Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Coronavirus
Hopalong:
I think consumerism definitely makes the culture weaker.
In my head, I'm a frugal pioneer woman.
But to my body, grocery delivery is a game-changer.
And the cleaner. And the garden helper. Can't keep it up $
so I'm imagining more clearly what might become impossible
(for me) about living alone one day.
I shouldn't pick today to look inward about these things.
The shoulder is just painful as hell and amazingly limiting.
But PT starts soon.
What I think consumerism does is damage the sense of self.
Do I have the RIGHT:
clothes, furniture, tastes, appearance, etc etc ad nauseum?
I think that hurts us in a deep way and skews our capacity
to determine between a need and a media-or-socially-stimulated want.
Too many people don't sit around and ponder humanity, theirs
and others', but ponder stuff and tribes and avoiding changes.
All of us, at times.
hugs
Hops
hugs
Hops
Will complain about it on the Health thread sometime.
hugs
Hops
Twoapenny:
I'm so sorry about your shoulder, Hopsie. I often wonder about people living more communally (in the past, multiple generations in the same house) and how it would have helped in some ways (practical help, company) and hindered in others (unpleasant relationship dynamics, lack of privacy etc). No easy answers to these things we ponder. I hope your shoulder starts to feel better soon, it's horrible when something hurts all the time like that. I think this bit summed it up well: skews our capacity to determine between a need and a media-or-socially-stimulated want.
There's also a need for comfort, I think - a squishy blanket might not be essential (a scratchy one would still keep you warm) but squishy makes you feel better. We're probably more conditioned not to think about comfort as an essential, maybe? Goes back to something else you said about telling people you'd felt lonely? I can't remember if that was this thread now or another one? It was just something I was pondering again over the weekend and wondering why some people had found this all easier to cope with than others, regardless of circumstance.
Worrying over here; government seems to be intending to abandon all measures from mid July despite rapidly rising cases and scientists advising them not to. It will definitely mean much of the summer at home and/or away from people if that happens. Many others will be in the same boat. We'll have a car, at least, so getting out to quieter places will be an option. Just feel sorry for son, with no social contact other than his worn out middle aged mother for all this time.
Hopalong:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/07/09/live-chat-carolyn-hax/#link-f760ab16f6994a95a25cf131596cedc2
This is a Carolyn Hax chat excerpt but fits under Covid.
And maybe other threads too.
Hugs--Hops
HEADLINE: How do I get comfortable being assertive?
Guest:
Hi Carolyn, an unfortunate effect of the pandemic is that I often have to push back against unvaccinated people who want to interact with my infant daughter. Some of these people like to insult me and people like me online. Even believing that I am 100% in the right, I still find myself shaking whenever I attempt to respond, and thinking about it hours and days later. How do I get better about not letting this affect me?
[Reminds me of your/our struggles with rumination, Tupp...you're not alone!]
Carolyn Hax:
Practice. And it might never feel great, but it's like anything else that goes against your wiring or training. It will feel weird and wrong and draining until you're able to reach a point of habit or familiarity. Like learning a second language. Even if you never become fluent, you will still get better (and feel less stressed) with practice.
Think we could persuade Hax to join our forum? I am SUCH a fan-girl....
It will also help to get as much "online" off your schedule [as possible]. It gets so much harder to care "that these people like to insult me and people like me" if you're not there to read/see/hear it. Unless you use social media for a living or as part of it, you can step partly or fully away from it. (What if they had a culture war and nobody came?)
And that last quip reminds me of Amber-philosophy...
Any assertiveness you build for this unfortunate reason will at least be useful to you as a parent. You'll need it, whether it's to stick up for or stand up to your kid. No shortage of either scenario in my experience.
I'm also sorry so many people are abdicating their collective responsibility to a whole population of people now (under 12, immune compromised), and to all of us eventually if the mutations they enable are beyond the reach of vaccines.
Another commenter:
I'm a front line responder and though I know your readers are probably mostly on the vaxxed side of the fence, I want to put out a friendly plea for anyone who isn't vaccinated yet to hurry up and get on with it. Last year was really tough for those of us dealing with the consequences of all the ways this thing was mismanaged on both governmental and personal levels. We're all so freaking tired. I look at the rising numbers among folks who won't get the shot and I feel like I'm watching the water withdraw before the tsunami. We don't have to go the way we're going.
Twoapenny:
It's difficult, isn't it? I think the problem is that in so many countries now we've all had decades of being ripped off, done over, lied to and lied about by our respective governments, and the trust (understandably and quite logically, I think) just isn't there. I know from my own personal experiences that the most deceitful, dishonest interactions I've ever had have been with public sector staff, including doctors, many of whom have fobbed me off whether with regard to my own health problems, or my sons. The pharmaceutical companies have spent years pushing pills for all sorts of reasons and personal responsibility with regard to diet, exercise and so on has gone out of the window. Add to that many years of pretty crappy education for many and fifteen or so years of unchecked, unmonitored social media use and we're really in a perfect storm - least equipped to deal with this and without trust in others who are telling us what to do (whilst not doing it themselves). I think if it weren't for the fact I've had all of son's health problems to deal with and that's given me a good understanding and access to a range of sources that I know are fact based I might not be quite so eager to get vaccinated myself. It's very hard, I think the current circumstances have been decades in the making and I don't know that we'll ever really get it all sorted out again? It's a pretty sobering thought xx
Hopalong:
I feel so badly for folks who are afraid of the shots. Criticism of government management is completely legit, imo, yet over here the trends are starkly black and white. In high-vaccination areas, cases are waaaay down. In vaccine-resistant states, waaaaay up. That part is science, not government. It's just sad.
The Delta and future mutations if they're double-contagious (as Delta is) will sweep across state lines and pretty much obliterate sanity in their wake.
There are always individual and anecdotal divergences from the major trends in science. Side effects, etc. M got very ill three weeks after his second Pfizer jab. His docs' theory is that his huge immune reaction triggered an underlying arrythmia (he'd already had a cardiac ablation for a rhythm problem 11 years ago) and this time, it became afib (which he didn't have before). The procedure went fine but they had to cauterize more misfiring electrical cells than they did 11 years ago.
Yet he has absolutely convinced himself that he is among the statistically very rare cases of heart inflammation due to the 2nd Pfizer shot (first identified in young people in Israel; he's 74.) I still don't know whether his doctors agree with him on that. He said repeatedly that he felt "poisoned."
I remember an unpleasant few hours in the middle of the night after Jab #2 with random and different-feeling chest pangs (like a little demon was running through my chest jabbing at things with a cocktail fork). I call them pangs rather than pains because it didn't feel like heart pain. I also had a new form of shortness of breath that felt like a bellows -- deep weird gasps. Not terrifying, because I was getting plenty of oxygen, but strange. Plus mild chills. After a few hours it was over and I went back to sleep. I had the same SOB on mild exercise off and on for a couple weeks afterward. Chalked it up to a combo of acceptable vaccine reaction plus my underlying deconditioning. (Haven't had it since despite still being low on exercise.)
All that said, I have zero hesitation in getting a booster when they tell me to. I'd go through my own reaction every night if that's what it takes to avoid this disease. I think we're very lucky that scientists went all-out to get vaccines out. They're continuing to refine them now and I still have faith in them.
M also is committed to getting a booster when recommended, though he'll switch brands in the hope it'll be easier on him. Meanwhile, he's bounced back and is feeling great. We're going swimming tomorrow afternoon. He finished a book and wrote 18 articles during the last year and a half of mostly-quarantine. Wow.
hugs
Hops
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