Are any other HR people feeling a bit lonely in all this :(

Hi Samantha thanks for expressing this because I am 100% sure this will be fairly typical! That’s where the Community can help. I don’t work directly in the HR/people team at the CIPD but I am super grateful for the way my colleagues who are are handling things and keeping us all informed.

I do as they let my Boss go last week and I am due to get another Boss join today. They forget we are employees and assume we are not affected. I am also an at risk person, but at least I have a laptop to WFH if needs be.

Thanks Johanna :)

Jules it is comforting in a way that I'm not alone, as someone who is usually level headed about most things I'm surprised at how worried I actually am, and its like my fear is getting fed on an almost 15 minute basis by everyone else coming in to tell me how worried they are!

And don't get me started on the conspiracy theories cranking my anxiety up, I normally love a good whacky conspiracy too :(

I have just been asked about a pregnant lady. She has 2 weeks left before holiday, then mat leave. She is 35 weeks pregnant, I suggested that she actually starts holiday, then mat leave, as would happen if she was sick. People are acting bonkers, that's what is stressing me out.

I think it hit me when I saw the empty shelves in my local Tesco this weekend, it genuinely was like something from 28 Days Later and since then I've not been doing so well. Its funny, when another employee has a bit of a 'do' and gets openly stressed its all understanding and #bekind etc. yet if I slip and am a bit short with someone for mithering me about something really unimportant (at the minute) I'll probably get complained about. If I grit my teeth anymore they will be nubs within 2 weeks :D

I know, my new Boss has just swanned in and said " tell me who is pregnant in the business". I am already feeling under pressure and stressed.

Not self indulgent at all, Samantha! I think you've said what we are all feeling! I know I and my boss are exhausted with constantly with the need to keep up with what's going on so we can tell staff what they need to do and try and carry out crisis planning to know what we should do next. Alongside that I'm trying to keep calm at home so my ten year old son doesn't pick up on my anxiety and then lying awake at night with my own anxiety disorder in full blown panic mode.

In some ways today has been a bit easier for me as we now know what we need to do (close all our sites for three months, plan to lay off staff from April etc, stop business as usual) and I now know I'll be working from home form next week and probably on short time working from April. It feels like the worst has happened and now I can move forward.

I really appreciate being able to come here and say all this to people as I've been putting a brave face on it for my family, my colleagues and my boss so being able to admit how I'm feeling is so helpful.

I am too having full blown anxiety and have had to take valium and betablokers to help. My husband was made redundant last week as well.

I think the problem for me is that the situation is changing on an almost minute by minute basis. We just get finished preparing a plan and communications ready to send out and then it changes. Its really tough to keep up and because I am trying to keep up to date for the business I am reading far too much about this which is not great for my own wellbeing.

There are also so many sources of information and not all of them are reliable - some seem to be really scaremongering and of course employees see this and think the worst so fighting the "fake news" out there is also tough.

Yes, I know what you mean. I have just described it to someone as "work has sucked all of the calm out of me to give to other people, and I've got none left for myself".

In the weird situation today of alternating between starting to draft a redundancy policy, and getting stress-management and mental health materials refreshed to help people if they are isolated!

Self-care all the way now, time to get those protective strategies in to get me through as this is going to be a looooong marathon from the look of it.