CaB Group Hug - it's ok to feel like shit

[Glebe]

Not exactly COVID-related, but illness-related and an explanation of why I'm not attending the Manchester demo tonight: I've been ill for two weeks with some kind of virus that's made the glands in my head and neck swell up. It started with tonsillitis and headaches/a stiff neck which were really bad when I woke up - moving my head hurt like hell. I stupidly went the gym last week and ended up feeling awful. Doctor gave me penicillin which did help my throat, but not the pain in my head and neck. It feels like I've been clubbed with a baseball bat.

The sore throat is coming back and I had very little sleep last night and woke up at 11:15, which is not good as it means less time to work, and handed in two jobs late - I got sent two short but urgent ones that had to be done today and I have another ongoing big job on top of that that's due for Thursday, and I clean forgot that a fourth job was due today. When I was working earlier my computer crashed and then restarted, and I lost it and burned my arm with a fag - I don't smoke, but it's a less bloody alternative to cutting. I'm just burned out and fed up and am going to try and get an appointment with a GP tomorrow if possible. Also, demos are a huge panic trigger. I'm not going to be of much help if I'm curled up in a ball screaming and crying. I'm not being a pretty maid all in a row or whatever. I'm just exhausted and in pain.

Love and hugs to ya Kanks, hopefully that virus fucker will clear up soon.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I'm such a fucking useless cunt.

Because I didn't have the guts to ask to work from home the week before my grandmother's funeral, I've got covid and am now going to have to miss it.

I've let my family down and am so angry at myself.

I'll never be able to say goodbye to my grandmother now. All because I didn't have the guts to ask to work from home that week and because I was worried about how my mental health would be affected by spending a week at home and only going out for walks.

[Kankurette]

Unrelated, sort of, but I'm currently having a major meltdown due to not being a prepper. I read this article and it's got three preppers in it who will be fine if society goes into meltdown. I wouldn't even have the faintest idea to start with prepping and I know people like me are probably considered to be useless eaters and would be the first to die in an apocalypse. I have no knowledge of bushcraft, I never made it into Guides, I can't hunt, I can't fish, I don't have a camping stove, I don't have cash hidden under my mattress or loads of candles or a gun or a larder full of preserves - I don't even make my own preserves - and oh fuck me I get so jealous when I see certain posters on here talk about how self-sufficient they are and how they can manage without anyone, out in the middle of the wilderness. Not like useless worthless townies like me.

Going on Mumsnet and seeing endless threads about blackouts and smug preppers going 'well I've got a head torch and loads of flasks and a wood fire, I'll be fine'. I hate these people because I am jealous of them, because they'll always be fine and I won't. I can't cope with changes in routine as it is.

[purlieu]

Bunch of cunts in that article anyway, a guy moaning about "state hand-outs". As if spending money on food and resources for 'just in case' scenarios is easy for everyone in the current economic climate, not to mention the emphasis on physical stuff. No concessions to the poor and the disabled in their arguments at all. If these are the sorts of people who'll do well in the apocalypse then we're better off out of it.

[bgmnts]

This is a simple one: the average Brit needs to think. I'm not suggesting for a moment that they are thick, what I'm suggesting is that they should think about what happens if the power goes off, or the water doesn't just come out of the tap.

Thank god I remember all the survival techniques I was taught rigorously throughout my education.

[Kankurette]

So I started self-harming again, cut myself quite badly, stabbed a kitchen knife into the wall and cried so loudly the people upstairs probably think I was being murdered. That was fun. Everything is just getting to me.

[flotemysost]

Haven't looked at this thread in a while, but hope you're doing OK @Kankurette - go easy on yourself if you can. It sounds like an obvious/trite thing to say, but these feelings can be so intense and overwhelming in the moment, but they will pass and you will get through it. I hope you've got some support around you if you need it.

And don't worry about what your neighbours might think - I woke up in the middle of the night feeling properly upset (I'm fine, nothing bad's happened to me - just out of the blue felt unbearably sad for various people I know who are going through crappy things in their lives at the moment - just feel really powerless and wish I could make things OK for them, you know?) and anyway I'm sure I probably woke up my poor flatmates with my snotty nocturnal snuffling, though goodness knows it wouldn't be the first time.

Love to you all anyway x

[Glebe]

Oh no Kanks, lots of love and hugs. Are you getting some kind of support at the moment? In any case take care of yourself.

[Kankurette]

Not much, tbh. It's just the little things, you know? They get too much sometimes. Like my phone not working and dying on me when a gig venue phones trying to arrange a refund for a cancelled gig (which did get sorted in the end), or trying to negotiate insurance for a new phone, or being treated like I'm thick. Hate it.

[Kankurette]

Sorry, me again. Do NT people struggle with insurance claims too? I might as well just buy a new fucking phone because I've been trying to get in touch with the insurance brokers all morning after one of them woke me up, and I couldn't phone her back because I didn't have a number, and I had to call the insurers twice because they gave me the wrong contact number, and honestly it would be easier just to buy a new fucking phone because I am at the end of my rope right now trying to deal with this. And they probably think I'm thick. I wanted to do it all on email but they insisted they had to talk to me on the phone when I'd just woken up and i was tired and incoherent and now I've cried myself into another headache bcause I just can't cope.

