I could now focus on the thought that this can change and the things I went through in my childhood come back. The Covid situation is something we can't measure by experience so it is hard to evaluate where ones personal risk or that of a beloved person who we fear of losing maybe lies.
Lifestion, you took my exact words, thank you for that! But you have quoted these my sentences without the context. And the context is VERY important. I said:
"I could now focus on the thought that this can change and the things I went through in my childhood come back.
But I don't!" That is what I said. Right?
And I said:
"The Covid situation is something we can't measure by experience so it is hard to evaluate where ones personal risk or that of a beloved person who we fear of losing maybe lies.
But what we can do is, learn the dimensions, programme our brain to not gather useless informations, or fixate on this Covid theme too much, and climb the tower to confront us with the reality (simple safety precautions by wearing masks and distancing provided) to learn, that most of the people we know will not be seriously affected by the virus even if single persons we know will. To acknowledge the actual individual risk is key." That is what I said. Right?
Ok, now let's go on from here.
What you can see in this example, where you took something selectively from the whole context and make it fit to the momentary mode of thought or your momentary mood, the same thing gets a completely different perspective and meaning, if you expand the context, like I did above. So don't look at things isolated.
Now let's practise this:
"Covid kills" or "A Person, who cought COVID 19 died" This is selective thinking, isolated, no context. VERY WORRYING
vs:
"Covid kills in 1.0 to 2.0 out of 1000 infected with preconditions" or "One out of one thousand persons who cought Covid, died", without having accurate numbers, you see that there is a very important difference! Just to give a general direction.
Now, do you see the difference?
You can say: I will sure enough be the one who dies if i catch the virus. But there is more reason to say to yourself:
It is most unlikely that I get killed by Covid, as things stand right now. And my personal risk is getting lower with every day proceeding, because there are vaccinations now going on and their speed increasing, numbers of people infected will dramatically sink in just a few weeks from now, and medicine gets better at the same time, medical treatments have improved and are still improving every day. You haven't had the same amount of worries about measles. You could dive into the measles theme and get worried enough instantly. But this was not a prominent theme in comparison with Covid. So you managed to blend out measles entirely. Wow, that means your brain was programmed to evaluate this risk! The same way you can blend out Covid. And programme your brain again! Simply concentrate on common sense, wearing masks, stay a little bit at distance to others, wash your hands frequently, try to avoid touching your face too often (this is a very nice exercise on it's own and can be alot of fun!) and you will be fine. And stop stepping over the line here. Think just that wide, not further, because that is exactly the area under your own control! Just like you know the risks when crossing a road, you are under control when you cross it, you can have the Covid risk under control, and learn or train yourself to feel safe again. Make sure to concentrate on this alone, and you'll be fine.
Seek help, when you can't control your worries on your own. There are educated people to show you how
you can do it and who are on and at your side when you are exercising and practising ways
to feel secure and safe again. And take control!
To continue on this path of thinking: Even if one day sooner or later there will only 1000 people worldwide per year get infected with a hopefully then very rare Covid2 virus in the future, there will still be the same ratio of 1-2 per 1000 people with this infection dying from Covid. How big is the chance of you to die from it then? You are one out of 7.5 Billion People on earth. Your personal risk will be near zero. You can see from this example, that risk is a calculatable thing.
Your personal risk is always very low!. And to take control over your worries is to take control over these calculations, and try to climb a tower to get a general overview over these risks without diving into details of rare conditions that may become true or not. Try the media thing I mentioned in my previous replies to your post. If you click on positive news for say three weeks and conciously leave out the bad stuff the internet is too full of, only three weeks, and go pessimists discussions in your personal environment out of the way or turn these conversations to more light and positive themes, you will realise how you will feel better and better yourself. It is not about to put your head into the sand, as we say over here, just to stop thinking negative when it has no positive effect, if you get me.
I wish you the best of luck. If I could I would jump through the internet and pop up at your side, smile, say hi, and go through it with you. I can't. But there will be someone near you who can!
P.S.: If nothing helps, humor helps (Jerry's example!)