Anyone else scared

Thanks Fran, I'm going to take your advice and try.

I do think it's important to allow us to have whatever feelings we have though.

A helpful post Franbern

I thought I was being helpful too but obviously not.

My DM used to say "Don't meet trouble halfway"

Sorry to have annoyed you FarNorth
It was not my intention. Just trying to stay positive as it's so easy to slip into the slough of despond and think negatively.

Coggie, so sorry to hear how very terrified you are at present. Could I suggest that firstly you stop having any news programmes on = try to watch or listen to anything else. Lots of things on other tv chanel, to entertain and not frighten you. At the most permit yourself just a once a day 10-15 minute look at the news.
Also, you need to look after yourself. The old adage of You are What you Eat, is so true,. Try to spend some time working out good,healthy, meals. Allow yourself some treats as well.
As far as possible follow your old (pre lockdown) daily routine. Getting up and going to bed at normal times, eating normal meals at normal meal times, in between read, craft, relax, listen to music, plan your next meal, etc. etc.
If you are having problem sleeping (probably due to icreased anxiety), do not - due to that - change your nightime habits. FInd some relaxing music to listen to, do you have access to any forms of talking books?
Do not be afraid to talk to your GP about how you feel and ask for some short-term aid for sleep problems,. You can do this quite easily with a phone consultation, so do not have to worry about going there.
Nobody is going to lock anyone up for feeling so anxious at any time, particularly at the present time.
BUT.......do remember, that the over-whelming majority of people who contract this virus recover, many of them with only reasonable mild symptons. Whereas it does have a high infectious rate, it has a very low mortality rate.
Unfortunately, the news is designed is to keep us scared so that we obey the rules, but it is also causing so many serious other problems.
Yes it is effecting the whole world, but that also means that so many labs and high trained and clever people are involved in looking both for a cure and a vaccine. In the meantime, just remember that only 1% of those that contract this virus are likely to die. Dreadful for them and for their families, but do keep it in proportion. Do you normally spend most of your life really scared of the other dreadful illnesses and diseases out there that kill tens of thousand of people each year?
Take one day at the time, lots of deep breaths and put things into perspective.
If you wish to discuss any of this with me privately, please do PM me.

I watch very little news but have a habit of flicking on the headlines. I must stop this.
The parasympathetic nerve system ie Fear, Flight, Freeze can to some extent be " tamed" for want of a better word.
To be told that worry makes you less able to shrug off viruses is not terribly helpful.

I wasn't aware that there was "a spirit of things" on this thread.
I don't think banging a pan or clapping or invoking the Blitz spirit helps everybody.

It is worrying, yes but getting yourself into a permanent state of high anxiety does not help anyone at all.

I have moments when I do, when I saw a photo of my DN in her PPE gear, when I think of family far and near; there is much to worry about.

But worrying does not make anything better and stress lowers your immune system, making your body less able to cope with potential viruses.

Good morning ? to all of you that are suffering at this time.
I'm assuming from your posts that your watching the news? Listening to the news? Reading the news?
Please, please, try to stop. It's not healthy. It only feeds your anxiety. Make yourself watch, read, listen to only 'nice' stuff.

Coggiei understand that you are worried, but your language is very negative and in my opinion not quite in the spirit of things for the rest of us feeling equally worried.

“Fear is a reaction, courage, a condition”

GabriellaG54, you are absolute right when you state that worrying won’t help.
However those who worry are worriers and can’t stop.

I’m lucky, like you obviously, in that my response to a difficult situation is to do what I can to rectify it. If I can’t then I do my best. In this particular situation, that means obeying the rules.
I can’t do any more. Therefore I relax and get on with the gardening.

Having said that, I haven’t got any close friends or relatives who are in a very vulnerable situation like many on this forum. I have a garden, we aren’t concerned about finances at the moment and My husband and I seem to quite like each other.
Compared to so many we are so fortunate.

All is not as bad as it seems

I beg to differ, politics apart, take a glance at The Guardian.

It is a world wide disaster, unravelling very quickly.

I am frightened because my OH has cabin fever and I have to persuade him all the time to stay home and it doesn't always work.

GG54, you carry on with your version of British stoicism, if you like.
Not everyone is just like you.

At least we have TV, internet FB Zoom, cars to click and collect, food, banks helping their customers and 80% wages for those furloughed.
Not as bad as some times we have faced.

Sorry coggie
All is not as bad as it seems.
Fewer people worldwide than live in one state of America or one county in the UK.
Not the millions killed in WWs 1 & 2. Women left on their own to bring up families with no income. No benefits system then.

It's terrifying, there is no light. The government is hopeless, thousands are dying.

Back to my crochet now and a quick flick through Gardeners Weekly.

Oh and in the examples you gave, people had other people to be around. Not this hideous isolation.

However...(posted too soon) there is no shame in being afraid. True courage is admitting one’s fear and keeping going

So true GabriellaG - you have it in a nutshell!

There we are. You said it. If all the banging and hand clapping and fund raising isn't stopping it, will you worrying about it have any effect on anyone but you?

Power cuts....tick
Strikes....tick
Mad cow....tick ( a friend died)
Aids....tick
Giving birth.....tick ( oh and nearly lost baby)

Nothing is in the same league as this and it will take more than Captain Tom and people banging pans and clapping to help.

And you can stuff your British stoicism where the sun don't shine. Any emotion, any, is permissable right now.

welbeck, think of a cat, a rather rounded and self satisfied one playing with a mouse, reeling it in, letting it go for its own entertainment.

I'm sure you see what I'm saying. These are utterly terriifying times.

Worrying is unproductive and brings you down.
If there is anything we can do to ameliorate our concerns, then I expect we would do it but to worry for things you cannot alter is adding to and exacerbating
our own anxiety, illness, troubles, whatever. I was not being superior in any way, just surprised that so many seem to worry about things they cannot change which to me, seems futile.
You having a go at me for 'being smug' is ridiculous. Worrying and being scared just doesn't fit the ideal of British stoicism and battling on despite deprivation and wars, many of whom on here, are mothers and daughters who lived through it all including power cuts, strikes, mad cow disease, aids and many other obstacles during the last 50+ years.

GG54 good for you.
Some of us may have had more knocks than others and have simply had enough.
Some of us may not have been blessed with as much resilience as others.
If you can't empathise or sympathise with those who are not just like you, why not jog on past?

Wow, are we smug or what, glorying in our superior backbone.
or maybe reaching out to a fellow struggler, but i guess if one is not struggling, wouldn't have much to offer in that dept.
horses for courses.
some of us maybe have not managed to overcome those blips so triumphantly. lack of maturity ? where do i buy it. not shopping. do without . muddle on. ho hum.