Anyone else struggling with Covid issues, guilt, sadness? Come on in and vent

[Ting Tang]

7 hours ago, kbutton said:

I am fine with vaccinated people getting on with their lives, but I don't agree about their definition of what that means, so I am defined out of existence. We use all our risk budget on sending one student to school half days, one person working a high risk job (frontline HCW), and all of us seeing unmasked people we can't avoid (tutors, chiropractors). 

The few people we know who are both vaccinated and getting on with life are getting sick or rearranging their lives to test/quarantine on the regular because of exposures to others. I don't blame them for doing what they're doing, but we aren't comfortable seeing them inside without masks, and they really don't want to mask (if they are in my home, I think they would, but they won't mask inside theirs, etc., and it's too cold outside this time of year to visit). It's lonely. I feel like I can still be friends--it's not like they are leaving us out; they just don't have the ability to be as careful as we are. I do wish that they'd mask more so that we would feel like we could socialize with them in person, but it is what it is, and they will mask when required. 

And everyone else, especially in the under 65 crowd, is largely anti-vax and anti-mask in any of my so-called social groups. Even when our old church said you needed to mask or stay home, people largely didn't mask. They just won't follow rules of any kind--they violated plenty of other rules before Covid (don't climb on the mobile basketball equipment, no running around at church dinners to keep from knocking over the old people, remodeling bathrooms to be handicapped without actually really making them completely handicap accessible, and on and on). It was disheartening before, but easy enough to overlook if you weren't personally inconvenienced. It really makes me think about all the things we do all the time that leave people out because we don't want to be inconvenienced in some ways. It's really changed my perception of people as being nice or not nice. There are a lot of people who use niceness to be not nice, more than I'd ever guessed. 

ETA: I guess I don't really know how to resume life being friendly with people who don't give a crap about others. It might not bug as much if these people acted like individuals, but they all prize group identity. There is just tons and tons of group think and group standards. They talk the good talk about accepting people who are different, but it's not really acceptance. It's very, very conditional on asking people who think differently to do what they do even when it could be different and even when being like them is detrimental or exclusive, and even when the bar is high or unachievable due to things you can't control but they could if they wanted to.

I’m with you on the people issue. I will never regard some people in ways I once did. I see community members making laughing reactions on newspaper articles about free masks… and it irks me. They are selfish. 

[happi duck]

It makes me feel like I'm losing my mind when others are fine, no second thoughts, with certain things that I find clearly risky. 

Like others I'm concerned about needing the hospital.

I have a loved one with a postponed surgery because of the hospital being overwhelmed.

[Dmmetler]

Yes. Especially since we can't see mom in person now that she's stepped down from ICU, and my dad, who has been struggling anyway because of a combination of stress over his wife being in ICU and his own injuries and post-concussion symptoms really is struggling since he no longer can go in and spend even the 45 minutes a day holding her hand. And honestly, we're lucky-we have a separate trauma ICU and an extended care  that has a respiratory program, and neither have COVID patients. 

 

And it's all because we're in a state where the maskholes hold public office. The hospital is basically the only place that can legally mandate masking and where employees are vaccinated, and the only way they can keep patients safe is to keep outside germs out. And it kind of feels like we're the only people in the city outside the hospital who understand that. 

 

I start teaching Monday, and have resorted to begging my parents to have their kids mask in the studio. Because I can't require it. At least I only see one kid at a time (two for some of my families) and can run HEPA filters, etc. 

[mommyoffive]

11 hours ago, KidsHappen said:

Covid swept through my entire family about a week ago. A few people are still on their last day or two of quarantine. It was extremely mild for everyone except me who was already chronically ill. Most symptoms are gone now except I am so exhausted that I am sleeping almost all day everyday and I am on day 10 now.

Still no relief though because one of my dd is pregnant and she has traditionally had rough pregnancies and had a miscarriage just this past year. I have heard a few things about Omicron affecting pregnancies so of course I am worried, But I am hoping things will be better when the baby is due in Aug.

Hoping you feel better soon.

Thinking of your dd and sending her all the good thoughts for her baby.  

[mommyoffive]

Sending out hugs to everyone.  I hate that others on here are struggling.  It makes me feel less alone, so thanks for that.

I live in a county where Covid hasn't just not ever really existed.  Masks were done in school in May 2021.  Parents had their kids back in school in Sept 2020 after they led a chant of we need to see the kids smile.  I have felt such divide with myself and the people who I live around.  It sucks.  I thought I liked my community. We had been going back to do things face to face starting this past fall in a different community where there are mask mandates.  But with this surge and so many in our tiny dance community going down it just seems so risky.  I just read in our county rates have tripled in 2 weeks and there is less than 1% of ICU beds in the county.  

