planning to spend a ton of money on a nanny because I can't do both again for a whole year.
Post by UMaineTeach on Jul 9, 2020 11:46:00 GMT -5
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I’m starting to get serious back to school anxiety, with conflicting thoughts. The disagreement among experts, the privileged suggestions of pooling with other SAHMs or other parents to hire a private teacher to teach your pod, the attitude of 45, the need to recognize that school is daycare, the suggestion that teachers do two jobs of in person and online school, that there is no way to teach most kids under the guidelines, that all kids have different needs, that only the poor kids will return to buildings.
I think I am doing worse and honestly it's because so many people here, plus work, are trying to get back to what was normal before covid.
So many people here think this is overblown and we need to just learn to live with this or just full on think it's fake. Every day more and more "the governor sucks" signs appear, fewer people are wearing masks, and people are just like I'm over it so I'm going back to normal. My boss has always thought it was overblown and is totally ready for everyone to come back.
And I'm just jealous/angry over everyone who isn't worried about getting the virus or thinks it's no big deal. Pretty much my whole family has at least one of the risk factors that makes this deadly and with dh's health issues it's pretty much a given to me that he will die if he gets this. But yet people are like "but I need to go to a baseball game/bar/etc!!" Must be nice to have that be your greatest worry right now. /vent
Also I've watched a friend who is incredibly fit and healthy fight this for almost 3 1/2 months now. She's been so sick. So anyone who says "but younger people don't die from it!" clearly has no idea what it can do to them. It's terrifying.
Post by seeyalater52 on Jul 9, 2020 11:56:31 GMT -5
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I'm also terrified as shit for this fall. My anxiety about the pandemic and our isolation is magnified about 100 fold by the fact that my life/my family's life is NEVER going back to normal or what it was before. In some ways that is unequivocally good. We've waited forever for this baby and want it more than anything on earth. But it's also horrifying to consider having a newborn and choices around continuing to isolate or whether to send an infant into a daycare situation. And the flexibility that my coworkers have gotten for their childcare situations is almost certainly going to be exhausted by the time I really need it, which I admittedly resent.
I'm exhausted just thinking about it, and I can only handle planning for the future in 3 months chunks at the moment so envisioning the long-haul makes me hyperventilate.
I’m starting to get serious back to school anxiety, with conflicting thoughts. The disagreement among experts, the privileged suggestions of pooling with other SAHMs or other parents to hire a private teacher to teach your pod, the attitude of 45, the need to recognize that school is daycare, the suggestion that teachers do two jobs of in person and online school, that there is no way to teach most kids under the guidelines, that all kids have different needs, that only the poor kids will return to buildings.
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A bunch of people keep asking if we are going to use a nanny instead of infant daycare. UM yeah, I WISH I had that kind of money. Even a nanny share is substantially more than daycare costs. The privileged assumptions and suggestions suck. And we are upper middle class, so if we can't afford to make these choices obviously low-income parents are going to be in an even worse position.
Summer has been fine- lots of outside time making it not really seem like we are quarantined. If I think about this still going on during fall/winter, I start to spiral.
I use the app with a different brand bike and treadmill and I swear it has saved my sanity through all this.
Not trying to hijack, and this has been discussed at length, but which bike? I'm pretty set on the Scwhinn IC4, but shipping is an eternity right now. I might just pull the trigger and have to wait it out.
ETA: I miss my gym and classes there terribly, but I don't see myself going back anytime soon. I've been pretty successful on my own but need a indoor cardio option. Working out is one of my biggest stress relievers.
I ordered this same bike and it arrived maybe 2-3 weeks ahead of the original ship date! They didn’t even tell me that it has shipped so it was a complete surprise. It’s a really nice bike. The bottle holders are kind of worthless however, and my knees hit the water bottle if I stand, so I leave my bottle on the floor.
Post by purplepenguin7 on Jul 9, 2020 12:09:17 GMT -5
I'm finding myself in a weird place where my personal life has improved tremendously since March-April but my outlook on the future is poor. I had a huge amount of extra work and responsibility given to me at work, followed by a pause of promotions/raises which I was due for, and then ultimately a pay cut, which put me in a very dark place for most of the spring. Thankfully some of that work has been pulled back and now I feel like a real person again. On the other hand, the state of country gives me high anxiety, watching COVID cases growing across almost every state is nerve wracking, I am baffled every day (I know I shouldn't be) that wearing a mask to protect against an highly infectious, deadly disease is a political issue. I am worried about my friends and family who seem to think its ok to run around shopping and dining out (within the current guidelines and wearing a mask) because we are in the few areas where cases are going down. And countless other things.
