It’s my body, and I’ll do what I want with it! | Rebecca Jane

Monday, I tune into ‘This Morning’. Dermot O’Leary and Matthew Wright decided to firmly attack Beverly Turner for voicing her opinion that ‘NHS workers should not be enforced to have the vaccine’.

Tuesday. ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘Countdown’ star Nick Hewer sat on ‘Good Morning Britain’ telling a tale how he invited a bunch of friends to a dinner party.

He was ‘concerned’ one of his friends hadn’t had the vaccination, so he picked up the phone to ask her. He continued the tale, ‘Thankfully, she had her vaccine, so it was fine. However, if she hadn’t, I had no problem disinviting her from the dinner party’. DISINVITE ANOTHER HUMAN - so called ‘friend’ from a dinner party if she hadn’t had the vaccine.

Nick had an opposing view from another young lady. However, every time she opened her mouth presenter Adil Ray shot her down, exactly like the role of Dermot the day before!

As Nick sat there wrapping up his views. Like a nation's grandfather, he called for everyone to ‘do the right thing and be vaccinated’.

With that, it wasn’t just my kettle and morning coffee that was boiling, my blood was boiling over so much it was positively on fire!

Please be under no illusion with my stance on Covid. It is real, it exists, half of my family have had it, I have lost members of my family to it and it has been a tragic period of time for the entire world.

This article, and my views are not that of an ‘anti-vaccination protestor’, or an ‘anti COVID protestor’. I am pro choice, and I missed the memo when we lost the right to decide what goes in our own bodies!

I am so ‘on the fence’ with the vaccine debate, I have splinters in my backside! I AM PRO CHOICE!

My comments today are not about Covid, they aren’t even about mental health, despite on average working with 5-10 suicidal people a week – my comments are about the divide the world has created in itself, and the tragedy that has unfolded from it.

As someone who studied Human Rights Law, I can honestly say I have been gravely concerned at how quickly human rights have been changed and at times forgotten during this process of a pandemic.

Laws changed literally overnight, democracy went out of the window and as for free speech, well, half of ITV’s presenters have decided we’re not entitled to that either any more (side note, ITV will probably not be hiring me again any time soon!) On top of that, half of the public think this is acceptable to follow suit!

I know at times in my life, I often cast judgement too. It’s reasonably natural, but what I have learnt after years of therapy and education, the judgement I cast out is often hiding fear in myself, and masking my feelings of shame. I will blame someone for actions that I wouldn’t have taken, but the blame I place on them is masking my fear that I haven’t behaved correctly.

At the end of the day, people voicing their opinion that vaccines should be mandatory are putting themselves on the moral high ground. Suggesting their opinion is the ultimate ‘right thing to do’. Grasping for security in their own ego that their opinion is the right one. It may be right, but who is right to claim others are wrong? No one.

Fear is EVERYWHERE.

The people who are pro vaccination, they’re scared of catching the virus. They’re scared of more deaths. They are scared if others don’t take up the vaccination, we will all be in a pandemic limbo for the rest of our lives. They’re scared our economy will be ruined. They’re probably scared of losing their jobs, homes, families and everything they’ve ever known. I get it!

But what about the people who are also afraid of HAVING the vaccine? They’re scared of all of the above.... and on top of that...they’re afraid of a product that is still in trial phase, are they wrong for being concerned about long-term effects?

We may have the ‘yellow card scheme’, where we’re all supposed to go and report adverse vaccine effects, but does does anyone even know it exists?

Vaccine companies are protected by law from being sued if someone has an adverse affect (although if you die from a vaccine, you get nothing. However, should you live and you can prove damage, the government will pay you £120k).

It has been widely publicised that the vaccine doesn’t particularly protect you from passing the virus on, it simply stops you from either getting it or it will reduce the effects should you be infected with Covid-19.

People HAVE died from this vaccination. My own grandmother contracted pneumonia from the vaccine and ended up in Blackburn hospital. I’m lucky she is still here.

Who are we to tell those people their fear is wrong or unjustified? Fear is real to everyone!

I don’t agree with either side on this debate, but I absolutely don’t agree in shouting at each other and constantly making people feel bad for THEIR fear!

It is my personal view the fear inflicted upon the public to wear masks, get a vaccine and generally stop deciding what decisions we can make for ourselves has been categorical national abuse, and abuse leads to long-term trauma.

During a survey I have been recently conducting in my mental health organisation, I can tell you 72% of people believe they have experienced a traumatic event at some point in their lives.

Trauma takes years of therapy, education and work to recover from.

Some will never recover, and die by suicide as a result. I firmly believe our world has been through a traumatic period in the last 12 months, meaning we will take years upon years to recover from these events and some people simply won’t survive that.

The next time opinions are forced upon someone, demanding them to get a vaccine or wear a face mask, please think about the long-term effect potentially inflicted upon that person.

Remember that we all have a right to speak, defend our truth and make decision for ourselves.

Let’s just stay in our own lane, deciding what is best for us and our families – refraining from all judgement should someone else’s thoughts differ from our own. OR, the other option, is let’s have a healthy debate about the whole thing, without anyone shouting down or opinions or oppressing us into silence.

Humanity has been in existence for 200,000 years ago. 2021 is not the year we finally lost our ability to think for ourselves.

So to Dermot, Matthew Wright, Adil, Nick and all the other presenters who think it’s ok to shout down differing opinions to your own - here is mine, in writing; there’s no opportunity to shout me off my soap box here! Enjoy it!