And I am fearing a work thing that dh has coming up.  He for sure will get Covid there even though he is going to try his best to do the right things.  And that even makes me feel like what is the point of what I am doing?   

I feel so more hopeless than I did last year.   I want to have hope for summer, but I just can't.

[plaidpants]

1 hour ago, mommyoffive said:

I feel so more hopeless than I did last year.   I want to have hope for summer, but I just can't.

This is how I feel too.

There was a joke which was never very funny about time not being real in the pandemic but now it's lost all humor.

[I talk to the trees]

I’d like to say that reading this thread has made me feel better, and it is a tiny bit heartening to know that I am not entirely alone. But each day I feel like I am slipping more and more into a pit of despair 😩. No one really cares about anyone else, and why should they be expected to? This time last year, everyone was running low on compassion, but there was a tiny ray of hope in sight with the vaccines. Now, there is nothing left but anger, hatred, and utter exhaustion. Tell me why I shouldn’t be angry at the anti-vaxers, the anti-maskers, and the sheeple who have dragged this out and caused so many unnecessary deaths and long-term disabilities? Those people seem to have an endless supply of hate for those of us who just want to keep our families safe and healthy. Why do they get “freedom to choose,” but because of medical conditions, my family doesn’t? How long do these idiots think our health care system can continue to function under this strain? And you know that those same anti-vaxers and anti-maskers will be making the loudest noises when they or their families cannot get necessary care because the system has totally collapsed. 
 

I am so done. I don’t even really have the energy to be angry anymore. For a while, letting myself cry daily in the shower helped, but that’s more habit than help now. (And yes, I know that makes me sound obnoxious and entitled, when there are people in the world who don’t have sufficient food, let alone a place to take a hot shower.) I just want desperately to believe that somehow, things will get better- probably never back to the “before times” as my dd calls them- but better. I just don’t believe it anymore. There is too much willful ignorance and too much hate. Yeah, not much a Suzy Sunshine right now, but it feels cleansing somehow to just get it out.

[prairiewindmomma]

24 minutes ago, I talk to the trees said:

I’d like to say that reading this thread has made me feel better, and it is a tiny bit heartening to know that I am not entirely alone. But each day I feel like I am slipping more and more into a pit of despair 😩. No one really cares about anyone else, and why should they be expected to? This time last year, everyone was running low on compassion, but there was a tiny ray of hope in sight with the vaccines. Now, there is nothing left but anger, hatred, and utter exhaustion. Tell me why I shouldn’t be angry at the anti-vaxers, the anti-maskers, and the sheeple who have dragged this out and caused so many unnecessary deaths and long-term disabilities? Those people seem to have an endless supply of hate for those of us who just want to keep our families safe and healthy. Why do they get “freedom to choose,” but because of medical conditions, my family doesn’t? How long do these idiots think our health care system can continue to function under this strain? And you know that those same anti-vaxers and anti-maskers will be making the loudest noises when they or their families cannot get necessary care because the system has totally collapsed. 
 

I am so done. I don’t even really have the energy to be angry anymore. For a while, letting myself cry daily in the shower helped, but that’s more habit than help now. (And yes, I know that makes me sound obnoxious and entitled, when there are people in the world who don’t have sufficient food, let alone a place to take a hot shower.) I just want desperately to believe that somehow, things will get better- probably never back to the “before times” as my dd calls them- but better. I just don’t believe it anymore. There is too much willful ignorance and too much hate. Yeah, not much a Suzy Sunshine right now, but it feels cleansing somehow to just get it out.

It's ok to grieve what has been lost.

[Faith-manor]

Update! So I decided today that in the interest of peace and happiness with rapidly getting more unhappy and confused mother in law, I would go get that cod.

I wore my KN95, tightly fit to my face. Eldest ds who did not have his grad school class today nor any coursework to get done, went with me and did the same. The place was crazy busy in the back with 13 people standing in line for their famous bacon, beef jerky, etc. When I saw that, I stepped back out, took a huge breath, held it.with my mask tightly on my face, grabbed the cod from the freezer which is right by the front door, no one in line at the check out so while my lungs were squawking and wanting to burst, the box was scanned, I threw cash on the conveyer belt and ran out. Made it outside just in the knick of time because I really can't hold my breath more than a minute.  It was $69.99, no tax, and I tossed $70 on the belt so all she had to do was put the penny on their take a penny thing.

Ds was definitely more relaxed!

Then we went to DQ and each had a blizzard in the car.

The sun was shining, and we had a very nice conversation there and back. Ds and I are close anyway, but he so busy writing papers and getting them published or in class, that we don't get to spend a lot of time together.

I think the outing was good for me, strange as it was. I feel like a walking Petri dish! So there is that. 😜