Feeling lost

Visits to GN every day have helped me. I'm fairly new here (about one month) but wish I'd joined last year.

I do a daily visit to Soop's Kitchen and the daily Good Morning slot from Mick. Miss the odd day but always catch up with the news from others. Makes me feel part of the wider world. Have you seen these threads Nanano?

I've also started a diary this year. First time in my whole life. This too helps to see that I do have good days and it's also a place where I can leave my worries and angers.

I'm sure as 2021 progresses and you get out more and you will feel less lost. Hope so

I did last year Nanano my health anxiety went through the roof, I felt pretty useless at most things and what I did was a token effort. With help from my GP, private sessions of CBT and the never ending support of my husband I’m practically back. I joined GN in September, it helps, I’m with muse on the two specific threads that are particularly comforting. Probably too much information, but yes, I lost ‘me’ for a while, scary and dispiriting. Can we help?

I was on another thread earlier about lockdown I have visited Gransnet more then ever this last year. I do lots of home study I'm obsessed with cookery and recipe books anything to occupy my mind.
We retired about eighteen months ago and so did our friends all of us are showing signs of anxiety. None of us have broke the rules of lockdown and we all miss our families.
I am going to work in the garden even more just to let this gloomy mood blow over. It's nice to get out and go for a walk just to see other people. Lets hope it won't be long before reality returns.
Have a look through some more threads some of them can have you in stitches.?

I do feel different since this strange year. My OH died in February of last year, just before the lockdown. Prior to that, life had been very challenging: caring for OH at home with his major disabilities, then having to find a nursing home for him and fight the financial battles with health and social services.

But, in spite of that I was running my choir here at home, singing in a choral society, picking GC up from school, going to school governor meetings etc. I used to pay a carer to be with my OH when needed. And I felt on top of all these things and confident that I could do them.

But then, when he died, I went through a very difficult patch - lonely of course, but also having to deal with lockdown and coming to terms with the decision I had to make to let my OH slip away rather than have his chest infection aggressively treated - I knew he would not want to go on as he was.

Now, I have started to come to terms with all that, but something is lost. My self-confidence that was simply a part of who I was seems to have slipped away - I have to brace myself to take a trip to town to do click and collect; I am about to move house and keep wondering whether I actually have the strength to do it when it is hard for others to help because of social distancing etc. - these sort of things would not previously have worried me one jot, even in a pandemic. I was a coper.

And physically I am in pain, and feel giddy and generally unwell. I just have to hope that once the move is done I can make a new start.

I think that most of us have lost something over the last year. I guess we just have to hope that we can pick up the pieces as things ease - but, the older we get, the less easy that is.

Very sorry for your loss?

Sorry for the loss of your husband luckygirl
I think none of us are the same person we were one year ago before the virus struck

Luckygirl my Dad made a conscious decision not to agree to aggressive medical treatment for my Mum, it was absolutely the kindest, most selfless act as I'm sure yours was. Less really is more sometimes.

I think a lot of us have found ourselves in an ever decreasing circle over the last year.
My car needs filling up with diesel: only the second time since the first lockdown as I've barely been anywhere.
"Normally" I wouldn't think twice about it, now it's a major event that I've been thinking about for days.
Pathetic really ?

V3ra I'm not having that, it is NOT pathetic - it is totally normal reaction to a massively abnormal situation. Nanano yes, I do feel that, very much so.

Ladies, we are living through something extraordinary. Yes, other terrible things have happened in the past, but people have always been allowed to have each other for support - we have all been driven apart from the things we love and need, be they people, places, activities, whatever. To face all this, some of us in almost total isolation, is huge and hard and all consuming. Getting through a day still sane is an achievement after all this time. To manage it all in the face of loss and sorrow is huge Luckygirl then to face a move on top...well, many would have fallen at the first hurdle.

Anyone who hasn't faltered, or had a bad day with this is either incredibly lucky, or they didn't have the plot to begin with so had no chance of losing it! We're all just busy surviving right now and getting through the best we can, so no more feeling pathetic please - just making it through another day in one piece is enough. No one should be expecting to do more, or beating themselves up if they can't. Sending my very best wishes to all of you - just keep putting one foot in front of the other and one day all this will be in the far distance.

Good advice NellG.

Well, you sound like a bit of a sweetie, NellG.
Wishing all of you and me and all of us, better times - and soon!

Thank you Nell.
My car's also going for a service and MOT on Monday, which means I'll have to drive my husband's fancy new car for the first time to do the school run: keyless ignition, push button handbrake and other unknowns...
I'd rather stay in bed ?

Luckygirl I am full of admiration for you moving house by yourself and hope you are settled in very soon x

I m not afraid to go out and have been out mostly everyday since we started lockdown ( alone or with one other when allowed) BUT my world has shrunk to my patch and I feel really pathetic about doing anything more exciting (when we can) and it’s nothing to do with fear of the pandemic just that
I ve been brainwashed into not going beyond my boundaries
I m thinking many of us are in a similar condition to those kept in prison for one or two years in solitary confinement we are expecting to fly out back to normal but I now realise this will take time and small steps to recondition some of us older folk back into normal life
Good luck to us all and especially people like luckygirl whose lives have been changed even more

I used to walk in our local N Trust with my friend but now that it needs to be booked neither of us have been.I haven't seen her since September and her husband now refuses to go out.

I'm beginning to think that maybe some of us will be a bit anti social after this pandemic is over. We may want to socialize but we may lack confidence in doing so. Or we may go the other way and over socialize. I think I may feel strange in being out among a lot of people but I would just enjoy sitting on the sidelines and listen to people talking

Let us hope that we all find a way to get ourselves back when all this is over. But I do suspect that it might be harder to do as we age.

We just have to keep telling ourselves that we will get there in the end. And the daffodils are out - thank goodness for that!

I was hoping that we could get back to normal after the lockdown too.
DH has a good friend of over 40 years and before the Pandemic we used to socialise with regular coffees, trips out , card nights and supper evenings, but it’s become clear that although one of the couple was shielded in the first Lockdown they have continued with their social life with some of their neighbours throughout this lockdown, even going away to their second home with a crowd of them so we seem to have been replaced!
I’m sure that DH will slot back in as they all have a shared interest, but I think I may be extra to requirements.
hopefully we will have a new normal soon.
luckygirl I’m full of admiration for how you have coped with your loss and your house move, hopefully this time it will work out for you.
I’m lucky that our DD2 lives locally, although she is now with us (and her dog)
full time at the moment, when she goes back to work, I’ll have to get to grips with going out again.
However, tomorrow will be a good day.

PS, forgot to say that we lost MIL in the first wave, we weren’t able to visit her for the last couple of months that she was alive and my SIL is now having problems with guilt over it, sadly we can’t go and visit her to reinforce the fact that it wasn’t anyone’s fault and certainly not hers, but I try not to think of her last weeks not having any of her us to visit her.