You'd think all of the YA dystopias would've prepared me for this

[spindizzy]

Hey everyone! I'm doing a quick update on me and then current status on Who Will Win: My Anxious Brain or One (1) Pandemic?

Non-pandemic related stuff first!

• Last time I saw my doctor I mentioned that PMT/shark week were making me feel like my meds stopped working, and he said I could try taking extra of my anti-anxiety meds on those days. So far... It seems to be helping? Like, I've had to stash some of my meds in my pencil case to take at work, because it's hard to tell the difference between "Why is it 6am" and "Mine is the Anxiety Unending" before I leave the house, but it means that I'm prepared for the 8:30 surge of panic and can react accordingly.


• (For anyone new here: PMT used to make me suicidal, so Anxiety Unending is progress! I feel SO MUCH better than I did!)


• I slept for THIRTEEN HOURS on Saturday. Apparently I was tired?


• I have been STRESS BAKING, by which I mean I made a victoria sponge, a bowl full of chocolate buttercream, and one enormous chocolate crispy cake, and left it up to sithe and lexgarrett how or if they want to combine them. (Can confirm that chocolate crispie cakes with chocolate buttercream are LUSH.)


• I'm doing a speedrun of the first series of Kingdom as a refresher for series two, which dropped on Friday. (It's a speedrun because I'm pretty much skipping any scene that doesn't have the main four characters in, and no I am not giving the comic relief character credit as a main character.) How is it so gorgeous? How are the zombies so convincingly unnatural and gross? Why do I not watch more intense historical political horror?


• Daylife in Japan has slightly been eating my life, because mindlessly doing pixel gif jigsaws is very soothing to me. Like, "28 hours of the last week have been spend on this game" levels of soothing. If you liked the jigsaw minigame in Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, maybe that will work for you! ... I'm told that there are people who didn't like that minigame, but sounds fake.


• I have finally progressed the plot in Pokémon after about two months of sending my Pokémon on jobs like I'm a Mr Johnson in Shadowrun. I'm in... Stow-on-Soar? Stoke on Trent? Whatever it's called. I have a half-written post where I flail about things that I'm gonna get back to, but I'm enjoying it and I have Questions about that fossil lady.


• The landlady is visiting today and orzzzzzzz

And now the pandemic stuff! Caution warning for me being an anxious mess but dealing, I guess?

• My coworker: Imagine what this situation is like for people with anxiety!
  Me, a person with anxiety: It's a hellscape!


• Seriously, I'm swinging between the blissful peace of "Finally people are acknowledging that the house is haunted" and the anxiety of "Oh my god the house is haunted" and I don't know which is the correct reaction and which one will stick. Like, I'm very glad that I put all of this work into treating my anxiety and mild germophobia! I wasn't expecting the test of that to be a global pandemic, but sure!
  
• Bless my anxiety but it fixated on "BUT WHAT IF THE SHOPS CLOSE????" as its primary concern for a whille. I guess because a) capitalism, and b) buying things is a thing that I can control and thus by extension this entire terrifying situation. ... By which I mean yes, I completely understand why people are panic-buying toilet rolls, from a perspective of "If the shops close and I can't buy replacement stuff, what is the thing that's going to be the worst to find a substitute for?"


• (Are shops going to close? I don't know! I believe that it's unethical to have shop workers keep going in, but also I suspect in my heart of hearts that no company is going to give supermarket workers hazard pay, so ????????)


• The current recommendations that I've seen going around on the shopping front: if you can click and collect you'll get a slot sooner than delivery; if there are corner shops or Asian/Indian/Polish supermarkets near you, try there. Don't know how accurate this is, but I did watch a man empty a shelf of basmati rice at a Sainsbury's yesterday so it couldn't hurt.


• My current worries are keeping the electric topped up (we're on a meter) and food. I'm very aware that I could become a prepper/stockpiler with very little provocation, so I'm trying my hardest not to do that? But also: anxiety! *jazz hands* I think the compromise I'm bringing myself to is buying ingredients for baking, because see also: stress-baking.

Work's official standpoint is that they're not going to close the libraries until either they have a suspected case or the university itself closes, which it won't do until the government says to. Classes will be going online only as of Monday, and if the university closes students will be allowed to stay in their halls. If all libraries close, we'll be sent home with pay; if only one library closes staff from that library will make up their hours at other libraries.

... Two of the libraries (on other campuses) are closed already, and at least three of my coworkers are self-isolating. Yaaaaay.

Some DOUCHECANOE emailed the library yesterday to be like "There were people coughing in the library and staff weren't asking them to leave!" and it's like yes, that's because we are not medical professionals, we can't diagnose diseases by eye, and it's not our job to dictate who can and can't be out in public.

We've had maybe eighty customers in today, rather than the 2000 students we usually get. I wasn't sure if the strike ending would cause a spike despite government advice, but we might be getting away with it.

Weirdly, jilliferium is the person that I'm LEAST worried about on the "catching a horribly infectious disease" front, despite her working in A&E. Hospitals seem like the places where you would be following the safety advice MOST aggressively, and also jilliferium hates being around people. I have a long list of other people I'm worrying about, like my 67 year old mum on a zero-hour contract as a lollipop lady, for obvious reasons.

Can sympathise with the people wigging about being bored while on isolation, but real talk: can't relate. I have more video games, books, tv shows, and subscription services than I could get through in three months, my biggest danger is going to be "Yes I want to do something, but None of This." Might be able to get around that with my local comics shop still posting things out but real talk I am happy to keep paying them to hang onto my stuff and I'll just collect it all when this is over.

Managed to swap out my doctor appointment for a phonecall, so all I need to do today is pick up my meds and I'll be good to bunker down!

So yes, I am okay. Somewhat scared, somewhat anxious, but I'm dealing. Will report back when I find out what's going on.

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[oracne]

Listening!