How are you all dealing with coronavirus and the restrictions... #2

Eh, I've heard about protests against the restrictions but to be honest, I don't think people pay much attention to those idiots anymore. It's been going on since the start.

There were some riots in NL recently but that was mostly hooligans using the corona restrictions as an excuse to destroy things

You can never really know with 100% certainty where you caught something I guess. Over here masks are still required in stores and generally you're only there for a short amount of time and not that close to people so I think transmission in stores would be quite low.

It's absolutely economics - they're not even pretending it's anything else in NL.

So that interview I mentioned I had to test for a while ago.... I am starting a new job in January and I'm so relieved to get out of customer service! But also sad about all the co-workers I never even got to meet because I've been working almost completely from home for the past 2 years

@BreakForTheLight - Yeah, that is weird. Part of my husband's job is supervising law interns. An internship is required to become a lawyer here. Internships last six months, so he has had group after group of interns come and go without ever meeting them in person.

In the past, he would sometimes get together with the interns he had good relationships after they had finished. One invited us to see her boyfriend's band play. We used to meet up with another guy and his girlfriend for drinks or dinner every so often. We even went to their wedding. I taught English classes to another. Now, they are just faces on a Zoom screen.

And a HUGE congrats on the new job. I hope it goes well!

In the UK we keep getting these side shows from our government, the latest one is an alleged Christmas party at Number 10 Downing Street last year when we were under lockdown and mixing was illegal. There is video evidence of politicians talking about it. I have no problem believing it. Sadly it will only fuel conspiracy theorists.

Last Christmas our work celebration at the supermarket was packed lunch bags to either eat on our break or take home, and at that time we were only allowed 2 people in the staff room at one time which made organising breaks a nightmare, but the inspectors did come in regularly to check. This was Christmas for essential workers all over the country. Not to mention the poor people who had to make do with Zoom Christmas gatherings online. One rule for us and it seems another for them, constantly flouting their own rules.

My brother just informed me that he has Covid. He has 2 doses of AZ, so his symptoms are mild, mainly fatigue and a bit of respiratory irritation for now, fortunately. It is kind of ironic that just today he received an e-mail saying he can get a booster shot.

So sorry to hear that @rechu and how frustrating he was so near his booster dose. Hoping it’ll be mild and a quick recovery!

I see they are calling for Boris's head.

I think the world needs for you to show accountability, unlike t****. Tell us there is still right somewhere.

Sorry to hear that Hope he gets better soon and his symptoms remain mild!

I'm having a bit of a what-if day today. What if the entire world had gone into a strict lockdown right from the start? What if people had just gotten the damn vaccine as soon as is was available to them? We might be done with this already.

I know there's no point and it'll only make me upset. There's no knowing how things might have gone differently. I'm trying to not think about these things and just live my life. But it's hard when you feel empty inside

I'm at a point where I'm desperate for some tiny sparks of joy. I've got my first concert tickets for summer 2022 - one in Prague and one in Paris. Neither city is anywhere near where I live but whatever. I'm still considering a festival in Malaga. I might've even bought tickets for this festival in LA where the same band is playing if it hadn't been so expensive and there were more bands I wanted to see in the line up Even to me, I sound like I have lost my mind a bit!

@rechu I hope your brother has a mild case and recovers quickly!

@BreakForTheLight Congrats on the new job! Hopefully we have lower case counts this summer like last summer and your concerts work out. I think we all have our 'thing' that we are willing to risk a little for.


Part of me feels like it doesn't even matter what we do. I live somewhere that had strict rules which most people followed. Even without a mandate, people still wear masks indoors. Vax uptake is among the highest in the US - and none of it matters. We have more daily Covid cases than Florida even though they have 15x as many people. We are seeing record breaking case counts, horrifying numbers. They are sending the National Guard (a branch of the military that generally responds to domestic crises) into hospitals and nursing homes to help address staffing issues. I read the federal govt. is sending people as well. The majority of the people clogging up the hospital system are unvaccinated. Why are we still dealing with this?

@Discombobulated Politicians around the world have behaved shamefully. Rules for thee, not for me. I don't envy anyone trying to lead during this mess, but you'd think someone who had a bad case of Covid and a baby would follow his own guidelines. The maskless photos in the hospital were so disrespectful to the medical staff and patients.

I’m a little down today, it feels like we could be edging towards more restrictions and it’s just before Christmas- de ja vu.

I’m worried about my husband too, he’s becoming quite reclusive and not all like himself. Actually this morning on our walk it was so cold I suggested coffee in a small cafe we used to regularly frequent. He saw someone he knew sitting in the window so he chatted a while- yes about covid, but it was another person so that’s good. We had to sit by the door and he was a bit anxious but hoping it did him so good. It’s awful seeing him like this.

