Covid-19 Community Support and Mental Wellness Thread

originally posted by: Hefficide
a reply to: toolgal462

I'm trying to get myself pulled back out of the pit of negativity I sunk a couple of feet into yesterday.

Although I don't have any underlying issues, I only just came across this thread today and must applaud it for being a haven of support and common sense for every ATSer, whatever their position and state of mind, should they need it during this outbreak.

I, too, felt quite bleak when I woke up yesterday (or was it the day before - hard to tell these days!), and my wife also felt that twinge of darkness on the horizon, but we felt better after simply talking about it, whether between ourselves or with friends - which this thread, away from the bickering and doom-mongering elsewhere, also hugely assists in a similar way.

I have naively tried starting a couple of threads to lighten the darkness (eg, true tales of communities and neighbours assisting each other) but they were a bit rubbish, and the lifetime of a thread in this particular forum is usually not more than a few hours before being swallowed up by an avalanche of others.

So well done, Heff. You are a diamond; keep up the good work for all of us.

originally posted by: Hefficide
a reply to: toolgal462

He downed the first can of food in about 5 seconds.

The second took a bit longer.

He finally settled down after a couple of ounces of dry kibble that I reluctantly offered after the two cans were gone.

I cleaned him up and he spent ten or fifteen minutes acting like he wasn't sure he recognized the place or not.

He vocalized a lot for awhile, loudly. Not sure if it was fear, happiness or what. But he eventually settled down.

Currently he's in a cardboard Amazon box that I've kept for a few months because the day my package arrived, he climbed into it and seemingly claimed it as his.

When they eat, they usually are going to be okay!!! He needs to stay home like the rest of us!

Things look rough at the moment, but I am starting to see more stories, and local news articles of people reaching out and helping each other, I see Walmart is going to pump 550 million to their hourly workers, I see school districts still making certain school age kids get at least 1 meal a day for free, Oklahoma 7-11s are going to do the same thing.

Ive seen or watched or participated in people helping folks that aren't as well off during these times.

We will get through it, we will put the country back together, it will be rough, it will be difficult but as long as we remember we are in it together and lean on each other when we need to we will find out that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train after all but the way back to clear skys sunshine and good times.

Or maybe I had to much whiskey... just trying to support Jameson as they convert some of their equipment into making Sanitizer.

a reply to: Irishhaf

No. People are working hard to try to smooth this through for each other. The local celebs here where I am at started a donation contest/drive to see how much they could end up donating to the local food bank. All the MLB teams have donated to their park employees. Our district will be distributing lunches to the kids at their bus stops. The animal shelters and rescues have various contests and drives going that are gaining support. Small businesses are getting creative. One brewery is making sanitizer instead of alcohol for the time being to keep their employees going, for example.

originally posted by: Irishhaf
Things look rough at the moment, but I am starting to see more stories, and local news articles of people reaching out and helping each other, I see Walmart is going to pump 550 million to their hourly workers, I see school districts still making certain school age kids get at least 1 meal a day for free, Oklahoma 7-11s are going to do the same thing.

Ive seen or watched or participated in people helping folks that aren't as well off during these times.

We will get through it, we will put the country back together, it will be rough, it will be difficult but as long as we remember we are in it together and lean on each other when we need to we will find out that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train after all but the way back to clear skys sunshine and good times.

Or maybe I had to much whiskey... just trying to support Jameson as they convert some of their equipment into making Sanitizer.

When people lose control of being a domesticated human being, animalism will take over. Saw on TV here where the Chinese was beating up old ladies to steal their mask. I posted about it a few times.
Anyway, people will NOT remain civilize . I do hope they close down the nuclear power plants real soon.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Irishhaf

No. People are working hard to try to smooth this through for each other. The local celebs here where I am at started a donation contest/drive to see how much they could end up donating to the local food bank. All the MLB teams have donated to their park employees. Our district will be distributing lunches to the kids at their bus stops. The animal shelters and rescues have various contests and drives going that are gaining support. Small businesses are getting creative. One brewery is making sanitizer instead of alcohol for the time being to keep their employees going, for example.

Great to hear.

The milk of human kindness, to paraphrase Tom Baker in your avatar, is "indomitable".

IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC

And the people stayed home. And they read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And they listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live, and they healed the earth fully, as they had been healed.

Beautiful poem.

a reply to: musicismagic

You are not wrong, but there will still be people out there doing the right thing just because its the right thing, its when we give up on the idea of Hope that civilization (such that it is) back slides to barbarism.

As long as one hopeless romantic holds on to their hope then hope is not lost in the world.

Have been hoping and waiting for a thread like this, thank you! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

I've felt better over the last couple of days, but this time last week I was looking online to see where I could buy the drug they use for euthanasia 😕

I'm sure your heads' like mine, are a dangerous place to be when unoccupied.

