Before the pandemic started, between Xmas 2018 and December 2019, I had six diagnosed chest infections, and at the start of 2020, I had blood tests after seeing a respitory nurse. At the start of May I received a text, a phone call, and a letter telling me that I had no pneumonia antibodies. (I had been given the “once only” vaccine in 2009/2010, but for some reason it hadn’t been put on my vaccine record.) As I had managed to catch repeated chest infections during the previous year, I was already steering clear of others, so I went out less and less.
Coupled with all the above, there was a new family moved in next door……an extremely noisy one, whose default mode was yell at each other. Then my neighbour on the other side sold and I will admit that I was a little worried about who might move in, but as it had been bought, it didn’t worry me much.
However, the family who moved in below me, seemed nice – at first – but I suppose they were just finding their feet. They were super noisy, taking shouted phone calls outside, smoking weed, almost non-stop. I felt under attack. I had liked to potter around in my yard and alleyway, but I felt vulnerable doing this. If I hung my washing out, it might come in stinking of weed, meaning that through no fault of my own, it needed another wash. I even asked a like-minded friend what I needed to block negativity coming from them. I was even pulling the curtains whilst I ate at the kitchen table, as he would verbally abuse me for looking out of my window. The remedy turned brown.
It’s not all bad. The dreadful people moved out in February this year, and the people who moved in on the other side are lovely. A friend and I are slowly trying to make the alleyway welcoming again, and the man who bought the other side of me paid to have the rubbish the dreadful people had dumped in the alley shifted.
But all this left me with anxiety that sometimes goes through the roof. I’m trying to overcome it, and I know I can, but it could be a long road……but I have taken a few tentative steps on it. Maybe I will get there.