I'm doing okay, I guess, but also just kind of out of sorts. It's been harder than usual lately to sleep and to focus on work.
I'm feeling increasingly worried that my Grandma might pass away before I get to see her in person. She's in a nursing home, and both her mental and physical health have really deteriorated the past few months that they've been on lockdown. They're supposed to stay in their rooms almost all the time - she goes to an exercise class in the facility twice a week but that's pretty much it. And she has a surly roommate who insists on keeping the blinds closed all the time, which doesn't help either.
I’m feeling worse, and it’s mostly work related. I’m expected back in the office, and I don’t feel comfortable with that.
@@@ also the school opening talk is stressful as my bf is a teacher and I live in an area where masks still aren’t always worn. That makes me anxious as well as the idea of sending my step kids back.
Also my bf’s 78 year old aunt has Covid, so it has hit home in a sense. I felt much better in April and May.
July 4th really threw me off so it's been a tough couple of weeks. We normally travel to DC to watch baseball and eat at our favorite restaurants and drink. Missing that impacted me more than I thought it would and I feel like I am being held hostage in Texas - where people are selfish assholes. I spend a lot of my time/money on traveling to sporting events and concerts, so all of that is gone for me right now and I have nothing to look forward to. We also have not seen my in-laws in 2 years (they are in their mid-80s) and planned to go to CT this summer/fall. But we cannot. I will never forgive myself if something happens to them and we never saw them. But even if we took our chances at driving from TX to CT, we would have to talk to them through the screen door 6 feet apart.
I should be fine next week - I am very lucky. I have a job and we are saving a lot of money because we cannot do anything. I also don't have to worry about anyone going to school in the fall.
Totally. Tears out of nowhere, which hasn’t happened since the beginning of this. We were watching a stream of the GD50 shows - 80K people dancing together and I want to be there again so badly but what if that’s gone forever? I know that sounds so stupid and frivolous; people are dying and I want to go to a concert, poor me. But it’s just, idk, representative of everything lost and how badly we’re failing at controlling this. People won’t even wear masks to the store and I’m just so angry about everything.
While technically frivolous, I can relate. I love going to events - concerts, sporting events, plays, etc. A huge part of that is the experience of doing something with a community of people. I don't miss watching sports, I miss cheering for a team with a bunch of other fans. A team I follow on social media posted something a while back about "when we're all together again, we're going to cheer louder than ever before" and it honestly made me cry. I can't wait for that moment. I do think we'll get back to that kind of stuff eventually, though.
High-fiving strangers at sporting events is one of my absolute favorite things (my second is the passing of other people's money/booze down a line of seats!)
I am a Nationals fan. I am sad for my team - we finally win the World Series and they miss out on all the pomp and circumstance of celebrating the win. They had some makeshift ring ceremony this morning and they are probably going to raise banner without fans (they originally said they were going to wait, but that was before everyone realized it was a fanless season). They next time there are fans at a game, they likely will no longer be the world champs and another team will get to celebrate. It sucks. It's frivolous in the grand scheme of things, but at the same time it's important.
Post by mrsukyankee on Jul 9, 2020 12:54:19 GMT -5
scout8, I feel you on this. I moved to a new part of London and am just further away from my friends...and I'm not up for taking public transport regularly. And not having kids at my age, means I don't have the natural ways of meeting people. Plus pandemic. Ugh. I miss having people to hang out with that are my friends, versus my H's friends (who live nearby).
I also have other things to focus on, like the kitchen reno and my puppy, so that's keeping me a bit more sane. Plus working part-time. I did decide to cut back even more in August so I can start taking better care of myself with exercise. Don't have the time to do it now with everything going on.
My gym opened a few weeks ago, and I NOPE octopused myself right out of that.
ETA: breezy8407 keep checking Dick's Sporting Goods near you and also Amazon to see if you can grab one while they're in stock. If you can, you can get it in a matter of days.
I want to get a Schwinn IC4 too. Dick's is showing it out of stock and Best Buy is selling it too but also Sold out (although BB is listing it at $799 and Dick's at $899). Amazon only shows me from private sellers with a huge markup at the moment.
My gym opened a few weeks ago, and I NOPE octopused myself right out of that.
ETA: breezy8407 keep checking Dick's Sporting Goods near you and also Amazon to see if you can grab one while they're in stock. If you can, you can get it in a matter of days.
I want to get a Schwinn IC4 too. Dick's is showing it out of stock and Best Buy is selling it too but also Sold out (although BB is listing it at $799 and Dick's at $899). Amazon only shows me from private sellers with a huge markup at the moment.
I was lucky enough to grab one at Dick's, but it's all about the right timing. When they come in stock on Amazon they sell out within an hour or two!
