Covid 19, Self-Isolation and Managing With Stress

As of the 23rd of March, the entire country is meant to be implementing lockdown, those of us with health issues are to practice stringent social distancing and for those with worse health, they are to practice 12 weeks of self-isolation.

It is a very difficult hard time at the moment for everyone.

Rolling back to February I kind of knew this was coming. My boss was getting a little paranoid and well this rubbed off on me. We started implementing lockdown with our most vulnerable clients and started making sure everything that was touched was cleaned prior to us leaving the property.

Dealing with stress

I struggle with anxiety and PTSD related mental health. For the best part, I have things under control but this has completely set off my anxiety no end.

My anxiety is based on catching the blasted thing and setting it loose on my family.

I have to be so careful and having an ostomy is hindering me slightly. At the moment I am in a suspected Crohn’s flare; I won’t risk going to the hospital because when I get ill it’s like karma coming back to bite me in the bottom and I really struggle to get over things because my body fights me all the way. stress

I also have the added anxiety that I work with the most vulnerable patients. The majority of my clients are aged 70 and above. The anxiety with every call at the moment makes me feel like I am going to war on the days that I work. Thankfully all high-risk clients whose family deem it’s imperative that they go in and out have been pulled from my call run as my boss knows that 2 bouts of my pneumonia were because I caught the seasonal flu.

People are saying that I shouldn’t be working because I am high risk. At the moment this hasn’t been confirmed and I will be honest I love my job and by myself not working then they won’t receive the level of care that’s needed.

Tips for managing anxiety

– Focus on things you can control such as your thoughts and behaviours
– Keep the bigger picture in mind, humankind will survive this
– Remember that news coverage for this is huge and not always indicative to the size of the threat
– Let wisdom and logic guide you
– Turn to reputable sources for the news
– Control how often you check the news
– Model peaceful behaviour for those around you
– Evaluate your own health behaviours and be a positive role model for those around you including children
– Feeling isolated? Maintain digital connections with people
– Don’t let fear influence your decisions, such as stockpiling food and hoarding toilet rolls

What have I done to help me?

– We have two family messenger groups to keep up with both sides
– Set my daughter up a Skype account so she can keep in daily contact with her school friends
– Incessant messaging with my friends of crude, lewd and rather below the belt memes, videos and screenshots. Thankfully my friends all share my humour.
– Moved our wedding date to November so we know that we have something to look forward to
– Practising social distancing including all extended family members, I miss my mum and want cuddles but I know that this is the safest thing to do, to protect both my family and household

How am I feeling?

I will be honest I am finding this whole situation like a walking surreal dream. We have had to postpone our wedding and move it to November. Thank God we had the majority of things paid for which gave us more freedom to be able to push dates without losing funds. However, my florist turned out to be a total moo bag but couldn’t face upsetting her due to her holding close to £600 as the flowers had been paid up in full….

The home isolation isn’t too bad. I am getting to spend time with my daughter and soon to be husband that we wouldn’t usually have together. I still have the freedom to leave the house due to my work so I am currently treating that as a privilege and making sure that I only go from my car to my calls and back home, no passing go, no collecting £200.

My main struggle is not seeing my family; we are incredibly close-knit and this is a huge struggle for all of us but we know that it will be all alright in the end.

I have after much consideration and discussions with Maisie’s father decided to pull contact until the lockdown lifts. He is also self-employed and still currently working on construction sites which puts both him and Maisie at risk if he was to catch anything so as responsible co-parents we have made the heartbreaking decision that Maisie is currently safer at home with mummy, and daddy doesn’t want to take that risk.

If any of you happen to have any tips on how to deal with stress? Anxiety? Or madness because you’re climbing the walls then, please don’t hesitate to contact me

As always

Many thanks for reading

Stay safe

Louise X

Click here for more tips and guidance on dealing with mental health during the Covid-19 outbreak

Clstress