Royal Mail Parcel Collect is the title - yet it is for letters too

Dickens wrote it is impossible to convey the crippling nature of it.

Would it be like the experience of being in that supermarket with a trolley of grocery picked and suddenly realising that one needs to get to a toilet very urgently and there are people in the way and oh, oh, oh dear I've got to get to the toilet. "Oh hello, haven't seen you for a while, let's chat ... oh how rude, ignoring me and rushing past me like that without speaking". I hope there is an empty cubicle available ... what if there's not? Argh!

StarDreamer

Dickens wrote it is impossible to convey the crippling nature of it.

Would it be like the experience of being in that supermarket with a trolley of grocery picked and suddenly realising that one needs to get to a toilet very urgently and there are people in the way and oh, oh, oh dear I've got to get to the toilet. "Oh hello, haven't seen you for a while, let's chat ... oh how rude, ignoring me and rushing past me like that without speaking". I hope there is an empty cubicle available ... what if there's not? Argh!

... it is even worse than that.

The 'panic' you feel if you urgently need to get to the Public Toilets in a supermarket (or anywhere else) where you might be prevented by someone or something, is a completely understandable reaction.

OTOH, the crushing fear felt by an agoraphobic in a public environment (or wide open space) is mostly irrational, and therefore not easily dealt with.

The issue of someone living on his or her own at any age and becoming ill at home could lead to a situation of them not being found.

If, say, someone has a job in a friendly small enterprise and does not turn up for work then maybe someone telephones and if there is no answer goes to the person's home and knocks on the door. If there is no reply calling the police.

Yet if, say, someone who lives alone is out of work and does not arrive at the jobcentre to sign, then quite possibly all that hapoens is that the claim is closed and a P45 or whatever it is called now is sent by post.

It could happen to someone who is out and about every day.

I did read some time ago about a lady who had got stuck in her bath and was only rescued because a lady on the checkout at a small mini-supermarket noticed that the lady, who had habitually popped in everyday to get something, had not been for a couple of days. Had it been a large supermarket with many checkout lanes, would she have been rescued?

So it is easy to focus the concept on me, but it could apply to many people of whatever age who lives alone.

Even if one gets on well with one's neighbours, which it might surprise (and maybe annoy!) some here to know that I do, each family leads it own life, people only tend to come together if something kicks off, such as a conman about. They are neighbours, relations are cordial, but it is like people one knows at work, like, for example, a lady who works as a secretaey whom one might see around some days and just say hello in passing.

I was first properly agoraphobic in my mid 20s following the death of my mom.
I was (trying to) do a floristry course at a college quite a distance from me.
I had a mad panic and had to get off the bus.
I didn’t have a clue where I was and I struggled to find a phone box in order to get DH to find me.
I didn’t go out again for years.
Prior to that there was an episode at university, where I ended up hiding in a broom cupboard!
Lecture theatres were a nightmare - I always have to sit on the end so that I can make a quick getaway.
Lockdown and mobility problems have bought in my current condition.
I’m okay, but every little trip (hospitals and the vets) is quite a challenge.
I haven’t been in a pub for over two years. And one shop in two years.
Prior to that I was always in them, and was working full time.

Supermarkets seem to feature heavily with people with panic disorders.

FannyCornforth

Supermarkets seem to feature heavily with people with panic disorders.

Apparently it is because the layout of long aisles gets to people who are in one. They sort of feel as if the aisle is walls closing in on them. Also bright lighting tends to heighten anxiety. And perhaps being alone in an aisle is a problem. And there is a sort of yee-owm-uh about it with the columns of stuff on the several levels of shelves going way up high..

Yes, I was thinking of the lighting.
And the lining up and checking out procedure gets me a bit jittery.
Thank goodness for internet shopping eh SD

And there is a sort of yee-owm-uh about it with the columns of stuff on the several levels of shelves going way up high

Sorry, don’t understand this term?

Nor me!

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

yee-ohm-uh
I've tried saying it out loud and am still none the wiser.
Please explain OP

That is just the way I express it.

Maybe I am wrong, but maybe some people reading this, who might not like to say so publicly, and that's fine, might look at ye-owm-uh and say to themselves "Yeah ... I know what he means, that expresses it well, yeah."

To some people the supermarket aisle is just a physical structure with goods set out conveniently. The walls of the aisles are just inert passive strucures.

But to some people it is not like that.

How can I put it. Like if one looks at a sheet of white paper that has black shapes on it.

If one reads English it has meaning as a poem about flowers in woodland.

But it is just a piece of paper that has black marks on it.

I remember a movie, a sort of similar situation but not the same as the Apollo 13 mission.

And there are astronauts, and one us calm and one is getting jittery. And it is mentioned that in their training they were asked to look at a sheet of white paper and say something. And the calm one had said "It's just a sheet of white paper" and the other one had said "It's like a field covered with snow - and beneath the snow fresh green oats are growing."

I still don’t understand.

