u/Capital-Transition-5

I (33F) have had long Covid for four years. Its largely been severe, but over the last few months my energy envelope has been expanding. I've still been pacing, but this week I got overexcited and overdid it. I went on a two hour shopping spree in a noisy shopping centre then went to watch Othello the next day.

I've been stuck in bed ever since. Profound weakness. My brain feels sluggish again. I eat a meal then fall asleep. When I'm awake I'm horizontal and staring into space. No books, no TV, no music. I haven't been this severe for a long time. I hoped it'd last only a day but it's been a few days now

Tomorrow I'm meant to have a date with a guy who I've liked for a really long time and I was really looking forward to it. I'm gutted that I'll have to postpone until I'm out of this flare, whenever that may be.

I've been doing a lot of voluntary work as well for different ME and long covid charities. I've got a lot on my to do list, which I was getting done before this crash, but I've not been able to do anything for days and I feel so guilty. I'm sure they'll be understanding because of the nature of the charities but I still feel bad

Next week I'm meant to be attending a friend's graduation and another friend's birthday meal.

I'm so angry at myself for getting so overexcited and overdoing it. I really hope I return to baseline sooner rather than later, so I can pick up where I left off with the date and charity work, and I've not ruined anything for myself.

Plus I'm scared I may have permanently worsened my baseline.

I (33F) have had long Covid for four years. Initially very severely, but now I'm nearing mild. My ME practitioner has said that I'm ready to start expanding myself to physical activity, but has cautioned to do this carefully because I'll be very deconditioned after four years of inactivity.

While she's advised restorative yoga to work on my balance, breathwork and toning, I was wondering if there's anything else I could do or if there's any structure that's worked for others.

I'm going to do real world rehabilitation today by taking myself on a shopping spree after four years of online shopping, but I don't think that's what she meant lmao

A society that goes through an apocalypse (allegory to lockdown) then comes out on the other side. The apocalypse turned some people into zombies (allegory to long Covid) who look human and are in pain. Everyone ignores them. The zombies are tortured by their symptoms, like fatigue, brain fog, etc, which fluctuate. They're begging for help. But the real horror is how little society cares.

Because honestly I feel like depicting this in a horror format would be the only way to make people understand

I've seen a decent flat by the Quays. Precisely Vancouver Quay. But because I suffer from hyperacuity, I wanted to find out how good the noise insulation in the flat is / whether the flat is noisy.

For people who've lived there, were you able to hear the neighbours above you? Is the area noisy?

Thank you!

My long Covid consultant has recommended but not prescribed hydroxocobalamin 1mg injections. She believes they'll aid my recovery. My GP has refused to prescribe it because I don't have a diagnosis of B12 deficiency.

There's wellness clinics that administer B12, but because I've been advised a loading injection for alternate days, I don't have the energy to travel to a clinic every other day, so I'd rather self-inject. (I've been reading NHS guidance and watching videos on safe self-injection to ensure I do it properly). The B12 injections available to buy aren't hydroxocobalamin.

I've heard of a pharmacy in Germany that dispense them for €100.

Can anyone advise me further?

It's like as I (32F) get older, I can better understand why people reacted badly or why my behaviour was inappropriate.

Sometimes (OK let's be real, a lot of the time), I'll get a flashback to something I did or said in the past, which at the time I thought was fine, and then I really see it and I feel mortified. I remind myself that I missed the social cues because of my autism so I should be kind to myself, but the cringe still stings. And I'm so curious as to why getting older helps me to see where I went wrong.

Some examples include talking excitedly about a bout of diarrhoea I had over cocktails then wondering why the person suddenly said they needed to go home. Being asked by a classmate how my summer was and saying, "It was shit," then wondering why they looked uncomfortable. Telling colleagues on my first day of work that my mum had run over two birds then wondering why they called me weird.