So some advice I could offer as obvious as it is (sorry haven't read while thread yet) , is download plenty of stuff to keep your mind occupied, just 'in case' your Internet goes down or the heavy traffic is making it laggy.

Buy some books (although impossible for some people to read when ill, I understand).

Spend more time playing with your pet/children/self lol

Take up a hobby you've never had time to do.

Learn something interesting from lectures on YouTube.

Watch movies/series/documentaries

If you love documentaries go here ;
topdocumentaryfilms.com...

Learn a language

House work/repairs

Help your neighbours, anyone if you can.

I advise all these things, but when I am ill like I was last weekend, my mind does not 'allow' me to even consider them.

So sorry for the hypocrisy, do as I say not as I do children! lol😁 x

Stay safe and busy all, looking forward to reading all your posts now x

a reply to: FinallyAwake

Thanks for the documentary link. It looks great!

Aren't there universities who have alot of courses open to the public? This could be the time. Here's one:

www.extension.harvard.edu...

I"m sorry to hear about how sick you were last weekend. Being sick now takes on a different perspective, doesn't it? If there are respiratory symptoms, you wait to see, if at the one-week mark, you're deathly ill and have the CV. If you don't have respiratory symptoms, you wait, praying that it resolves because the last thing you want to do is show up in a hospital or physician's office and get exposed to it. I'm glad you're feeling better!

A guy coughed in my face on March 10. I freaked. (I'm immunosuppressed.) It's been a waiting game. I never broke with cough or fever, so it was indeed just a cold. (No other symptoms either besides about ten sneezes, a runny nose one day, and a headache for three). I guess that was my loud wake up call that if I have to be out in public, I need to be geared up. Next time, I might not be so lucky. The incident moved me to self-isolation.

I just wanted to put this out there for anyone who is struggling mentally with the new reality of life. I’ve been self isolating for a couple of weeks now in the U.K. trying to avoid people and places that have a lot of footfall and so on. I have realised that it’s becoming a problem obsessively avoiding germs and potential sources of infection all the time and I have had to set a few points of compromise for myself in order to live.
1) Take out food and delivery is safe. Even in Wuhan at the height of the outbreak, food delivery services continued to operate. People need to eat and the likelihood of transmission from the packaging or food itself is very low. By all means have no contact with the delivery driver, but feel free to eat.
2) Purchased goods are unlikely to contaminate you or your home. Remove any outer packaging, throw bags away and wash your hands if you’re concerned. It’s not necessary to spray every item with bleach before allowing it inside.
3) If you do venture outside, your clothing is not contaminated, unless you were coughed and sneezed on directly by someone while going about your business, you’re not going to need to decontaminate your entire apparel before returning indoors.
4) Stress doesn’t help your immune system to operate at peak performance. If you feel anxious about the situation, stop reading ATS, take a break from the news for a while and engage in an unrelated activity. Self isolate as much as possible and try to relax mentally. You’re not alone, most of the planet is going through the exact same thing, even as you read this.

It is tempting to behave as if we’ve been nuked and are now surrounded by toxic fallout, never daring to open a door or window in case virus particles blow inside with fresh air, but it’s not necessary or conducive to good mental health. Avoiding social contact and taking reasonable measures to avoid contracting the virus is sensible, however, if you go too far, you risk becoming obsessive which is not a good state of mind. Ultimately, there is a good chance we’ll all contract the virus at some point and for most of us it will not be fatal, or even require urgent medical treatment. This is not a case of if you catch it you’re dead, it doesn’t have a 100% kill rate and as I said, REASONABLE precautions are sensible. Wearing a full hazmat suit in your hermetically sealed bunker 24/7 isn’t reasonable.

While I understand that there will be members who will rush to contradict this post, stating that the virus has been known to live on surfaces for 72 hours or 9 days and so on, I would remind those members this post is designed to quell fears and enhance the mental wellbeing of panicked members and that isn’t productive. Those studies usually state that with a caveat of “under optimal conditions”. Your jacket, or bottle of milk from the local store isn’t optimal and would need to have been directly coughed or sneezed on recently in order to transmit infection. I’m as concerned as anyone about the situation, but I’ve had to limit myself to worrying about things that are practical, otherwise I realised I’d never eat, drink or purchase anything from anywhere again. Caution is good, panic isn’t. Stay safe people ✌🏼

This is probably not the right place for this. I dont know what to do. W#hen things get to the point my mind fogs then bad thoughts and flashbacks populate my brain the frustration starts to build. I think way way too much. and theres no right way. keep it locked, let it build. Do something and go back for an extremely bad timing mandatory 72. Rinse, repeat. Im not stupid, which does not help. Professionals see that and think youre smart enough to figure it out, so heres some pills, zombie. I'm smart enough to analyze and understand everything wrong with me in my head, but it never goes away. Flashbacks of my Mom dying in front of me. Then what happened to my kid and the mistakes i made and how selfish I was. The look of fear in my Grammy eyes as she died. So many things to take care of. to fix. 4 letter words written in my skin. I hope the freak out pills will aloow me a little peace so I can sleep now. I hope you all can find or have some peace today.