@Discombobulated - I'm sorry to hear about your husband becoming a recluse. I turned that way from my CFS/ME that worsened since 2014, but even more so from this pandemic. I decided to isolate-in-place, only, I went to the extreme and never left for walks or shopping or anything. I literally stayed within the confines of my apartment and ordered in - in much the same manner as those with agoraphobia do. Everything was contactless door deliveries or mail deliveries. I found odd hours when hardly any neighbor was up to retrieve my mail and packages.

But now, my eyes are sensitive to light outside, my ears are sensitive to noise outside, and I freak out when hearing a car drive by. I don't know if I could ever enter a restaurant or my favorite coffee shops again. But my T and former psychiatrist and primary care physician all said to me that what I'm experiencing is reversible.

Also, there was a study on a woman who was in prison and dealt with many bouts of solitary confinement. Because her condition was forced (not chosen), and because she was in solitary without the kinds of creature comforts we have, she learned to feel safer as a recluse. She said that she never felt safe or secure socializing. Prison had forever changed her. I forgot where I read that story, but I could relate to the kind of prison I built for myself during this pandemic. My family and friends feel sorry for me, and my own T said she feels sad that I'm in this position. My T understands my fears, but she also wants to help me out of it by taking small steps to go outside and feel a sense of normal again.

Well, I have DID, so one of my alters (who isn't afraid of going outside) forced us to walk today. I felt really dissociative - like the world was blurry and not real. I could see the alters take over and have fun. I almost felt jealous of my alters and everyone in the world. I felt safe because there were masked individuals walking outside, which I didn't think was possible because all I saw today were unmasked neighbors in my apartment complex. I thought the entire neighborhood was like my neighbors, but I was wrong. Where I live is like maskless central, which is why I'm always on edge. I want to move so that I can feel a sense of freedom to get out more, but I know that's just another excuse to isolate.

All this to say that your husband is doing a good thing by at least being able to dine in a cafe and socialize with a familiar face. That's progress! I'm not there yet, but that is my goal in the future. The more you encourage your husband to get out, that will help. My T is helping me by encouraging me, too. I once got mad at my T because she was going out and traveling, and I worried all the time when she would leave. But over time, she also showed me by example how brave she is in her 60s, and how brave I could be, too. I just fear that I'll be one of those cases who dies from Covid, because my friend close to my age (in his 40s) died from Covid. But I am also suffering by staying indoors all the time. I wish I were as brave as your husband or you. I'm just not there yet. My alters may be, but I'm not. It's strange. I just hope you feel better knowing that your husband is making progress - and in my eyes, a lot more progress than I'm making at the moment.

Everything is kind of coming together now and I'm really struggling sorry another rant. You know the worst part is when you know complaining doesn't help and you just want to focus on the positive things but the negatives are so overwhelming you can't find them?

I always have a hard time in winter. No matter how much I love all the good parts about it, I just need more daylight! This afternoon it was just 3 PM when I switched on the lights because it was starting to get dark. How do people further north manage where they don't even see any daylight at all for months?

I'm gonna stay here by myself this Christmas. It's lonely. I wish I felt like people in my life still care. But no one has stayed in touch. Then again, I don't have the energy to reach out to anyone/ don't have the confidence, think people don't want to hear from me anyway, so I can't really expect people to reach out to me, either.

I guess this is more my issues than it's caused by Covid, really. But it makes things a little harder.

I'm so sorry you are struggling with loneliness and other stressors. Your rant is indeed valid. There are publications out there about how some of the disabled, including mentally disabled, are really struggling with loneliness during this pandemic. I thought that more people would be online and thus have time to support me, but the opposite happened to me. My expectations were high that I wouldn't be alone in the homebound struggle, but then I realized that wasn't true, and that I remained more homebound while others took more risks to socialize in person and quell their cognitive dissonance by ignoring the elderly, the disabled, the homebound, the immunocompromised, the long-covid sufferers, and more. It's sad when what helps the able-bodied really becomes the detriment to the disabled and otherwise who could use their support. "Compassion fatigue" is something that therapists and able-bodied people alike struggle with when encountering disabled persons who truly do need more care than they can reciprocate in any given relationship. We just don't have the same energy levels, risk factors, and otherwise that able-bodied and neurotypicals have.

I feel depressed, stressed, lost, alone, rejected, invalidated, and more during this pandemic, but I've also had a lesser degree of those feelings prior to the pandemic. It's both a structural (societal) issue as well as individual factors. Therapists can help us with the individual factors by placing responsibility on individual clients to cope better, use better social skills, etc., but they aren't there to help with the structural factors (the loci of responsibility that certain institutions and societies can offer to support the elderly and disabled more, as opposed to ignoring them altogether).

@SprinkL3 sending gentle hugs to you, you’ve had many challenges with your health and I can hear a lot of bravery in your posts actually, in how you cope with that.

I’m glad you got out a little, a friend of mine is clinically vulnerable and had to Shield, in the first lockdown she was told not to leave her house, in subsequent waves she’s been advised to exercise outdoors. She got into the habit of early walks when it was quiet, she wore her mask (in England it’s rare to wear masks outdoors) and she’s upkept that. I know however you have reduced energy too so I imagine you have to be careful.

