Janet (74), Herbalist Naturopath. Otago, NZ.

My story is of loss. I lost clients. My Practice lost a large amount of income because I was mandated. I I would not take the jab.

I lost a long term, dear friend who believed that I, (as she put it “people like you” ) was a threat to those with fragile health, like her.

I lost three of the precious early years with my Grandbabies.

I lost confidence in government, I now look for the lie, expecting it, rather than assuming the truth. Overreach by politicians is unacceptable, and eventually damaging. I have learned that government will damage and destroy in order to be the “sole truth source”.

I lost confidence and belief in NZ Police….. I will not forget images of unacceptable police violence against the People, as demonstrated in Wellington by those who are supposed to protect and serve.

I lost confidence in NZ Medicine, the Medical Council, and all those who dished out jabs as if they were fully understood, tested, and benign. Hippocratic values were demonstrated to matter not at all…….Primum non nocere indeed!!!! Temporary cabins for patients who were unjabbed – that is not therapy, it is exclusionist, a new kind of apartheid put in place by a NZ government.

I lost my belief in the medical community in NZ. I have found a Doctor who was mandated, she stood on the principles of her medical training, an honorable woman. Her I can trust.

I lost all belief, in the media. A big payout, for compliance. Shameful. I no longer follow any mainstream news.

I feel lost in this new society dynamic, the masked faces of the fearful, the sanitisers everywhere, but most of all I feel lost in a dual reality that splits us in pieces as a a community.

I lost a naive belief in the good intentions of those in power.

I lost confidence in my NZ community, a community, that while diverse, did not live in fear of difference.

We had a different perspective before Covid and Ardern, but the invisible damage has been to the core of something Good and True , something in our open-heartedness. I believe we can heal, because healing is inherent where there is will, but how long will it take? There has been such loss in my community, and the loss is accompanied with grief, so much grief. Which will fade, as will some of the harsh memories, but the subsequent learning will not.

I am a Health Practitioner, and I feel as if I am living in a sick room. There is no “back to normal” not yet, and for some of us, not ever.