Sounds like a great character mate. It must be very difficult for anyone to lose a kid, even if it's because you live to a ripe old age. It's not something I want to do personally. My Great Grandad got to 97 & had a decent quality of life nearly to the very end. There is a point to be made about quality of life, over just sustaining life for the sake of it. This is a separate issue entirely from staying safe to not pass the virus on to others. I think both points are equally valid.
Totally get these sentiments, and I have three family members on shielding who have all expressed similar sentiments. However, and this isn't point scoring, sanctimonious, or intended as a trick question - isn't existing better than 'living' and then a potential early death? Given the options, isn't existing acceptable?
My father is 95 lives on his own, he as 3 children all old-age pensioners including myself and all he tells us is look after your selfs when we go to make sure he's ok with food etc its not getting him down. I'd got laugh last week when I took him his bread and milk he said its like 1984 when we were on strike and could not go to the pub because we had no money.
For how long? I don't mean that after so many weeks or months I'm going to say fc*k this I'm breaking this curfew, you can all ball*cks. Not infecting anyone else is the motivator here for me. The chances of that are actually quite slim now as I've had Covid-19 and come out of the other side. But it's still possible I could. I mean, do you just want to exist rather than live? I existed rather than lived for about 20 years. I have bipolar disorder and primarily obsessional obsessive compulsive disorder. There is a hell and I have lived it. I entered the UK mental health system when I was about 20 years old. I left it when I was 40 years old deciding I would rather live or die than just exist. Coming off those drugs, fc*king hell... I still don't sleep more than 3 hours a night. My record is 14 days without sleep. My psychiatrist who helped me through those first few months of getting out said I was the oldest person she'd ever known with those two conditions. Everybody kills themselves. It'll soon be ten years for me, living again, not just existing. It's fc*king hard sometimes, but it's living. I don't want to go back to just existing.
I'm just thankful.that I'm in the minority of the worlds population that gets to live not exist ( this current curfew aside).
Me too Helen, I’m lucky enough to have a good size garden which I’ve been able to spend hours in, I’ve been up nice and early to go out on the bike for a good run (it’s so quiet at 6 on a morning) plus me and the Mrs have spent loads of time together which I’ve enjoyed...her probably not so much , I do realise not everyone is so lucky,
In that scenario though even with track and trace working brilliantly if we start going out again someone will die because the virus has been spread. In fact most of us at some point in our lives have probably passed on a virus that has led to someone's death. I'm not saying we can just go back to normal because of the sheer weight of numbers this virus will take. But let's be clear on the morality here, it's a question of numbers. We are all happy to live our lives as normal and just kill a few people by spreading a virus. Now it's on a much larger scale and the facts have been thrust into our faces of the cost of our behaviour. As I say i don't have a answer nor do I envy those making the decisions on the balance between saving lives from Covid19 and the deaths and misery the measures are going to bring for years to come. People are going to die as a result of the lockdown. As with most things in the world it isn't black and white. I have a lot of sympathy for the OP.
I saw quite a funny picture online last night and it summed me up perfectly. It said... You don't realise how **** your social life is until you're in lockdown and your life doesn't change at all.
JamDrop with the claws out. Agree 100% though. It's temporary. Perhaps we can all spend some time thinking about those less fortunate that have the current situation as their normal.
My gran is 95 and still lives in her own house. She has no family close by either (she moved to deepest lincolnshire 45 years ago with my grandad). The last time we spoke all she was bothered about was the fact that she couldn't get out to post my wife's birthday card and wanted to re-assure her she hadn't forgot
