My anxiety has hit the roof

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I really don't want to sound harsh Joe, but I'm worried about your environment with your bf. He "can't survive without the TV" and he "can't stop smoking". Please remember that you have rights and needs too. I know you love him, and it's none of my business, but I do hope you will point out there are things you need too, especially when you are so stressed. This seems like a time when lots of couples and families are going to have to set boundaries and make sure everyone's needs are met, so that happy relationships continue.

Restricting things like toilet paper would be the smart thing to do...

I’m not sure if this is ‘normal’ working-age NT behaviour, certainly not healthy mentally or physically: is he ok?
Is he at risk of sinking into a depression?

sorry: this is another worry I know... but if he is (I don’t know) it needs addressing for both your sakes.

@Joe90, hopefully, this all blows over by next month, but I don't see this lasting for more than three months. However, the impacts on the economy and everyone's life will no doubt be felt for the next few years.

As for your boyfriend's smoking issue, is it difficult for him to go outside for a quick smoke, as the others have mentioned, he should be told to go outside if he needs to smoke, it's manners.

I would also suggest board games or some type of video game system if at all possible, to prevent boredom and fights. Perhaps stockpiling on some movies you two may want to see together may work.

As for TV commercials I recommend trying to block out the noise using white noise, headphones, or music.

P.S. The Chinese person eating bat soup origin theory of the coronavirus is unsubstantiated, I understand that it's easy to buy into what the News and TV are telling you, but this particular story is not true.

Now I hate China for an entirely different but valid reason, they suppressed information on the coronavirus allowing it to spread more effectively than if the government had been transparent about the threat.

Damn the Chinese government and their obsession with control and saving face, but as Joe Biden (U.S presidential candidate) said, it's not time to start pointing fingers, we have to working with the Chinese to better understand and combat the pandemic. We can punish the Chinese after the crisis is over.

Tell him it's not the cancer he probably has to worry about at this point. He has a much increased chance of dying from the virus with smoker lungs than not. Maybe he should go on the patch for that reason alone?

It's not only this pandemic that is causing me great anxiety, it's also our own personal problems on top of it, and the uncertainty of this pandemic is making our own problems worse.

Also they've shut all the doctors surgeries and my boyfriend needs to put in a prescription for his inhalers. We've tried ordering them online but we don't seem to be getting anywhere, as the site won't seem to recognise his doctor surgery, even though we've put in the right address and area code, etc. So there's another worry on top of all our other worries.
We have a lot to sort out financially too (this has nothing to do with the pandemic), and I find it all overwhelming. Plus I have to work over time during this time to get every bus disinfected, and so I'm finishing very late at night and I'm just tired and stressed.

I never thought things would go this overboard over a virus. Yes I know it's dangerous to some people but surely there's been other outbreaks of new viruses in the not too distant past that didn't involve all these lockdowns like this?

No new virus has spread this far and this fast in living memory: the purpose of all the measures being implemented is to slow down the rate of new infections to prevent healthcare systems from being overwhelmed (as, I believe, happened in Italy).
Arguably here in the UK we’ve had too much panic on the part of citizens, and not enough on the part of government.
A case in point would be the supermarkets voluntarily applying rationing to staple goods at least a fortnight after the government should have imposed (less severe) mandatory ones.

Edit: last paragraph is a bit PPR... apologies all, I’m leaving it as an example. Pick me up on it in the appropriate forum by cross quoting if you wish.

I'm also panicking because the vaccines won't be ready until at least summer 2021. Does that mean it's going to go on like this for another year? Because seriously, that will be impossible.

Also work is so busy and it's difficult to remember to keep everything clean. I tie my hair back but sometimes I get strands of hair in my eyes or mouth, which I have to brush away with my hand, making it impossible not to touch my face.

^ would wearing an Alice Band as well as tying back help with that?
If you’ve got one lying around that is...

I am scared.
And lonely.
Twice a week I have been going to my (only) friend’s house; we chat, decide what we want for dinner, and order through GrubHub.
Because of the very real possibility of contamination, we have not done that at all, and I miss that so very much.
We talk on the porch, but stay 6 feet apart, and are both frightened of this illness. She does not go out at all, not even for a ride with her daughter.
If I had not had a bad scare from Prozac ( the last time I took it I got awful chest pain and wound up in the E.R.), I would be taking it.
It had helped me through a couple of very bad spells.
So, believe me, you are not the only one on WP whose anxiety is hitting the roof; your honesty helps others open up and not feel so alone in being unhappy; I thank you so much for that.

Yes it does help to have threads like these. I'm sorry you can't spend time with your friend.

I know all this is for the best but it's only for the best against coronavirus. It's going to generate a lot of other problems and the outcome will not be pretty. The cabin fever effect frightens me, it probably won't happen to me but it might happen to some people. Believe me, the crime rate is going to go up and lots of people could end up dying from other causes. So it's hard to sit back and think all this is fantastic. And who knows how long this is going to go on for? Weeks? Months? Until they get vaccinations worldwide? The uncertainty is what's worrying me.

And the lack of food and other essentials in all the supermarkets is scary too. Me and my boyfriend can only afford to get shopping in bits each week, and seeing all of the shelves empty is just disgraceful. My boyfriend has ruined his lungs by years of heavy smoking so I'm not sure if he should be self-isolating, and I can't cope with the crowds of panicking buyers rushing to all of the supermarkets as soon as they open to aggressively raid the shelves. Believe me, that will be near impossible for me to stay sane with my mind in this anxious state - and this is me on antidepressants! At the moment I f*****g HATE a lot of people. So it looks like me and my boyfriend will end up starving and dying. Might as well just get the coronavirus, we've probably got more chance of surviving that than we have of living through this isolation period.

