Apologies Tony for the new thread and if you want to merge it please do, but I think this may warrant its own focus.
I keep reading and hearing that mental health is becoming an issue already with the Coronavirus outbreak, but I can't help but feel the very people publishing these articles are partly the cause. While undoubtedly the virus outbreak is seriously bad news on several fronts the way it is handled by the media is not really helping those who suffer from anxiety and other mental health issues. They seem to revel in the doom and go to extraordinary lengths to make things sound worst case scenario.
A couple of examples from the BBC (this is not solely a comment on them, but on the media in general, however I have spent some time studying the BBC's response so will use them).
1) Every day they are keen to let us know the age of the youngest person to have died from the virus... they seem to almost celebrate if someone younger than the previous case has been found. Yet try and find the oldest person to have recovered on their output ... I can't (it's a 103 year old in Iran if you want to know).
2) When the virus first started to take hold they gleefully found some scientists who were wheeled on to the TV to tell us all that a vaccine would not be available for testing for at least 8 months and then would take another year to get to market. The vaccines being tested were created in less than 6 weeks. The BBC is still telling everyone it will be 18 months... if you dig you find the words 'up to' mentioned in the detail, but not in the headlines. It may still be 18 months, but it may be a lot less... this needs reporting and they are irresponsible to not give people proper headline information and instead try and bury it in the detail.
Now we hear that the BBC are to ramp up Coronavirus output, taking over existing slots with updates about the virus, phone ins, health programming. If I thought they would use this output wisely I would support it, but instead it will be, at least in part, more shit stirring and doomsday style programming.
Leo Varadkar had this to say in his address to the Irish people a couple of days ago
"Please take regular breaks from watching news and media, and from consuming social media. Constantly scrolling on your phone or obsessively following the latest developments is not good for anyone.
Look after your mental health and well-being as well as your physical health"
I know some on here probably think I'm a bit of a twat as I can be in my posts and for that I apologise to those I have lashed out at. In truth I suffer from anxiety and sometimes my posts are driven by that, but to stay on topic I have found myself in a much more positive place in the last couple of days by trying to only absorb the facts about Coronavirus and staying away from the conjecture (at least to a point). I am going to try even harder in the next few days to further distance myself from the tittle tattle of the media and get on with more positive things as a) it affects me mentally and b) I despair at some of the nonsense going on .. a lot of it driven by the large social media platforms (something I already deliberately stay away from for the benefit of my mental health).
So what is the point of this post... well I guess to say that I am sure there will be others on here that will worry and stress over what they see on the TV, read online etc.
Maybe try and take a break from it if so and don't be afraid to admit to yourself that you are struggling with it all. It's a worrying time on several fronts and no one should ever be judged on how they react to a crisis like this.. we are all different. It is not weak to admit mental health issues despite what society seems to do to stigmatise them in a lot of cases.
Finally we have a PM system on here (conversations) so use it.. get in touch with fellow fishies (especially those who might be more isolated than others) and share some thoughts. If anyone wants to drop me a PM for a bit of shared support go for it (lol at the thought of several posters thinking 'is he mad... he's a twat'). I have already been in touch with one fishie and just a quick personal exchange can be very uplifting... just knowing you are not alone in your thinking helps.
Above all stay safe and try and find some positives in all this. I am finally going to sort my compilation CDs properly... OCD or what?