Week three and four of lockdown. Don't overthink about what you can't control.

Easter was good, peace and quiet, no builders working all day in the buildings opposite mine.

The sound of silence the most precious gift.

I even managed to get a Chocolate egg, and fish & chips for Easter, I could not find any roast. It was unusual to have fish & chips on Easter Day, but than I found the roast on Easter Monday, my flatmate was very happy about this. We had a proper meal on Easter Monday. I ate too much chocolate on Monday and I was really sick on Tuesday, so I didn't get any sympathy about that. I am pleased to say I am feeling better this evening.  

With the lockdown we are going through some weird communist experiment, queuing at the supermarkets to get in, being told what to do by the Government without questioning it, empty shelves in some supermarkets with only essentials available!

The Government has now agreed the lockdown will go on for another three weeks. My diary is empty. I think the lockdown will go on for a lot longer than three weeks here.

In these unusual circumstances it's very important to keep doing things that are familiar even if it is a small thing like eating your favourite food with your flatmate, to keep some resemblance of normality and stability.

One of my friends has been feeling depressed watching the amazing houses of people on Instagram; she is stuck in a small shared flat on the other side of London. I told her to watch Slavoj Zizek instead giving interviews on Zoom with his camera on his lap... She laughed..

I said to her best to not compare oneself or your living space with that of others on Instagram, I know it is easily done especially if you spend a lot of time on Instagram. I told her to stop watching some of the people there, all the self centred narcissists on there with supposedly wonderful places, who prepare fantastic meals, they are actually really boring, they are starting all to look kind of the same. I told her to focus on herself: take up a hobby, sign up to a course online, learn a language, spend time online with interesting people with ideas not following some boring narcissists on Instagram. Wake up! Nobody has a perfect life. Look for more interesting people on Instagram, with more quality accounts or ditch it all together if it is make you feel worse about yourself.

Don't compare what you are  going through if your country is in a lockdown with your friends in countries which are not under a lockdown, who are still working outside with others, hugging and kissing, they might not understand what it means practising social distancing, not to be able to visit your friends in person. At times you might feel jealous of your friend who lives in a country that is not in a lockdown (Sweden), or that his/her country have better testing than yours like Germany, and have fewer deaths than your country, or that in their country the Government was more prepared than yours and did more testing and spent more money on hospitals, doctors and nurses than your Government does. This might make you feel angry, it's normal! 

I am mentioning this because a lot of people actually share a flat in London with lots of other people, most of the time strangers not family or a partner and they don't have access to a garden and are on low wages. Not only in their 20's sometimes they are in their 40's and 50's due to high rents and being stuck for years in low paid jobs, especially in the arts. Living in cramped flats, some of them also provide essential services while putting their lives at risk (carers, nursing, customer service, pharmacists etc) to others but they don't seem to have much of a voice in the main stream media and they should be paid a lot more than they are at the moment. Fancy risking your life for the minimum wage? Without them a lot of the self-obsessed narcissists online and the wealthy would not be able to manage anything by themselves, they depend on others in order to be successful. The whole myth that they got to the top by themselves is nonsense, is just a story to sell as part of their PR package.

Some of my friends are surprised when I am not online. I can be off line, not checking anything, also doing nothing at all, relaxing, recharging is really important, not being constantly on the go and showing off to others. Do you have to be on zoom to talk to people? No you don't have to. If that helps you, great; personally I find it intrusive and I don't use it. I am  happy just reading a book or listening to music. I don't need to be endlessly online updating my profile, I mean who cares?Obviously I enjoy communicating with people online when I feel like it.  You will be surprised to find out actually that you can be happy without being digitally connected at all, even in a lockdown, depending on how well you take isolation. But for some  people being on Facebook, chatting on Twitter with others or through WhatsApp is helping them stay sane and connected, it's a personal choice.

I told my friend to look out more for positive news; for example there was an article today saying that autistics & people with learning disabilities are allowed to go out more than once per day which in a way is a good thing for people who are highly hyperactive.

In a lockdown you might focus more on certain things and not always feel positive.  I have been thinking about the fact that people that work in care homes have not been given appropriate gear, protection PPE, when they are working and also front line staff in hospitals have been dying for not having the right protective gear. I have been thinking, instead of all clapping in support of the NHS workers (who are doing an amazing job) the Government should give them the protective gear (PPE) they need in order  to be safe and to work efficiently, and pay them appropriately. Instead of sending them out wearing plastic handkerchiefs.

In a lockdown due to lack of movement and being stuck in the same space for many hours, one tends to overthink things; I was obsessing about the economy collapsing with all businesses being shut, lack of food, which really I can't do anything about. Another day I was obsessing about all of the above obsessive thoughts I have been having, and not to be able to do much in terms of helping.

Another day, my mind was just focusing on the ambulances going up and down the main road, it was challenging.  If this is happening to you as well, your thoughts are creating extra stress, try to distract your mind by doing a workout, or watching a movie, doing something enjoyable or something else that will focus your attention on something more positive.

I was thinking how am I going to manage these high noise levels from the building work? By breaking the day. Have a nice breakfast, do a workout, keep earplugs on, and when the noise is at the highest from building work, which is generally in the afternoon, go for a walk, or listen to music. My favourite time is from 5:30 onwards because all the building work stops then. It's nice and peaceful again. So I try to tell myself that the noise will not last forever, there are things I can do to feel better, that I am not trapped.

