Idk if I’m in denial, or what? I just genuinely do not feel at all worried. Friends keep asking me why I’m not anxious at all and I have no answer! I can see everyone kind of re-masking and re-evaluating, and I’m looking at news, but I feel pretty safe? Is anyone else in this weirdly chill boat? I don’t think I’m burying real anxiety deep down but idk…I think seeing people around me so upset is making me question it. Burying emotions is a thing I deal with a lot in therapy so it’d be helpful to know if others are mostly unbothered.
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If I didn’t have a kid, I would be pretty unbothered. I’m vaccinated, I don’t have any risk factors to say I’m likely to lose protection, so mild to moderate illness is the risk level. That would be fine with me. 
But a young child that can’t mask adds a whole other level of “fuck” for me.
ETA I would also be more worried if I saw my mom more often.
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I burned out all my extremely negative covid reactions in the first three months and it was really bad, like I was scaring myself. Then I realized I do what I can and nothing I can do to make other people or the appropriate systems and authorities act as they should or in society’s best interest. So now IDGAF. Also I’m vaxxed and 26 with no kids or caretaking for the elderly so I am in a lucky position.
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I’m worried and anxious… but this doesn’t seem to be spilling over into my actual behavior? Like, I am still shopping in person, we ate out outdoors this weekend, we went to renfaire masked and it was crowded though outdoors, we went to a club night on Saturday (which granted was proof of vaxx only, but most people were unmasked; more masks than at the last club night though, probably because older crowd).
There’s plenty of stuff we don’t do still - indoor crowds, indoor dining, we ALWAYS wear a mask inside any building other than our home.
It’s like, on one hand I don’t think I can mentally go back to the severe I’m-not-going-inside-a-building-ever restrictions that we put on ourselves pre-vaxx. And I’m exhausted from weighing every single little thing we do so to some extent I’ve become like “eh, I’ll put on a KN95 and not eat or drink anything.” But then there’s this little voice in my head going “WHAT, are you insane, you need to lock down or else you are going to give yourself covid!”
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I’m trying my best not to make it worse out there and doing all I can not to get injured because the hospitals are full here.
I expect to get Covid sometime soon. I have to teach in person with no masks, tests, or distancing. I am vaccinated (very) and hope that’s enough to keep my symptoms mild. A severe case would kill me, but I don’t have any reason to think I’m more likely to have a severe case than some other vaccinated person - less since we got an unauthorized booster.
My 7 year old nephling is quarantined for two weeks following his first day and a half ever of in-person school, so there’s that. My parents are over seventy and fast approaching six months post-vaccine.
So, I’m not so existentially frightened for myself as I was, but I don’t expect to be able to get medical care for a while, and I am losing hope that I won’t lose more family members to this thing.
I’m not chill, but I may be fatalistic.
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I’m feeling weirdly chill too. I think I used up all of my anxiety during the first 4 months of Covid and the past 1.5 years has been really hard for me personally in bunch of other ways, so I feel like I don’t have anxiety and worry to spare for Covid anymore. Also I was volunteering in a pretty high risk situation for the entire Fall/Spring when it was pretty bad where I live, and I didn’t get sick, and I also flew and didn’t get sick so I think I have a sense of security (which is probably false) that keeps me from being super worried. Now that I’m vaccinated I’ve returned to almost 100% normal, but I think I might start wearing a mask again in places where I’ve previously felt comfortable not masking. Mostly because masks don’t bother me at all, and it became so routine to wear one anyway.
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+1 to all of this except my kid is going to public school and can mask. We did online school last year with a lot of parental involvement, the biggest reason we’re going back to in person school this year is so he can get OT and speech therapy in person (though I need to email his speech therapist and ask how that even works. I know she had in person kids last year.) Secondarily is to let him be around other kids his age after not being around other kids for 20% of his life.
We did summer camp for a few weeks and maybe half the kids wore masks indoors unless they were eating or just forgot to put it back on, we ended up with one potential covid exposure. Masks are currently mandated by the schools, unless they get a note signed by their doctor (parents are trying to sign it themselves, not sure how successful that tactic is) and the state is threatening to pull funding but more counties join ours seemingly every day so who knows how that’ll play out long term.
I did opt to do a Target order for delivery instead of going in person. That’s the only behavior change I can think of, otherwise we were still masking and never really left the house much.
My work was going to do an in person lunch for our department but there was a potential exposure for someone and the higher ups moved it to a Zoom meeting instead (which is what it was originally), but people had also started coming in to the office a few days a week and they cancelled that entirely for that week. I’m not sure if that’s a behavior change on their part with numbers spiking, but the office just reopened a few weeks ago so it feels like a temporary step backwards for just our department. Other departments are still operating as normal.
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Thanks @mirepoix and @mountainmustache29 I think you two articulated how I feel really well. It’s not like I was never anxious or worried, it more so feels like I burned through that stuff early on and there’s nothing left? Like I can’t even think about it because…what can I do at this point? I’m not willing to stop doing any of the things I’m doing now, so…might as well just bumble along. I know some of it is just that I’m not an anxious person in general, which is pure luck, but it is making me feel kind of like I’m in a bizarro world rn.
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@AllHat
I’m in a similar boat. I’m changing my behavior a little (aka masking at work again) but still plan on continuing my job at the grocery store/having a public facing job. I’m acting more Intense this week (as I am traveling out of state for a funeral and will interact with some at-risk people) and on the whole my household is planning on doing less indoor dining etc. but we’re not planning on re-entering lockdown mode personally. Just following the masking guidelines.
We have game-night with (2) friends and lately Partner and I have been masking during them, just because we’re the more likely vectors of spread.