I (32F) don't have any close friends from childhood. It's something I can't help but agonise about all the time. A few years ago I realised how problematic it is not to have close childhood friends, after I fell severely sick with a chronic illness and the "close" friends I'd made in adulthood fell off the radar, I suppose because we didn't have that longevity. Then I read an article that said that people who don't have childhood friendships are insufferable, which made me wonder whether I'm the problem.

I'm autistic, which may have contributed. I went to a primary school where the majority of the students were from a different culture, so i didn't connect with them and many of their parents discouraged them from playing with me. I did have one best friend who distanced herself after we left primary school. My mum suspects her dad told her to do so.

My friendship group in high school was toxic, so I stopped speaking to most of them after we left. There was only one I stayed in contact with, but she's very low effort. She doesn't initiate contact, frequently cancels plans, and takes several weeks to reply to a simple message. I'd never reach out to her in a crisis. I did have a friend separate to this group who I became close with, but our friendship was volatile so we drifted apart. From social media, it seems that she's still close with a couple of people from school.

I made good friends at university, but we went our separate ways after graduation. I still speak to a few here and there, but we're not close. There's one I speak to frequently and we're very close.

I'm constantly agonising over this. Like, I didn't even manage to keep one close, loyal friend from my eighteen years of childhood? Not one? What's wrong with me? I look at the friend I'd had the volatile friendship with on social media, and wonder how she managed to keep such close friendships with people from school while I didn't. I've been unwell for four years, and I've not even received one care package.

I've had long Covid for over five years, first midlly, then severely, and now moderately. The last few summers have been torture, even when I was mild, so I panicked when I heard there was gonna be a heatwave this bank holiday weekend.

But I've really enjoyed it! My body's not been too tachycardic and the heat has felt pleasant. I think I've enjoyed it because I have better coping strategies now for the heat, like a cold compress on my spine every hour, eating lots of cool fruits, wearing a neck fan at all times, staying in the shade, being surrounded by fans, doing my life admin and errands in the morning before the sun heats up, and sleeping at midday when the sun hits its peak.

My physiology hasn't changed too much but I'm learning how to work with it 🫶🏽

I (32F) have been awarded tier 1 ill health retirement, which means that I will receive my full pension for the rest of my life. At the moment it stands at £30,000pa and is index linked. I have been given three options:

1. Take the £30,000 in full
2. Take an annual lump sum of £126,000 but reduce the pensionable amount to £19,000pa
3. Take a partial lump sum with a reduced pensionable amount

I have to decide now whether or not to take a lump sum. Initially I assumed that I'd be able to take a lump sum out in the future but that's not possible.

If I did take a lump sum then it'd be for a deposit on an accessible home for life.

I own a three-bedroom flat that has £100,000 mortgage left on it and I rent out my two spare bedrooms, which totals to £1,400pm. Because this flat is now inaccessible to me due to ill health, I cannot live there longterm. I plan to rent out my flat as BTL (totalling my annual income to £44,400, with a rental yield of £520pm after tax), and to buy a second property that is accessible for me.

I'm single and don't have children, so I don't know where my home for life will be. Because of that, I’m worried about taking too large a lump sum unnecessarily and permanently reducing what is otherwise a very secure lifetime pension.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards taking the full pension and saving separately for a deposit instead. I’ll soon receive around £17,800 in backpay and already have ~£38,000 in savings, so I’ll have around £55,000 available, which may already be enough for a deposit on a suitable accessible property.

However, I'm happy to hear any alternative advice, particularly from anyone who’s had to make a similar pension vs lump sum decision, especially in relation to housing security and long-term financial planning.

EDIT: My illness is life limiting rather than life threatening so, fingers crossed, my life expectancy is average

If so, I (32F) would love to connect 🥰

I joined the beer money website Prolific to make some extra money remotely since I can't work. It involves filling out paid surveys. I made £26 in three days from 22 surveys, which i was ecstatic about.

