Coronavirus, let's all talk !

Oh, yikes, Daisy May! We're here and always willing to listen.

Sorry about your diagnosis Daisy May, such very bad timing.

I quite agree with you that 4 months is ridiculous, mentally such a long house arrest, for that is what it is, bad for a couple let alone single people, will have a severe mental affect, but that is the UK government for you, out of sight out of mind and not being a nuisance, SO glad I no longer live there as I for one would not be able to comply.

If you have to lose you holidays put in to the government a claim for compensation !!!!

Daisy,

I too have COPD, but isolation does not mean you can't call and talk with friends/family. You can still step outside into the fresh air. Weather permitting and if you are up to it you could walk short distances in your immediate area. Officials want to discourage gatherings of people where the virus could spread. Common Sense is needed and your new friends here will endeavor to inform, encourage, and uplift any and all. Let us all please not allow ourselves to fall into depression and melancholy.

We can keep ourselves busy with our daily chores and use any new additional time to finally organise that family scrapbook, or find a small area to plant that small garden that you wanted to do for years. Perhaps it might be a fine time to clean those hunting rifles or polish that silver Tea Service. The possibilities are as unlimited as our personalities. While one may like to read, another may like to view movies, and still another may use the time to create art or clean/polish their automobile/s. Keeping busy for me is a way to fill their time.

Remember that this site will be here when /if needed.

All the Best

Hello,

I'm ok, but running low on some pantry items. Bread, sugar, butter, etc. Also I'm not in the most cheerful mood lately. Depression has been a part of my whole life, so I must battle those feelings.

As for groceries, I'm thinking of going to the market Sunday mourning when my store opens. I hope they will have the shelves restocked and I can purchase my needs before the crazy hoarders roll out of bed. It will take military planning and execution to pull it off.

I find the news informative, but also depressing. The reporters seem to delight with each discovered error or wrongdoing they expose. I can see blame on both political sides that should not be happening as people are sick and (some) dying. UK, America, Italy, whatever, put the damn politics aside and get the job done. Hospitals, testing kits, respirators, etc, What they do/don't do will be remembered at the next election.

All the Best

Dear Larry & everyone here:

1. You all matter to me. I can be a self-righteous beeyotch entirely too often but that doesn't alter the fact that i care about you, and i pray for you as if i knew you personally. Just the Quaker form of lifting up a name into the light. If that offends, sorry, it is my way to deal. I'll care for you even if you hate me for praying for you. No more faith talk in this post.

I have said much of this on Facebook

2. It is not required of us that we know daily numbers of new cases in which countries, nor how many died in which city at which hour. We aren't going to be tested on this. We're not. Period.

3. We can however suffer palpitations, hyperventilation, stroke and heart attack just from all the fear and anxiety. Anxiety and fear are physiologically damaging. I know that we all know that but it must be said.

4. Beyond practicing all our social & physical hygiene, eating as well as we can (i know, i know), and making sure we stick to our regular medication & lung health routines, the only thing we can control about coronavirus is whether we let the daily news drive us crazy. Start now to wean yourself away from the news. If you know the principals of 12 Step programs, those may be needed. Just as it is not required that we know those numbers, it is not required that we know which talking head said what at 10, and 11, and 12, 1, 2, 3, etc. IF you must, pick one morning and one evening show to watch, max 1 hour. There are a million ways to fill your time, including annotating reruns of shows from the '70s. 😉

5. One of the best ways to de-stress is through watching a salt water aquarium, even on a cell phone screen. You can look up the brain science, but here's the short version:

   -- our brains are hardwired to notice motion, and especially to notice the motion of living things.

   --When we don't have to hunt them, watching moving animals can fully engage our brains and squeeze out stress. A salt water aquarium with all sorts of living fish, turtles, anemones, plants, etc., can bring one through a divorce; a nasty-but-genteel, 3-week fight over an old maid aunt's financial power of attorney; and terrible medical news. Monterey (California) Aquarium has posted 11+ hours of videos. Penguins are cute but they don't move around enough to disengage worry; stick with da fishes (&the jellyfish!). Quick, who can name the 6-year American tv show i just referenced (tho i saw a sum total of 20 minutes of it over the years)?