Maybe I am wrong, but maybe some people reading this, who might not like to say so publicly, and that's fine, might look at ye-owm-uh and say to themselves "Yeah ... I know what he means, that expresses it well, yeah

I fear you are, OP,
I and I suspect I am not alone am still none the wiser.
“Ye-ohm- uh ." is absolutely meaningless.
Perhaps you could paraphrase (or explain) it?
As for not liking to say so publicly , what did you have in mind?

MawtheMerrier

^Maybe I am wrong, but maybe some people reading this, who might not like to say so publicly, and that's fine, might look at ye-owm-uh and say to themselves "Yeah ... I know what he means, that expresses it well, yeah^

I fear you are, OP,
I and I suspect I am not alone am still none the wiser.
“Ye-ohm- uh ." is absolutely meaningless.
Perhaps you could paraphrase (or explain) it?
As for not liking to say so publicly , what did you have in mind?

I'll try.

yee-owm-uh The sudden and unexpected transition of mental feeling, when in a supermarket aisle, from regarding a supermarket aisle as just an inert, passive structure displaying products being offered for purchase to regarding it as an active alarming environment in which in being there one feels deep unease and alarm and which one has an overwhelming desire and need to leave.

I have it in mind that if some people reading this may know exactly what I mean then they might not wish to say so as they do not want anyone to know that they do. Which is fine. I don't mind if nobody says so and thereby some people publicly deem that nobody knows what I mean. Their right to privacy is more important to me than me not being thought to be stupid.

I don’t know what you mean SD, I wish that I did.
Does it describe a negative feeling?
Panic; being overwhelmed?
Tell us some adjectives please, some synonyms

Are you saying you suffer from agoraphobia, then?

I think there are quite a few who do including some like me, who may have suffered temporarily as a result of trauma, bereavement or other circumstances, but with time and gentle support have “felt the fear but done it anyway”.
Let’s not pretend this is to do with supermarkets alone - it may be a gargantuan achievement to get beyond the end of the drive or as far as the bus stop. Being in your own car -alone- can be easier but I would never dream of underestimating the paralysis of agoraphobia.
If so, this deserves a thread on its own and has nothing to do with Royal Mail Click and Collect, which I think has now been explained and shared more than adequately.

Good post Maw
If you were to openly discuss how you feel, and the difficulties that you have SD, I promise you that you would get a positive response on here.
There are loads of people here who have the same or similar difficulties.
We talk about stuff like that all of the time!

I’m not sure SD has agoraphobia as he asked if it was like quickly needing the loo. In my experience it’s not like that, it’s like desperately wanting to run away. I have had mild agoraphobia for years and I have to make myself go out. I don’t underestimate the difficulties of those who suffer badly with it and can’t go out.

A new thread is a good idea.

How should it start?

What title? What first post?

Should it mention that another thread drifted off-topic, hence this new thread?

Should there be a link to this thread?

Should it mention yee-owm-uh and the definition and ask in a neutral manneif that makes sense to anyone?

Or not mention it?

Who should start it? Will you MawtheMerrier please?

Necessary parts of being able to print a label is having a printer and it being possible to connect the device being used to book the collection to a printer. The collection of the parcel could be set up by using a smartphone. I have only got a basic smartphone, an IMO Q2, that I bought to gain experience of using a smartphone. I don't know about other smartphones but the IMO Q2 cannot connect to a printer

I don’t use my phone for this, but the desktop
If you can’t print, as I understand it the service will email you a QR code which you have to show to the postie collecting your parcel or letter. Presumably you can access emails on your phone?

I though this was sorted? You can request Bring a Label when you pay for the service. Leave the letter in a designated SafePlace and the postman or woman will stick the label on and take the item away.

Sounds straightforward enough OakDryad.

MawtheMerrier

^Necessary parts of being able to print a label is having a printer and it being possible to connect the device being used to book the collection to a printer. The collection of the parcel could be set up by using a smartphone. I have only got a basic smartphone, an IMO Q2, that I bought to gain experience of using a smartphone. I don't know about other smartphones but the IMO Q2 cannot connect to a printer^

I don’t use my phone for this, but the desktop
If you can’t print, as I understand it the service will email you a QR code which you have to show to the postie collecting your parcel or letter. Presumably you can access emails on your phone?

I use a laptop computer for most things, a 13 inch screen and a full-size external USB keyboard for most things.

I do not have a printer.

I am happy as to how I could send a letter by the Parcel Collext service, including using a secure social distance method without leaving the letter unattended on the doorstep.

I am now asking how big is the label, basically as to whether it will fit onto a DL size envelope alright, or whether I would need to use a larger envelope, such as an envelope that will take A5, of which I do not have any at present. If so, I would try to source some as a contingency measure in case I need to use one.

MawtheMerrier

yee-ohm-uh
I've tried saying it out loud and am still none the wiser.
Please explain OP

I hope you don't mind me mentioning it, yet actually it is yee-owm-uh, which sounds quite different from what you put.