Just for some context. No shame on those in shittier situations who are making different calls. 
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I’m not worried for myself, but am in the ‘really worried about my kid’ boat with everyone else. Last night I told my spouse that at this point I guess we just accept that the baby’s going to get COVID? Unless I quit my job or we go back to working an insane schedule where he goes to work in the middle of the night and I try to balance meetings while entertaining a small child when he needs to get a few hours of sleep?
I mean…I’m actively looking for a new job and hate mine so in some ways that would be really nice. But we’d have to dip into savings every month that I’m not bringing in a paycheck since his salary doesn’t quite cover our cost of living. We’d have to decide whether to keep paying for daycare even if we weren’t sending her because the waiting lists are 6-9 months long and we might need her to go back if I got another job? We’d have to decide whether to keep seeing my parents or close back off completely.
So basically I didn’t sleep last night stressing about all the various possibilities.
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Related to the out of state funeral, my aunt is a scientist and has offered to administer rapid COVID tests for the people staying over at my parent’s house (which is quite a few of us). I have no idea if this is a thing related to her SCIENCE ness? 
It’s super cool tho!! (Her husband is one of the most at-risk people as he has ALS)
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I am pulling back on some activities I’d restarted but not others.
I do have some anger for people who could have been vaccinated and chose not to, but I don’t think everyone getting vaccinated would have stopped the current surge due to transmission still occurring in those who are vaccinated.
I am however completely out of empathy for those who could have vaxxed but didn’t and are now hospitalized or dying.
My empathy is with those in the medical field who are already exhausted or traumatized who keep caring for patients who wouldn’t be there if they had been vaccinated. I have empathy for those who are again delaying medical care because beds are taken by people who did not vaccinate. I have empathy for the people in our society who are not vaccinated, whether due to medical conditions or young age, who are more at risk because so many people have refused vaccination.
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I was continually masking in public buildings, and not really spending much time in public buildings – just being in friends’ houses. Quite a few of my friends are immunosuppressed and have been running more conservative now that Delta is around, so they’re not doing stuff in houses. Otherwise, we’ve been behaving pretty much the same for months now. (I am, however, mentally preparing for lockdown in the fall when it gets cold and all the kids are back in school.)
I have been planning to visit my parents this fall and winter, but now I’m worried whether or not that’s viable – my mom is in her 60s and has Type 1 diabetes including all of its complications, all of which are risk factors for COVID. I haven’t seen her in nearly two years and she’s almost blind from glaucoma and I want her to be able to see my face in person for one more visit. She’s not likely to make it to 70, outside of COVID, and aaaaaagh. I miss my parents.
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I agree that the level of chill probably depends on personal situation. I basically do whatever I want at this point, I just do it with a mask. Between the vaccine and the mask, I feel pretty well protected from catching covid again and from spreading it to others. Is it 100%? No. But the chances of getting a breakthrough infection are still quite low, even with delta. I don’t come into regular contact with any children or immunocompromised people, though. And my city is requiring vaccination for basically all indoor activities now. So all of those little things help.
I am a little nervous for my family, though. We’re going on a trip together at the end of the month, and it will be the first time I see my grandparents in person in over two years. Everyone on the trip will be vaccinated except my sister-in-law, who swears she will remain masked anywhere near the rest of us, especially indoors. I’m pretty mad about it and think she should be uninvited, especially with delta, but it is unfortunately not up to me.
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Argh, a friend in the UK has covid. She has existing lung issues, a regular cold usually becomes pneumonia for her even pre-covid. She is fully vaxxed though. Worried for her.
Has anyone used those home tests that you can get at Walgreens? I wonder if they are accurate. My therapist said she used them on her kids and suggested it might be something to think about if we have an exposure it do something risky like travel.
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Same here.
I think I’ve basically accepted that there’s a not insignificant chance my child will get COVID just like he’ll get other sickness at daycare. We’re all healthy and the overall risks of severe illness are low.
Am I okay with this? Ehhh depends on the day. We could in theory hire a nanny, but that basically means we could never work from home because he gets too upset if we’re home and not interacting with him. And honestly he shares enough germs with kids he plays with outdoors that it doesn’t completely reduce risk, and we also can’t police what the nanny does. We could bring my parents back, but they basically are fried by 3 pm and then he watches videos until we come home. And I get really stressed with so many people in my house and no access to my kitchen.
But mostly I’m like a lot of others here in that I’m too tired to worry a lot.
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Same here. I’m really worried my kid is going to get covid. But right now the health costs to us as a fam vs returning to daycare are too high. He is low risk for covid complications and i know everyone’s worried about long term stuff but, also, he’s young. Better healing than adults. So I am gonna remain hopeful and cautious, but this is where we are now.
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I am not worried and going about my normal activities except I am not going to huge events like festivals. If I had grandchildren I would be concerned about them. Being older and not knowing how many years I have left I am not going to stay home.
So, I did not especially mind staying home, but it seems kind of pointless at this point in time because other people in my household would still go out.
We’re being careful about masks again, but unless things get much worse I feel okay about running errands.
I mostly want the school year to be as normal as possible for the little boy, and for everyone else, too.
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I’m personally not worried about risk/ keep an eye for a new variant. I’m worried about risk to some kids and about mental health consequences of another lockdown. I’m completely fine with masking and I think the general public is happy to mask indoors.
Really worried about not seeing friends and family for a long time again. I can’t physically handle the commute to friends and day out more than once or twice a month, and in winter less so if there’s a lockdown. So I haven’t even seen all my loved ones again yet. Plus with all the other life changes friend shifts are normal
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