Basically focus on what you can do, and not on the things you can't control, like external work, it takes practice and persistence to retrain the brain, one is not successful straightaway, I still have had bad days and good days. I am highly sensitive to external sensory stimuli. But now I am retraining  to work more late at night because it's more quiet and I sleep during the day so I don't hear the noise.

Overall I much prefer being in nature, I feel supported by nature.

I find working out  as well, doing weights, helps clearing the head from too many negative thoughts.

Focusing on nature, the beautiful flowers, the trees, the lovely sunny weather, the clean air and chatting to my friendly neighbours ( at a distance of course). We support each other and that improves my mental wellbeing and theirs.

Repeat to yourself like a mantra. I am grateful I am alive no matter the circumstances, we will get through this like previous generations did before us.

How I am managing the Coronavirus. Week two of lockdown.

It's the second week of lockdown and I have settled in to some sort of routine. I have been supporting isolated elderly friends on the phone, chatting to friends all round the world from Japan to Sweden to Korea. I still miss my friends greatly, not being able to see them has been challenging but we have been keeping in contact regularly which has helped. I am looking forward to Easter,  a nice meal maybe.

Sadly in the last couple of days we have been told the Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital on Sunday, now in intensive care which is worrying; on the other hand Chris Whitty recovered from the Coronavirus, some good news. The speech by the Queen cheered me up. I met her several times and she was always great, friendly, professional. She gave a really good speech, it inspired me especially with Boris being ill and the country edgy. I was worried when Boris said he was still shaking people's hands; I was thinking don't do that, you will catch it. Sadly I was right.

At times I have been feeling very tired, the big change in routine and the unfolding news,  but meditation has helped with this, it changes from day to day. I think it is important also to recognise self care when one is tired, to put boundaries with people  who are overly negative and just drain your energy normally and even more so now. It's ok to say no if you are not feeling 100%. The pandemic has brought out the best and the worst in people. There is a lady who is amazing, she leaves things to pick up outside of her house (obviously you have to pick them up with gloves) I got a couple of really new good classical CD's and she writes inspiring messages for people to pick up, or leaves flowers out. People like her are an asset. Then you get some unfriendly joggers who run all over the place with no sense of social distancing or saying hello, no smile, just miserable, I just ignore them back.

I seem to be more sensitive to things around me. The bees buzzing around, the birds flying, with very few people about, one notices every little thing. The eagle again was flying high in the sky. One good thing about the current situation is fewer cars on the road, the air is a lot cleaner,  rabbits running around which you have never seen before, also I am enjoying the quiet.

The media this weekend have been obsessing about sunbathers due to the sudden warm weather, I feel they are a minority, I have never seen any around. Obviously in higher populated areas where people have no access to gardens and share a flat, people will tend to go out more to the park to cope mentally, maybe more so than those who live in smaller towns or rural areas where they are hardly near anybody and have access to plenty of space.  What the Government should be focusing on is testing more like in Germany where they have had so far a low mortality rate because they have been testing so much. Also I find the advice by the Government that people with fever should self isolate a bit narrow. Some coronavirus patients have not had any fever,  some of them experienced just a cold with no fever at the beginning or aches in the body and extreme tiredness with no fever, pain in their eyes or heavy chest.

In the supermarket it's difficult to find everything you need in one session, some things have completely sold out or there is very little left or you can't carry everything without a car which complicates trips meaning you will have to go more often.

Online all the slots have been taken and there are no slots available to book so I was not able to order anything online. I have not been able to find any tinned tomatoes so I made tomato sauce to use on pasta from fresh tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are still available luckily. The supermarket and the pharmacy have put up plastic screens at the tills which is good news for people working there to keep them and us safe, I have been worrying about them. They enforced an In & Out going through for people and they only allow a certain number of people inside, which has been very helpful.

I didn't feel as anxious going to the supermarket and the pharmacy since last week there were very few people  inside both of them and I didn't have to queue which was great. 

Obviously I am following Government guidelines generally and I stay 2 metres away from people but there was hardly anybody inside the supermarket, literally three people... Maybe because it is a small supermarket (but there aren't any queues to get in);  it is the large ones where there have been rather long queues.  Some of the things the small supermarket has are the more expensive staff like organic fruit and organic vegetables but they also have low priced non organic vegetables, just not a wide range. I am just happy I can still find fresh fruit & vegetable, yoghurt and nice coffee. During the panic buying I bought some cheap coffee because I could not find the one I usually take and it tasted really awful.

Pasta has suddenly shot up to one pound extra and there wasn't much left but I still managed to get  a bag of it, it will last a while. Same with meat & fish only the expensive staff was left so I didn't take any, I bought tofu instead, chicken is still available at an average price though. One of my friends is ordering everything on Amazon Prime so they are having everything delivered that way, but some other friends told me that only people who have been with them for a while get deliveries quickly, if you sign up now you might not get a delivery with them and with other supermarkets, one elderly friend of mine found out there were no slots available online which was a bit of a problem as they live in the middle of nowhere!

The week has gone quickly; it's amazing how we adapt to changes so quickly, I am sticking to a routine and I find what helps me the most at the moment is working out and keeping in touch with my friends online. I am trying to avoid the news but is not easy, I slipped yesterday and watched the news.

Copyright Mirta Imperatori 2020