I feel the opposite of the Chris Hayes quote - I reconciled myself to the idea that normal was far off and it would still look different from the old normal. What has been causing me anxiety is that the world around me is in denial trying to go back.
@ some of that we can ignore and do our own thing. We aren’t partying in Tahoe. But local schools are planning to return full time, full schedule. Not only does that feel unhealthy but the more kids there are on the class, the more constricting it’s will be. Half size classes would still leave room for some movement and flexibility. First graders sitting rigidly facing forward to stay in their proscribed 4ft x 4ft distance bubble sounds awful. NYC schools lost at least 69 staff and teachers to COVID because they didn’t act soon and strongly enough. It feels like the rest of us learned nothing from that. Locally, kids have a case rate proportionate to their population percentage so it’s not like kids aren’t getting this.
I haven't been in a good place for a few months now. In March I acted on my anxiety by over shopping at the grocery store. I'm still over spending on food... just in case... and it's on sale.... and I can freeze it if we don't get to it this week... And then I'll randomly think about losing power. We'd lose everything in the fridge/freezer and wouldn't be able to cook. So I've been looking at generators and grills and shelf-stable food.
H and I both have good but high stress jobs. We're ok with finances, but what if the dollar tanks? What about the credit and loan bills that I have? What if?...
My anxiety keeps getting worse. I can't concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. And I'm slowly falling into just being numb.
So little of what's going on in the world today is in my control, and my attempts to control what I can are just making me feel worse
Worse. I go to the dr in a couple weeks and I think I’m going to ask for meds.
My h was the president of the company and the ceo laid him off last week. The CEO of his company kept pushing back his start date but I feel like I got punched in the gut.
@@@@ I’m a teacher and we have are reopening plan and it sucks and I just want to cry. Today another district in my state has a template ready for when a teacher or student dies. I also feel bad for my son. He’s turning 10 and he seems to be doing okay but he had a friend bubble and now his friend doesn’t want to play anymore. Everything seemed fine but I’ve noticed the mom isn’t even saying hi to me anymore. The last time they hung out everything seemed fine.
Post by picksthemusic on Jul 9, 2020 13:21:10 GMT -5
We're okay. I'm trying to convince DH that we need to go somewhere remote (which is fairly easy to do where we live) so we can get out into nature for a bit. He's stuck in the house most of the time, and I'm the one who leaves the house for work, groceries, and other essential errands. We do a bit of takeout, online shopping, and are trying to get creative in the kitchen to stave off boredom.
I get despondent sometimes, since I'm in healthcare and I am a front face to our patients coming in (I'm normally back office and work directly with a doctor but she's on sabbatical), and I am the one people get pissed at when asked to wear a mask or tell them they can't bring their loved one in with them because we're limiting guests except for medical necessity or to accompany a minor. I also see MAGA shirts and masks, which gives me anxiety, but of course I can't say anything or do anything. So I just roll my eyes.
Am I angry at all the stuff going on? Yes. I wish so much that none of the devastation we are seeing wasn't happening. But I am encouraged by the continued protests and demands for justice, and seeing some (though not nearly enough or fast enough) progress in the right direction. It's slow, but I see it. I try to hold on to those things so I don't completely go under.
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I also try to stay positive for my kids, because their childhoods are being taken away from them and they have no control over it. DH and I are trying to keep them busy, engaged, and happy, but it's really tough. DD and I went to the grocery store yesterday after a doctor's appointment for her (she's fine, it's regarding learning disability testing and sleep issues), and she broke down in the middle of the store because she didn't want to go home afterwards. We stopped by Starbucks on the way home to bring treats for DH and DS, and that seemed to help a bit. It's temporary, but it did help.
Also, from everything I'm seeing now, the US will just be like this for at least 3-5 years until we get a vaccine or the virus mutates into something far less deadly. Clearly we don't have any other plan in place. I think a lot of people really, really though this would be over in, like, April (remember talking about opening up churches in time for Easter?). So the longer it goes on, the less mentally prepared everyone is.
Anyway, I'm prepared to do this until December/January. Then around Christmas I'll need to prepare to spend 2021 the same way.
I was on the phone with my best friend this morning; we both have some health issues that make Covid scarier for us. Neither of us does anything but go to the grocery store every 10-14 days and go to required doctors' appointments. We were talking about the idiots who don't take this seriously and that we're going to be in this mode for at least another year. Luckily we're both happy being homebodies and watching movies and reading, but still. I'd like to see her in person, but neither of us wants to take the risk.
The last two weeks haven't really been better or worse for me. I've been up and down through this whole thing, depending on how work is going, hormones, how much I read the news, etc. Last week I felt great, had little work stress, and we had a really nice and relaxing long weekend. This week I've been on social media too much and that stresses me out.