There are other ways to both disengage from worry and the news, and everyone here is smart enough to know them. Fear, however, locks down much of our brains and doesn't let us see many things that can help us. A friend on lockdown on a high floor of a Chicago apartment tower normally walks his gorgeous city every day, taking pictures & posting them to us on Facebook. Today he asked us all to take a picture from our window & post. Unfair! He's got a right stunning view of Lake Michigan! I was in my bedroom, just done with my Smartvest, so i took a goofy pic: 15" tall weeds, AC compressor, dog faced away & trying to stare open the patio door. (gets put outside during neb treatments). My friend found nice things to say.

The point is, our creativity AND cheerleading skills will have to bring us through this. That is a hard statement in the face of depression and/or anxiety. We don't have a choice, tho. I will do my best to help lift you today, knowing that you will do your best for the next person along. Do the best you can or your own mental health, whatever your best is that day.

And Larry, you helped us all immensely by starting this post. You have got this survival thing down.

Peace, food and health to one and all

Aitarg

Oops. Should say,: Do the best you can FOR your own mental health, whatever your best is that day.

Hi Larry 49o33,

I too, have been hit with the depression stick, to last a lifetime so I know, like you do, just how easy it is for this to raise it's head when we least or most, expect it. No Picnic in the Park, is it?

I guess you have lots of tools, to help with overcoming the worst parts, as given to you by well respected medical experts, by laymen, by every Tom, Dick or Harriet out there, and yet it still doesn't get any easier, does it? I have found humor to be my guide, so choose to watch favorite comedians on TV/computer/phone or wherever I can. Loneliness can make it a worse problem, even in a room filled with well-meaning and caring people, it can still be a lonely place. Coming into and leaving this world alone, unless a twin, is something we must all deal with and I found learning to accept that at an early age, helped me to be ready to face it. I cannot change that, nor can anyone else. The same can be said for depression. We are our own guide. Only us as individuals can find our individual way. I used to write long and epic pages of enormous weight about anything and everything I felt, but would do it as if I were writing a letter to someone I didn't see very often. That was such a plus for me, that I've often told others about it, hoping it would lift them into doing it. What I am trying to say is, find that space where you feel relaxed and at ease, put in place all of the things you enjoy, and go through them one by one, until something rings a bell to success. Then, employ that particular tool, to do the work of making that depression lighter.I hope this will help you, and while we may not know each other, I do know how it feels to have depression and have to face the fact of dealing with it myself. Once you're through the worst, the other side will be in your sights, to get to grips with for a happier day, and then another. Each one getting less burdensome, than the previous. Keep Trying, it will be worth it. Good Luck. Best Wishes in your Journey to Happiness again.

over here, in Austin TX, the only suggested or enforced spacing rules are at checkout, for the comfort of the employees. Where i'm originally from, Corpus Christi, no spacing rules in any stores so far.

The big supermarkets, I don't go there, have now started allowing only 20 customers at a time into the shop, the rest have to queue outside with strict 1 metre distances under security watch, inside the 20 customers have to keep an aisle apart and only 1 customer to approach the till at a time. This is how strict the lock down is here.

Sue, we are so far behind the curve and so bullheaded about it. Our Jerkwad in Chief turned up his nose at everything the WHO and China said months ago. It is a mere 1 week that he has begun to pretend to take this seriously. He still blames his political opposition, tho he no longer officially states that COVID is a hoax by me & all my fellow members of the opposition party.

We still allow people to go from store to store to store all day, buying up everything. I am so angry with people from the small coastal community where i grew up. After shopping the local store, and driving into town to shop stores that are at least a 30 mile round trip (100 or so miles if they hit every supermarket in Corpus Christi), they then go home, cross on the long bridge and drive another 46-50 mile RT to the one and only grocery store in Port Aransas on Mustang Island! It's a small store and their prices are higher just because it's the only grocery store on that entire 3-island system for more than 90 miles. That is a cruel thing for them to do. One of them had the nerve to whine about not having some chicken breast -- for one frickin' meal.

And on all that driving and store shopping, they are all spreading germs. Cold germs, flu germs, and some will spread COVID germs.

i've quit using the CV abbreviation after hearing Jerkwad in Chief refer to COVID as the "Chinese Virus", repeatedly. If he can't blame it on the Democrats, he falls back on xenophobia. Lovely man.

Gonna blame him for aggravating my arthritis, making me type all those extra letters every time, lol.