I’m glad you post here and hope it’s helping you! Do you read? There’s a friendly thread on here for book discussions. I find reading helps me with anxiety.

(((( @BreakForTheLight. ))) oh the dark! It’s so hard isn’t it, I think we’re similar in the UK, we’ve had our lights on most of today I think. I really need those Christmas lights (I find it difficult in January when they are gone).

Do you have some nice things for yourself planned over the Christmas? Movies? Books? Cooking? Be kind to yourself.

I've never been part of a book club before - ever. I want to be though. I had no idea there was a book club on the forums here. I'll try to look for that. Thank you!

And thanks for understanding my struggles with this pandemic.

@Discombobulated - Yeah I feel like my husband is doing the same, becoming more reclusive due to the pandemic.


Now my brother's girlfriend has Covid as well. They live together, so it is not exactly surprising. So far she has symptoms but they are relatively mild. She is vaccinated with two doses too.

The assumption is that it likely is Omicron since two doses don't seem to do much to limit infection, but they haven't gotten confirmation.


I continue to be amazed that our little country has been able to get boosters out to more people than almost all developed countries. So far we have three cases, a guy that was recently in Ghana and two close contacts.

3 cases. NL is getting close to 100 I think? Don't know about Germany but just read my city alone has 17 cases.

And we're not even at the longest night of the year yet I get nothing done at all in the evening because it always feels like it's late already when I finish work. (I finish work at 16:30). Back at the office at my previous job, we'd go for a walk on our coffee breaks so I at least got outside in some daylight. But since I live on the 4th floor, it's not worth going outside when I just have 15 minutes. It's not fully light yet when I start work and already dark when I finish.

I have Christmas lights up all year round But I'm not in the mood to use them yet. I haven't even gotten out my Christmas decoration. It's not even like it's a huge effort or something - it's just in a box on top of my shoe closet - but I can't be bothered.

My plans for Christmas are probably just watching movies for 2,5 days straight. If I can find anything good. I have both Netflix and Amazon prime but can never find anything to watch

YES! That is exactly how I feel as well. I also remember when things were just getting bad, you'd see videos from Italy of apartment blocks all coming together on their respective balconies and people pulling together to help others.... Yeah, I saw nothing of the sort in my area. Just people ignoring the rules and not giving a crap about anyone but themselves.

I'm glad there's still this forum here.

Remember back in February/March last year, we thought it'd all be over in a few months *sigh* now here we are.

I know I need to distract myself and do things that bring me joy but it's so hard to get motivated. I'm trying to go for a short walk every day (even if it's already dark outside) and it's better than nothing, but not nearly enough.

Trying really hard not to gain 10-15 kg again. Being sad, bored and lonely always makes me feel hungry and I just want to stuff my face constantly with chocolate and cookies and pizzas. But I don't want to get back to being as big as I was before

I am so done I dont care anymore. I only go out in the mornings. I dont eat out. I wash my hands and use hand santizer. But I'm not scared anymore. I don't hoard food anymore. I watch the first 10 minutes of The Today Show and thats it. Covid is just a part of life for me. Ive been finding these winter storms to be more scary.

Well it looks like I’ve finally been caught by covid, I did 2 positive lateral flows tonight and going for a PCR tomorrow.

@BreakForTheLight I may well be joining you on that movie marathon only a little early, do you have any recommendations?

Just a cough so far, but worried I might have infected others - my family, my colleagues, customers, co volunteers and the elderly people I was volunteering with today. I feel so worried and hope I haven’t.

In Idaho, we had our first detected Omicron case, but that doesn't mean it's only one. The person was said to have traveled, and the person lives in my county. The person was vaccinated, too. But our county is backed up by like weeks from doing the genetic testing in order to determine the variant type, so it doesn't always reach the State's health department's online website for Coronavirus. The sharing of the information is all over the place in our country, so there's variations on data collection. Also, some of the antivaxxers, antimaskers, and hesitants refuse to get tested, since they don't want the government to record them or something. They are super paranoid about a lot of things, including some conspiracy theory about something in the vaccines. Because of that, they either wind up just treating Covid-19 like a "cold" or "flu" and go about their day without masks, without vaccines, and spreading their droplets everywhere. I've already encountered neighbors and passerby coughing when they see me, a masked person in the room trying to pick up packages in my apartment building or trying to walk down the street or trying to walk on the VA campus. I don't know if they are coughing on purpose because they can see that I'm Asian and/or masked (when they are not), or whether they are coughing for real because they just can't help themselves. They have no qualms here about coughing without even covering their mouths. And when I look at them, I just try to go away from them as fast as possible. It doesn't matter how far away you are though; if they are in the same room, it spreads fast in the air and for long distances when they cough (as opposed to just regular breathing or talking).

Anyways, one case detected means hundreds of cases are already here. It's just backlogged until they tally all the genomes of the positive test cases.