We’re all in this together!

For many of us in the Hunter region, this lockdown is one of the most strict set of rules we have been under since COVID began. I wish I could say the same.

At the start of 2020 I decided to move to London for a 2 year working holiday, traveling around Europe for 2 months, until March 2020 when the streets went into lockdown. Lining up for 1.5hrs just to walk into a baron supermarket, spending 8 weeks in a house with no outdoor area, so we couldn’t sit down outside at all — unless we were doing sit ups (by my lack of six pack, you can tell that I didn’t opt for the sit ups every time!), the feeling that you couldn’t look at someone without catching COVID, and the complete unknown of when life on earth was going to go ‘back to normal’. As you can probably guess, I decided to move back home, but many of my friends decided to stay and are still there. They had a terrible winter time from November 2020 to April 2021, but now, with their COVID measures and the seasonal shift, many of them are in Greece right now, enjoying fewer restrictions, sunshine and international travel.

Now, this isn’t to rub it in your face, although admittedly I have to put my phone down sometimes when I see their photos of their Greek Island hopping escapades. It’s to remind us that ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’. When we’re going through hard times, our minds tend to think that it will last forever. Like if we’re feeling sad, we wonder how long this is going to last for, but we never think ‘oh I’m happy, I wonder how long this will last for’. So with so much of our lives seemingly more out of our control than ever, I have been trying to focus on what I can control. Granted I still get angry, upset, frustrated and feel hopeless, but then there are small pockets of joy, happiness, laughter and even hope.

 So whether what you can control is; what you’re making for dinner (cereal even?!), eating a whole block of chocolate, going for a run, taking your supplements, turning off the constant barrage of news, going to bed early, staying up late talking to a friend or having a nice warm bath. You have the ability to pick something every morning that you have control over. If I’ve learnt anything from my experience over the 18 months, it’s that hope isn’t lost, you never know what is around the corner, and you’re more resilient than you think!

Dr Anthea xo

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