Covid-19 has affected me in many ways. When I first herd of the coronavirus I thought it wasn’t as serious and I thought everyone was just over reacting and it would be over just as quickly as it started with no effects. I was wrong. When all the panic buying hit its peak, I started to wonder about what was going on and thought it was best for me to do my research. After reading about it more I realised it was much bigger than I had originally thought, I was scared. I decided it was best for everyone in my household to stay home as much as possible. Shops started to close; events were cancelled; even my church closed its doors for the foreseeable future. It was final. No more outings, no more socialising. Just these same four walls day in and day out. I was terrified. What was I going to do?
The first few days of isolation weren’t too bad, but the constant worry and deep feeling in my chest just wouldn’t budge and the feeling of being scared grew on me more and more. I was obsessed, obsessed with scrubbing my house from top to bottom, obsessed with minimising who came and who left my house. This was a challenge as my partner still had to work. This caused a lot of issues in our relationship. I didn’t think he was taking this as serious as I was and was giving him a hard time about everything but I knew he couldn’t just give up his job because of my anxiety’s and he was doing all he could with washing his hands regularly, using hand sanitiser and showering off after every shift he had to keep our family protected as much as he could.
Then the day came. 23 March 2020 our country was put on official lockdown which meant everything I had been doing for the past week was now mandatory. This virus was spreading fast and our NHS was struggling to keep up. Doctors surgeries were closing; everyone was focused on this deadly virus. My mental health hit a point that it hadn’t in years. I struggled to cope with my emotion. I struggled getting out of bed in the morning. I struggled to eat all day because my appetite was gone. I just felt so alone, just like nobody understood how I was feeling.
Over the last couple of weeks, I felt more emotion than I ever thought were possible. The same few scenarios kept playing over and over in my head. What if I caught this virus? What if I couldn’t take care of my daughter? What if she was separated from me for 2 weeks? What if my daughter so ill she had to be put into a hospital room with nobody to care for her? This caused a lot of anxiety for me and a lot of crying.
Trying to take my mind off things and keeping busy became so important to me. I started trying to find things I had an interest in one of the first things I started was cooking. I started to cook homemade meals every night for my family. I did a lot of baking with my daughter; we made pancakes and a big chocolate cake together which was really fun. My daughter and I would go out in the back garden for fresh air once a day which helped make me feel better and it also calmed Kiera down since she was also having a hard time with the transition. I did a huge clear out of all the junk I had been hoarding and that gave me a feeling of relief being organised and I felt more together somehow.
This experience is very traumatic for me but there is always a bright side to every situation. I finally got to the point where I started to see the positives from this tragedy. Social media: if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t be able to keep in contact with my family and friends at all. I have managed to spend more time bonding with my daughter and my partner; with life being so busy for both of us we were forgetting how important it is to take time for each other. I have paid more attention to the little things and I have way more respect for the key workers who are still out working during this pandemic to keep the country functioning. Hopefully once all this is over people won’t be taking everything they have for granted, and be more appreciative of the little things in life.
