Mind Control

This is a big one. This is where you need to stop and think about what goes through your head, and where that thought originated.

Its an easy thing to get caught up in. The media as an example are very, very good at sensationalising stories and instilling fear in anyone who watches, listens or reads it.

It might take a while for you to realise what is happening. In fact, for a good while you could find yourself so caught up in their scare tactics that you find yourself almost counting down the minutes ’til the next news update in the hopes there won’t be more bad news.

Here comes the big, bad C word. COVID-19. Does just reading the word gives you a funny feeling in your stomach? It used to for me. Because every day there would be an update on the terrifying case numbers and deaths related to this highly contagious and extremely deadly virus.

I was pregnant when covid first appeared as a threat. I, like everyone else, knew very little about the virus and trusted the news programs to keep me updated.

Headlines such as “tens of thousands of Victorians will die” really had me fearful and I wondered why I was having a baby at such a horrible, unsafe and downright terrifying time. I wanted to stay home, to keep me and my unborn baby safe. I didn’t want visitors either. What if someone gave me this deadly virus and me or my baby were harmed? I listened to our Premiers’ orders and I stayed home, I was doing the right thing, I was keeping us safe.

The worst possible thing happened when Victoria had their first outbreak and we went into lockdown. The fear continued to stay with me in those early days and it kept me from wanting to do anything. My baby wasn’t exposed to the real world, no play dates, no trips to the shopping centre, no normality. But he was safe. And I was doing as I was told, I was doing the right thing. Our Premier kept saying so.

It has been proven that our Premier in fact, didn’t do the right thing. He turned down proper hotel security and he had a different set of rules for different people who were quarantined in hotels. Of course, this wasn’t discovered until later. At first, our Premier was apologetic about the whole thing. That was until it was brought to our attention that the outbreak had in fact cost lives and hotel quarantine failures had led to the outbreak in the first place. Our Premier stopped apologising or admitting any wrong doing. Instead, he blamed the Victorian public for doing the wrong thing. That was probably the first time I started raising my eyebrows. Hang on a minute, you’ve done a 360 here? The next issue was the mask wearing, and let me tell you, that’s a whole other blog post. But all of a sudden masks were now mandatory.

Another backflip, as I recall our Chief Health Officer explicitly state masks were not necessary for healthy people. It seemed he had had a change of heart, and there was no explanation as to why. I was hopeful when our Premier was questioned about them and I would now have a valid answer. Unfortunately his response was a lame “just wear one” which didn’t really cut it for me. If you want people to respect you and follow your orders, at least back them up with facts or a decent explanation.

This got me questioning everything else we were being told. The more I looked into things, the more confused I became. The scary headlines were never really backed up by the stories that followed. Not if you really paid attention. For example, case numbers were announced each day as outbreaks, even if there was only 1 or 2. Often that 1 or 2 were already in quarantine, so they weren’t relevant, yet the media portrayed that number as very worrisome and encouraged everyone to keep social distanced and on edge.

Once I started doing my own research, I started noticing something really encouraging. The recovery rate. I actually couldn’t believe it at first, not after how fearful of this virus I was and how the whole world was staying home. After all, we were all living through a pandemic. But the recovery rate was over 95%. Why didn’t the news programs provide us with that stat? I’d never heard one mention of it. Instead we were told of how deadly the virus had become overseas, hospitals couldn’t cope and they were running out of room. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not for one minute questioning if covid is real. It very much is. What I question is the lengths we have all gone to to keep everyone safe when in fact, we have a very, very good chance at beating the thing on our own. I was also sick and tired of being compared to overseas countries anyway. Countries like England, Italy etc. live a totally different life to us. For one, you can drive to several countries within hours, you can catch international flights and be at your destination within the hour. Not to mention the difference in population. When you live in fear, you forget to look at the big picture.

Why wasn’t anyone telling us about the recovery rate? When you live in fear, you are easily controlled.

Sometimes now, I like to play a little game with the news update. Does the headline match the story? What emotive words are used? “Keep safe, stay home or people will die.” Who wants to be responsible for the death of a fellow citizen, right? But think about it. What risk does living your life really impose on others? And if you are vulnerable and fearful of your life, shouldn’t you be the one staying home? The way the media portray it, it’s like we are all deadly and we will keep infecting others, even if we are symptom free. That’s a great way to have everyone living in fear, we could be spreading this deadly virus without even realizing it!

Please, do yourselves a favour. Before you buy in to the next “breaking news” story or scary headline, do a bit of your own research, or at least listen for the facts. The media are extremely good at instilling fear, they thrive on it, and ultimately survive on it. Think about it, how many top headlines or “breaking news” stories have you seen that are positive? Big, fat zero? That’s what I thought.

Once I woke up to the media and their scare tactics, I had a whole new perspective on things. I stopped living in fear and I got my life back. Its time you took control of your own life, after all, you only get one. Don’t let it be dictated by the media, the government, anyone. Keep an open mind and be prepared to question everything. If something doesn’t add up or just seems off, trust your gut. Your instinct is like your immune system, it’s key to your survival. Trust it.