Dear LPG,

I got up this morning feeling quite down even though nothing particularly bad happened yesterday, and I find this happening to me a lot more often than ever before lately.  I know that we all get days like this but, for me, they seem to occur a lot more often recently and I really don’t know why.

I have lived through the Covid-19 lock-down alone and, over the three or so months, found myself getting more and more negative in my general outlook on life.  I don’t think that I experienced a worse time than anyone else while we were all confined to our own homes.    I have a reasonably large family and I did make a thing of keeping in touch with my friends.  I even found myself becoming more closely linked with some of those that were just what I would have called acquaintances before the whole episode.

It seemed to happen quite gradually really, and then one day I woke up and realised that life was getting me down a lot more than it used to and I know that I really need to do something about it before it truly gets out of hand.

I read with interest what AO had to say (►►►) and just knowing that someone else was feeling the same things as me made me feel less alone in some strange way.  In fact, I have read quite a bit of your website while being stuck at home, perhaps more than I would have otherwise, and so many of your contributors have problems which they take to Google.   I followed fashion and found some quite positive solutions to my predicament, many of which, though not that drastic, I have found can be surprisingly effective if you take them seriously.

I think that there are likely to be many people who have found their outlook on their lives sinking a little after what we have all been through, and I have formulated a three-stage answer to any problem.

The most important thing is to recognise the change in yourself and take on board that something is not right.

Secondly, share with your friends and take note that while many elders are still playing it safe and spending much of their time at home, making one-to-one contact with those friends by phone and electronically is a perfect time to open up, checking and exchangeing your experiences and the reactions of others to your plight.

And finally there is always google for those who know how, and I have found some interesting ideas designed to help us to overcome such negativity.   I would add that it is worth taking some of the advice seriously.  You can roll your eyes with that ‘well that one is obvious’ attitude but that won’t change anything.

I have left some of what I found and can testify to the fact that making a list of what went well yesterday, before you get out of bed each morning is a good way to get the positive juices flowing at the start of each day, and it only takes a few minutes. 

GF, Mottingham

GF shares his findings….

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