[George White]

Not covid related but Mum has died.

[Kankurette]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Glebe]

I'm sorry for your loss.

Indeed, big hugs George. My own beautiful Mother passed in 2020. Just take things a day at a time and be kind to yourself.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Sisters been diagnosed with breast cancer at the grand old age of 33, so that's fun.

[Glebe]

Oh shit sorry to hear that ESP. Very best for a full recovery.

[selectivememory]

Yeah, all the best. That's rough.

[bgmnts]

Hope she gets better soon.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Cheers lads. We've had a bit of a family booze up to cope with the news. The good thing is that my other sister works for the NHS as a radiotherapist, so she should be able to grease a few palms to get her fast tracked onto whatever treatment she might need.

[Kankurette]

Good luck. I hope they catch it in time.

[George White]

Been having stomach pains for a few weeks and loose stools (it's solid now but dark black), and now for the twoweeks, tummy rumbling. Already had an excrement test that was fine, but the rumbling's getting worse since then. Am worried. Also think I have a bump under my breast but it could just be me overthinking, thinking the hard cartilage/bone is asymmetrical.
 Then again, it could be my vegan diet. But I am fearing the worst because apparently, autistic people have a higher chance of getting cancer.

[Glebe]

Sorry to hear that George. If the test was okay that's good news but of course if  you're still having issues get back on to your GP.

I suffer with IBS like symptoms, at one point I thought I might have appendicitis but the doc said no. Diverticulitis is another possibility but my symptoms haven't worsened so hopefully not.

In any case don't fret, I'm a bit of a hypochondriac myself but you can't jump to conclusions. Take care.

[George White]

I have been having headaches, pains in my fingers, headaches all over my head, a sore left leg, a sore left arm, the odd back pain (but that could be due to sleeping in a zero gravity chair) and sometimes a sore right leg, pains all over, and worrying it might be a tumour. I had an eye test, and they found nothing suspicious there (as I had a sore eye).
People telling me not to worry, but being autistic (and have a higher chance of getting cancer), I tend to worry.

[Glebe]

I suffer with really bad anxiety and I know that you can convince yourself of anything. When you calm down and relax you realise that the reality is probably not half as bad as what's going on in the ol' noggin.

[George White]

It's just that with a metallic feeling in the mouth, a numbness on the right side of my mouth and a feeling in my spine, it feels like everything's going to shit.

[lipsink]

I'm just overwhelmed by everything at the moment. My partner's father is having tests and we're worried it may be cancer. I'm being supportive cos she's worrying about it and I'm trying to be strong but I don't know if I'm strong enough to look after my partner right now. I know it sounds selfish but I'm just so exhausted. My head is just fucking done in.

[Glebe]

Sorry to hear it Lips. You need to look after your own health too. Hope you catch a break mate. In any case lots love.

[lipsink]

Thanks @Glebe. Same to you.

And @George White much love to you.

[George White]

The symptoms have gotten worse. Still anxiety. But red eyes now.

[George White]

I am still worrying over my anxiety symptoms.

I had a CT scan a few months back, but in recent months, I find myself saying words in a pronunciation i didn't quite intend, find myself stumbling over words more, sometimes saying a simile instead of the actual word, as well as getting sore eyes, and waking up constantly in the middle of the night every night. Is this anxiety too?
Currently have

- stomach pains (started in August, convinced for a while I was going to have a heart attack)

- recurring leg pain

- headaches (especially pulsating feeling, throbbing, in neck and head, started really in September, but i've always had headaches, but never throbbing migraines)

- neck tension (neck bone stiffens up regularly and sticks out a bit, in September)

- tinnitus noise in centre of head (like farting in head, in late September)

- burning eyes

- burning mouth syndrome (only the last week or so)

- sour throat for a month and a half

- globus pharyngeus (developed after the sore throat)

- itchy eyes, recurring red eyes

I've had seven or so (CBC) blood tests, myriad trips to the Doctor, a CT scan, but after a woman I was talking to disappeared when I left the door open for her and one other similar thing where someone I know vaguely seemingly disappeared from my view, I am convinced I AM having hallucinations and am worried. My mother died in January, so that's probably what the anxiety is caused.

But I am finding it harder to concentrate. My head feels jumbled. I can't think as smoothly. I sometimes feel I am talking slurred, even though people don't think I am. My doctor (and other doctors) keep telling me there's nothing to worry about, and that the medication I'm taking (serc, escatalipram, pantoprazole) is going to take another month or so to really kick in, but I just feel worse.

I also dream about Mum too regularly, but the thing is, I wasn't heavily mourning her. She'd been ill for years. Her death was kind of a lifting of a great weight, but she was so important to me in the past. Is that perhaps why this is happening at the mo?

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Yes.