^ if your boyfriend has really bad lungs he definitely should be self-isolating.
This virus hits the lungs in particular as it develops.

sorry: this is just gloomy stress isn’t it?

Have you tried to order food deliveries online?
If it’s gone full mental with the panic buying down there and your guys in all day that work... not sure how their minimum order values will fit with your budget but could be worth checking out.

But then do I self-isolate too, for his safety?

We don't ever do online shopping. We don't have paying accounts online. And if online shopping was the easy solution then everybody else would be doing it online instead of standing in unbelievably long queues outside stores at 5 in the morning ready to ransack the stores bare.

There aren't even many people to ask to help us out in our area. Both our families don't live in our area and the relatives that are in our area don't drive, and my boyfriend's sister is a nurse so is probably extremely busy at this time with work (she works in a hospital). We don't know our neighbours, as most of them are students that come and go, and you can't really ask people you don't know very well to do your shopping.

That’s a tricky one: I’m guessing you can’t afford to (we can’t either)... hmmm... would the layout of your <flat? house?> be amenable to any kind of sanitary protocol?
I think what I’m asking is do you have a little toilet off the hallway?
If so you could, in theory, get home from work, go straight in there: pack your work clothes into a plastic bag, wash from the sink, icky I know: but I’ve been reduced to sofa surfing and doing that in railway station toilets before now, it’s horrible, but doable... I even worked out how to do my hair in a sink (it was just over chest length at that point)... then take house clothes out of another bag, pop them on and continue through to the house.
Yeah. I know. That’s about as appealing as eating a cake full of broken glass.
But that or something similar would allow you to keep working and maintain a sanitary cordon around your boy... it’s my own patent pikey experience, up to you if you think it’s applicable and worthwhile



If you’ve got a debit card they’ll take that: you don’t need some kind of special account like PayPal or what have you.
My grandmother (90 this summer) has been ordering her groceries online for years:
She hasn’t had a problem so far, some substitutions, but she grew up with rationing in the blitz so it doesn’t bother her if she gets a sweetheart cabbage when she asked for a savoy and suchlike.

Humans do what they’re used to doing until they have no option but to change, just because everyone would rather do a rugby scrum over a tin of beans than try placing an online order doesn’t mean you have to follow them.

(If you order a delivery it’ll be picked out before they stock the shelves )



Yes, awful for this type of situation to have no close at hand support network... I spent most of my twenties mentally disintegrating in Yorkshire 200 miles from my nearest family with no reliable friends who were capably of helping me... I know what it’s like to need help desperately and have none there to call on at a moments notice

But don't you have to have some sort of account to buy things online? I don't really like paying for things online because I worry about hackers. I'm not very knowledgeable with all this security stuff, and I have a Windows 7 laptop so the security protection might not be as reliable for that sort of thing.

And don't you have to change your password every day to stop hackers? I hate creating new passwords, I have trouble remembering them and I get stressed with having big lists written down of passwords. Like I said, you've still probably got to register to some sort of account in order to buy anything online. Surely it's not as simple as choosing your items, tapping in your card number and boom, task done. Nothing's that simple on the internet, which is why I only use the internet for research and social media.

If I do create an online account (maybe for Tesco?), could I delete it after this nightmare has blown over?
And I don't understand why I haven't heard anything on the news telling people to do their grocery shopping online to avoid having to go out to overcrowded supermarkets. So I hope that the online shopping option hasn't been made undoable by all this.

If I could order some groceries online that may be one less thing for me to stress about, and my boyfriend will be safe.

Also, if my boyfriend self-isolates, can he still drive his car? He's the only person who can take me to and from work or to the shops. He doesn't need to get out of the car.

And I know my boyfriend...if he self-isolates I can imagine him panicking if he runs out of cigarettes, and creeping out to the shop to buy some more while I'm asleep or at work. I can't watch him every minute, but I wasn't born yesterday. And no, he won't buy or use e-cigs, no matter how many times I tell him. He seems to be more addicted to the tobacco than to the nicotine, so it seems.
Really, I think cigarettes should be banned during this pandemic. We're stopping living our lives to save other people's lives, but selling cigarettes to desperate weak-willed smokers is actually defeating the purpose. And millions of desperate weak-willed smokers aren't all going to quit, especially when their excuse is always "I need a smoke because I'm stressed".

I'm sorry if I've offended any smokers here but it makes me so angry and smoking during a time where we need our lungs to survive a virus that is killing people, is just plain dumb, sorry to say.

Last edited by Joe90 on 21 Mar 2020, 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Doesn't your boyfriend order his coins online?

Set up a PayPal account if you are concerned. It takes seconds. I would connect it to your credit card rather than your bank card. Even when shopping in person, use a credit card rather than your bank card -- just pay your credit card off when you get home from the shops to avoid interest. I say this because credit card fraud is rare but if it happens, they're technically stealing Visa's money and not yours from your bank account. Credit card purchases are insured against theft, fraud, or any unauthorised use. I have never had a problem reporting any problems on a credit card and having the charge reversed.

Your computer should save your passwords for you. I don't know any of my passwords offhand. If you use Chrome, you can go to the "Check passwords" option and they are all saved there for you to review. No you don't need to change them daily or anything like that. Sometimes I'm prompted about once a year, but you could choose more often if you felt it was necessary.

If you choose not to do shopping online, can your boyfriend shop in person for you at 5 a.m. ? It seems you are carrying a heavy load working and also trying to do the finances.



This is a screenshot of how I find my passwords. I click on the little picture of me when using Chrome (top right avatar).

Then it gives options for your computer to save passwords for you, and there will be a list of them for you to view as needed (using your computer login for authorisation).

Last edited by IsabellaLinton on 21 Mar 2020, 7:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.