But I did a couple of surveys while fatigued and failed the attention checks, so now my accounts been permanently banned. Support have refused to reverse the decision even though I explained my situation and said I'll manage my fatigue levels better in future. I sought help on r/ProlificAcc but they were all, "two rejections you're cooked haha"

I know it's not a huge deal, but I feel so frustrated and humiliated. This was supposed to be an accessible, flexible way to make money while I'm housebound, and I couldn't even get that right because of this illness. Its another in a long line of disappointments. Joining the website was the only good thing that'd happened to me for ages.

I (32F) have had long Covid for almost four years. Initially very severe, and over the last several months I've become moderate. Since I've been unwell, I've had to move back in with my mum, I've lost my job on the grounds of ill health, I've received my pension, and I've lost most of my friends. I'm largely housebound. The only person I see on a regular basis is my mum. My life is mundane and involves a lot of silence. A couple of years ago, I deleted social media and started to distance myself from certain friends, because I couldn't relate to them and their able-bodied problems were starting to frustrate me, which has made my world very small. I'm part of a local long Covid support group and have made good friends in there, who are now my main social circle. We spend a lot of time talking about our health, our feelings around it, resources for disabled people, and lifting each other up.

I didn't realise how abnormal it all is. When I see that someone from my past has gotten engaged or bought a house or had a baby, I fall apart, because it's a shock that while my life is Groundhog Day, the world has moved on.

Last week, I went on r/AskWomenOver30 to seek advice about my unsupportive friendships (from able-bodied people). I was told to stop expecting so much from friendships and that I sound miserable to be around. I was shocked. I explained my circumstances and that my limited life means that I rely on friendships more than the average person, but I was met with resistance. It started to dawn on me that my reliance on friendships is abnormal for someone my age. I haven't grown up from that life stage. Last year I fell out with a close friend, who said that she felt exhausted by how much I need from her and that I'm always negative now, and I felt shocked that friendship was no longer as important to her and confused about the negativity that she referenced. All I do is talk about my life, which I didn't realise has become so negative.

Today I was scrolling through Reddit and saw someone post in my city's subReddit about a mysterious virus floating around. Everyone casually commented, "I've had that. It's shit. Lasted a couple of weeks. Better now." So casually as though a viral infection is nothing. Then it hit me, that for everyone else, it is nothing. I've had to become hyper vigilant to infection by necessity. They can catch a virus, recover, then carry on with their lives.

And it's dawning on me how much I've changed and how much I don't fit into society. I've missed the milestones of other people my age. I don't get them and they don't get me, because I didn't get the chance to grow up. There's no lightness or fun in my life anymore because I'm in survival mode. I'd love to go out dancing, to hop on a plane to a sunny place, to go for a walk in the sunshine. I'd love to just know why everyone's become obsessed with matcha since 2022. Anything other than staring at these same four walls, mulling over how to conserve my energy.

And honestly, I miss being 'normal', I miss fitting in. I'm going insane from living in this dimension.

I'm in the UK and fill out paid surveys on the website Prolific for a bit of extra money. I mentioned it to my friend in Ghana, who sadly doesn't earn much money through his job, and he's keen to do something similar. It looks like Prolific doesn't work in Ghana. Does anyone know of any similar platforms my friend could use that do work in Ghana?

I (32F) ask because my need for collectivism, social harmony, and my empathy and emotional expression are all strong. I value interpersonal relationships above everything else. I'm an extrovert. I care deeply about social justice. I'm loyal and supportive to a fault.

But I'm terrible at reading the room. I don't have the charisma and social skills of ExFJs. I'm always putting my foot in my mouth. If anything, I end up clashing with a lot of ExSJs because they get annoyed with my social incompetence. I'm always striving to improve my people skills and I care deeply what others think of me. I do have a diagnosis of autism.

But the values I hold are very ENFJ, but I don't know if its possible to be ExFJ while having poor people skills?

I've been typed a lot as ENFP but I definitely have strong extraverted feeling, which isn't a cognitive function for ENFPs.