I try not to think too far ahead because it makes things harder for me, but I am really missing my siblings who both moved far away. I worry that they won't be able to travel here and then safely quarantine so we can all spend Christmas as a family. We've already missed so much this year since my sister's wedding was cancelled and we have a lot of milestone birthdays we won't be able to celebrate together. I hope we can at least be together for the holidays somehow.
Post by pepperpeople on Jul 9, 2020 13:39:19 GMT -5
Yes - I was having a rough time back in the very beginning, quickly got better when I got accustomed to stay-at-home (which honestly I enjoyed as an introvert and as an anxious person worried about the virus), and now am on a downward spiral. Mostly prompted by both of our jobs demanding we return to in person, though we both have jobs that can 100% be performed at home (and actually performed better at home - I am in a different city than my team so there is literally zero reason for me to be in an office). Neither of our employers have any regard for the fact that these are not normal times, and not that I ever deluded myself that corporate America cared about us, it hurts seeing that first hand. I also miss the "we're all in this together" feeling, am furious that we blew this and made it worse than it had to be, am exhausted and angry at all the people acting like this is NBD and enraged that we're being forced to make decisions that feel unsafe. All I want is a little bit of flexibility to do what feels right for us, since the government has clearly washed its hands of trying to do anything to keep us safe. It's exhausting.
@@@@@@@@@@ On top of that to echo others, the school reopening plans - when coupled with our lack of flexibility to work at home - just make everything seem impossible. I can't stay home - I'm forced to send my kids into in-person 5 day per week schooling that doesn't feel safe. Aftercare is severely limited so now we have to scramble to figure out how to get them safely home. It just all feels overwhelming, and like we're being forced into some attempt at normalcy just as things are getting to their absolute worst.
I want to get a Schwinn IC4 too. Dick's is showing it out of stock and Best Buy is selling it too but also Sold out (although BB is listing it at $799 and Dick's at $899). Amazon only shows me from private sellers with a huge markup at the moment.
I was lucky enough to grab one at Dick's, but it's all about the right timing. When they come in stock on Amazon they sell out within an hour or two!
So crazy. I signed up to receive an update from Dick's when they come in, but I am still checking their site every day.
Also I am really struggling with decision paralysis. Normally I over achieve in times of anxiety. I am your person if there is a crisis because I can jump right into action. But 5 months in and I am now on the opposite side of the spectrum. Placing a grocery order seems insurmountable because “what if I forget something” so then I just keep putting it off.
I think this is just my brain trying to repair itself after operating for so long at the other end of the spectrum. But this is really uncomfortable for me as productivity is my thing.
Also I am really struggling with decision paralysis. Normally I over achieve in times of anxiety. I am your person if there is a crisis because I can jump right into action. But 5 months in and I am now on the opposite side of the spectrum. Placing a grocery order seems insurmountable because “what if I forget something” so then I just keep putting it off.
I think this is just my brain trying to repair itself after operating for so long at the other end of the spectrum. But this is really uncomfortable for me as productivity is my thing.
I am struggling with this too! Even on Amazon, where I have prime FFS, so the actual consequence of forgetting an item is... that I place a later item for the forgotten item when I remember it, and it costs me nothing but a smidge of guilt for the additional carbon footprint of its shipping.
I don't know if I'm particularly worse lately, but it all feels pretty hopeless right now. I don't see how we can get back to our normal, even with a vaccine in a few years. And frankly, selfishly, I'm so tired of never getting time alone. Never! Ever! Wtf! Can't y'all just stay in the basement for an hour? Or something? DH will walk into me sitting in the living room in the morning before work, drinking my coffee, enjoy silence and ask why I didn't wake him up...because this is the only time I can breathe! Stay away!
Hopeful because I’ve been following epidemiology studies and we have a better understanding of how this disease spreads, better treatment protocols and some tentatively good news regarding vaccine candidates. It seems like outdoors recreation is fairly safe, as long as everyone wears masks and stays spread apart. Also hopeful because Trump is down in the polls and (some) Conservatives are finally willing to draw a line and recognize how badly he’s flailing.
Relieved because my company’s revenues have stabilized after a big initial loss. The layoffs and furloughs have stopped for now.
Sad because of the mask-refusers and because the spread has come to my state. I was really depressed when I saw coverage of the Tulsa rally and Mount Rushmore events with everyone squished together and almost no masks. Of course, the positive tests are up in Tulsa two weeks after. How can you care so little about the citizens you’re supposed to be serving, including your own supporters? If it spreads it impacts the entire community, including medical personnel. Not to mention the usual racism and bs that comes out of his mouth.