Covid Support Thread
- This topic has 3,741 replies, 35 voices, and was last updated 2 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
@LadyE, what are the reasons your parents (one at a time) are living with you? Is it that you need full-time care, or is it because of their own problems that this is going on? If you need help with just certain things, like dog walking or cleaning, there are people you can pay for that. Even cooking, I mean there are services that can do everything from being you groceries to fully prepared meals.
If you require full-time care from a parent, then I think you do have to put up with some of their…you know, opinions. And if this is getting untenable for you, I really think it’s time to put in some work and get more serious about your mental health. You might need a new therapist who can better address your current circumstances. And maybe an updated med program.
The thing is, you do function. You work, and you can pull yourself together for a night out. You care about skin care. What do you think you would need in order to live independently? What things could you pay someone to do?
ETA, could your pulmonary condition qualify you for some degree of home health aide?
@TheLadyE oooh I feel ya. My mom and I get along very very well but there are some times when my mom gets fixated on something and so we have the same conversation a few times. Here are a few choice phrases that I use regularly:
1. Ma, I’ll figure it out.
2. You know what this requires? Me, figuring shit out.
3. I’m going to approach this the best way I know how and I’m going to figure this shit out.
4. Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll take that into consideration.
5. Mmmm, I’m not so sure I’m going to take that approach. (and that’s the end of the convo – I don’t explain anything).
and when all else fails:6. 50 year old woman here! I got this!
Joanie is back at school today after a week at home. She’s been testing negative since Thursday morning and the rest of us never got it, so I am happy we avoided household spread (we made a big effort to do this!) and wish the school would have made even half the effort we did to avoid getting these kids sick. Joanie had minimal symptoms during active covid but now, post-covid, she has a really swollen, sore, chapped upper life and says the inside of her mouth down to the back of her throat is very sore (like a burning sensation). I really hope it passes quickly. I’m so mad on her behalf!
So to answer your question @Kate, it’s not my mental health but my lung problems that are causing them to want to be here. (Also partly it’s that they’re dealing with their own drama and it gives them each the opportunity to get away from the other.) My oxygen levels have been extremely low for months, and I’ve been basically sleeping a lot and struggling to be anywhere nearly as independent as I have been in the past.
I now have portable oxygen as well as at-home oxygen and a plan for pulmonary rehab, so I’m hopeful this will help solve these problems. However, I’ve struggled with my health since I was born and my parents are over-the-top worried about me. They mostly help me with my little dogs and with household stuff right now, but I’ve lived independently for so long I really think the only way I’m going to get better is to start to do these things myself. It’s a catch-22.
I sincerely doubt I would qualify for any kind of in-home care. I don’t even qualify for long term disability, and goodness knows the government doesn’t want to give anyone anything if they can help it. I’ve tried in the past to obtain services to help but have come up empty, and the fight is hard and demoralizing for zero result. It’s far better for me to work and maintain my pretty good health insurance and get treatment that way.
Anyway. Lots of detail. But basically…I want my life back and hopefully pulmonary rehab is the solution.
Yeah, if it’s mostly dog walking and HH stuff, there are resources for that which you can pay for if you don’t want your parents living with you and speaking their minds about whatever. Unfortunately with parents I think if you need and accept that degree of help, you also have to take the bad with the good, and I’m totally speaking from experience seeing a dynamic like this all my life with my sibling. You do kind of forfeit your ability to do like Leslie said, and not to have to listen to their opinions on how you do things. It’s a trade-off.
I would highly recommend trying to find an alternate solution than having them with trade off staying with you. I’m sorry you’re dealing with so much but you need to focus on your well being. They can’t use “helping you but making your life miserable” as their fake patch to not address their issues. If they are actually helpful, great but it doesn’t sound like they are really doing much for you if your dad only walks your dog but you’re still in charge of procuring food, for instance.
I could never let my parents stay with me more than a couple days. It’s totally depressing thinking about longer term. I wouldn’t and they wouldn’t even ask, I don’t think.
I know I’m a broken record but I’m really enjoying my higher dose of antidepressants.
Were you at the show with surprise guest Dave Chappelle?
@anonymousse No I wasn’t, I live in NC and that show was in Ohio. I guess it was this weekend, though? He had a different opener last night with us. Both the opener and John did a great job. John was self deprecating and open and vulnerable about what he’s been through in the last 1.5 years or so, even talking about people liking Bo Burnham better than him now because he’s “less problematic” because BB hasn’t been through rehab and gotten divorced. I was super curious, as a comic myself, to see where he would go with everything that has happened in his personal life, and it was really well done. He talked a lot about his intervention and subsequent time in rehab. (Unlike that asshole Louis CK who, apparently, came out onstage in my city [I wasn’t there, obviously, but I heard about it] and said “I like to masturbate and I don’t like to be alone when I do it, what’s wrong with that?” Ughhhh.)
It is super difficult having my parents here all the time. I haven’t lived with them this much since I was home for summers in college, and even then I was working full time at a restaurant. I appreciate their help but it is frustrating.
Re: Covid…so, after Covid, now the top part of my lungs really hurts on both sides but especially the left. If I slouch or don’t sit up straight, my body wants to start coughing and it’s super painful, those deep chest coughs that sound like they come from your soul. If I sit up straight and focus on my breathing the coughing impulse tends to go away. Is this…long Covid?
@TheLadyE – since you are just recently recovered, it may not be Long Covid – but there could be lung damage caused by covid as it can damage/scar your lungs. I highly recommend talking to your pulmonologist and getting more information.
Long Covid seems to be more neurologically based, brain fog, malaise, lack or altered taste.
I think symptoms have to last at least four weeks after recovery (testing negative on a rapid, for example) before it’s considered long covid. I hope you make a complete recovery asap, E!
I haven’t been diagnosed with long Covid but in my experience, both times I had Covid, I needed to use an inhaler for about two months after having it. I had it at the very beginning of the pandemic (I think) and we had omnicron over Christmas ‘21. I have mild asthma. Clearing the lungs out after Covid was long for me.
I think I may have long Covid because I’ve had a lot of the markers like reactivation of Epstein Barr, liver issues, endless fatigue. But it seems hard to find doctors versed in this and the potential for scam at a “long Covid clinic” seems high.
So this is fucked up, my elderly aunt got a letter saying that the Navy had identified her as the niece of this guy who went down with a submarine in the pacific in 1944. This is true, it was my grandmother’s brother, and he was 23. It was the USS Shark 2 and it was never found. Well, the letter wanted her to do a DNA test. So my dad did a lot of looking into this to find out if it was legit or a scam. It turns out to be legit, but then my other aunt was like, we absolutely cannot do a DNA test, because uncle Bill paid his way through college by impregnating women, like a sperm donor but he had sex with them. So we can’t have our DNA on file because people might come knocking. Also, unlike with soldiers, they aren’t ever going to actually recover the sailors’ remains, because the sea is their grave.