"Wearing a full hazmat suit in your hermetically sealed bunker 24/7": snort. Exactly who is doing this? Somewhere between this and thinking that takeout food is safe lies the truth. We've already been told by a member who's a physician that it isn't because of (1) fomite transmission and (2) the oral-fecal route of transmission. If you're young and healthy, it might be one thing. But if you belong to a high-risk group like I do, his warning is taken very seriously.

"People have to eat." If the only way you know to eat is through takeout, you're in trouble anyway.

"For most of us it won't be fatal". Well, thanks. Given that I'm probably one for whom it would be, that reassures me alot.

I agree it can be taken too far and worry can be counterproductive, but I think you've dropped the safety bar a little too low. It definitely is too low for me personally. Having said all this, however, I'm glad you found out what measures work and don't work for you personally. Life is a balancing act sometimes.

Very thoughtful idea for a thread. I can see from the pages that there was a need and it is very nice of you all to answer the call.

At this time, my immediate family isn't having many issues or concerns. Keeping my youngest one home is sort of a struggle though I keep reinforcing the need for her to limit social interactions/gatherings. My elderly sister was a little worried the night before last as she had been watching the news and scenes of empty shelves and the media stressing the "what may come" scenario got her in a slight moment of upset and worry. She is a retired RN so the medical side of things doesn't scare her as much as the way people are/might react makes her nervous.

She has Alzheimers so even though I have showed her the pantry and freezers and explained many times that I believe we will be fine, she forgets. Short term memory is her main issue at the moment.

I made a trip to the store on my way to work (don't want to deal with the crowds in the late day!) and bought her favorite ginger ale, tonic water, distilled water for her cpap machine and the ever important miniature reeses peanut butter cups. She seemed very happy!

I hope this thread helps those in need.

originally posted by: drussell41
"Wearing a full hazmat suit in your hermetically sealed bunker 24/7": snort. Exactly who is doing this? Somewhere between this and thinking that takeout food is safe lies the truth. We've already been told by a member who's a physician that it isn't because of (1) fomite transmission and (2) the oral-fecal route of transmission. If you're young and healthy, it might be one thing. But if you belong to a high-risk group like I do, his warning is taken very seriously.

"People have to eat." If the only way you know to eat is through takeout, you're in trouble anyway.

"For most of us it won't be fatal". Well, thanks. Given that I'm probably one for whom it would be, that reassures me alot.

I agree it can be taken too far and worry can be counterproductive, but I think you've dropped the safety bar a little too low. It definitely is too low for me personally. Having said all this, however, I'm glad you found out what measures work and don't work for you personally. Life is a balancing act sometimes.

Thanks for the reply. I’m also at elevated risk of complications due to thyroid disease and the medication I take suppressing my immune system. There are a lot of unknowns surrounding the disease and our current situation and of course you can’t always make provisions for things you don’t fully understand. Even your assertion that this disease would “probably” be fatal to you personally is based on many unknowns. Could it possibly be fatal? Sure, it’s possible it could be fatal for a fit and healthy young individual. Is it probable? I can’t say that either. What I can say is that it’s probable that a large proportion of society will contract this illness at some point due its high rate of transmission. It’s also probable the vast majority will recover. For all we know, some of us may have already had this virus and recovered. In terms of mental health as we all begin to panic and self isolate, it’s important to bear these things in mind as we all focus on daily numbers of new infections, deaths and so on. The purpose of my post was not to downplay the risks we all face, but to remind people if you’re taking sensible precautions, you’re doing your part. Taking precautionary measures to the extreme and beyond is unlikely to have any additional effect beyond contributing to the mental stress and fear we are all experiencing to some degree as this outbreak progresses.

originally posted by: ComebackLogic
The purpose of my post was not to downplay the risks we all face, but to remind people if you’re taking sensible precautions, you’re doing your part. Taking precautionary measures to the extreme and beyond is unlikely to have any additional effect beyond contributing to the mental stress and fear we are all experiencing to some degree as this outbreak progresses.

I don't know, ComeBack. Every precautionary measure I take reassures me that much more. To each their own.

I hope the thyroid thing doesn't become an issue. May I ask if it's hyper- or hypo-? I have the latter, so I'm curious. If that's TMI, that's okay.

So one of my favorite conservative blogs does a Week in Pictures post every Saturday where the blogger rounds up his favorite memes of the week. I stayed away from the overtly political ones and picked up a few that made me chuckle. I thought I would share.









This one because it's ATS, right?



Aren't we all a bit of Dylan in here?

a reply to: ketsuko

God's honest truth, I am currently wearing the exact comfy pants from the third picture down.