To think that life just hasn’t been the same ever since covid

What has changed is people are more thoughtless and selfish than before and more likely to react violently when called out on it. Travelling by train was never so dominated with gobshites and the tinny sound of smartphones pre-COVID as it is now. With authorities reluctant to enforce bylaws for fear of violence, people get away with poor behaviour and it has now become an entitlement which everyone else is on the receiving end of. More locally, the quality of play at my former bridge club dropped off a cliff post-pandemic as loads of people decided to continue playing online and the evening sessions dropped to 3-4 tables. When it became apparent things were never going to improve (partly thanks to a biased committee) I voted with my feet and now play at a club where they value old fashioned F2F social interaction.

Things will never be the same as they were before COVID. We learned things that can never be forgotten. Our minds were poisoned by horrific propaganda that came from those who should have known better. People were forced to remain separate from friends and family, deprived of the social interactions that are fundamental to a stable and caring society. Greed and corruption flourished in the upper strata of society, reminding us of the gulf between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. And all those responsible have simply walked away into the sunset, or the House of Lords. Scary.

I gave up my job 2 years ago because I've never recovered from lockdown/covid. It was stressful and traumatic and I'm a completely different person to who I was before.

Back to normal but don't feel the same. I pretty much worked remotely before, now I am almost 100% remote but what's different is most of my colleagues are also almost 100% remote (we have occasional office days). I moved further away from Central London.
But in terms of how I feel? Tired. Stressed. Can't sleep. Pain all over. Noticing lots of people being diagnosed with autism and ADHD and mystery tiredness and I wonder if that's a consequence of covid. I have ADHD symptoms that I never had before. Almost everything is done online; in-person social interaction is more rare. Occasionally you still see signs about masks and the ghosts of the social distancing arrows on shop floors.
My grandfather died alone in hospital from Covid, thankfully his decline was quick so he didn't suffer for long.
It does feel like something changed but it's difficult to put my finger on what it is.

Although Scotland had already held their own very divisive referendum in 2014. Also, Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader (2015) and the influence of left-wing pressure groups such as Momentum encouraged a more aggressive form of politics.

I don't feel this. I was lucky and lockdown was a positive experience for us. Since life has returned we seem to be doing more stuff that we enjoy, and seeing people. I don't know anyone that feels like that either

I'm so much happier since covid. The ability to work from home means more time and energy for socialising, cooking, exercising etc which in turn means I'm happier and healthier than pre covid.

I’m not some Johnny-come-lately. I have been teaching for 30 years. I am telling you it is different. It’s not being ‘naughty’, it’s completely different behaviours and attitudes from kids and parents.

Please don’t minimise my experience.

@TodayIsTheGreatest "I wanted the new government last summer to mark a big 1997 style optimistic emotional change of gear."

Me too! And initially it felt so eerily similar, a flat Tory government being booted out after many terms in power and a labour landslide sweeping them into Downing Street. But very soon after Keir and Victoria drove in I felt disheartened that it didn't have the same vibe of hope and optimism as it did when Tony and Cherie Blair did in 97. It all felt a bit flat somehow and it hasn't improved since.

Yeah I agree with you OP

Of course it's impossible to isolate causes and say some things would have changed anyway but there are some things I've noticed myself that seem (from SM, newspapers and MN) to be replicated on a wider level that seem directly due to covid

e.g. so many threads on here about people being flaky, dropping out of events or just not wanting to socialise and I've experienced the same. Of course it could be just that everyone is 5 years older but it's interesting - before/during covid mostpeople would probably assume that after months of having their freedom heavily curtailed everyone would want to make up for what/who they've missed, and socialise more, but it seems to be the opposite - people got used to being at home, safe and comfortable and don't want to come out!

school refusal rates have shot up and I think that's a pretty direct correlation that can be made with lockdown, even if other things like social media use or whatever might exacerbate it - if you tell kids they don't always have to go to school, and that doing so can be scary and even life threatening, they will take that on board!

Apart from anything else the way people reacted to lockdown was enlightening. So many people so keen to follow/scared of breaking "rules", even when they were patently ridiculous, and also so keen to judge others for utterly minor things/things that weren't even wrong, to the extent they informed on the neighbours to the police! The way some police forces completely overreacted and took advantage of their powers to enforce laws that either weren't in place at all and they had made up or misinterpreted, or that just needed a bit of common sense. Conversely, the people (government) who created laws that they seemed to think didn't apply to them. How quick some people were to 'write off' those of less use to society.

Of course there were some good examples too, the way some communities rallied round, dedication and effort shown by medical staff and others. But whereas before I perhaps had a slightly naïve 'that was then/they were them/things wouldn't happen like that here and now,' outlook on various historic regimes and despotic dictators, now I can completely see how quick people are to turn on each other and look out for number one - whether that's hoarding toilet roll or looking for scapegoats. Once you lose that lack of trust in society it's hard to get back, and I think a lot of people have (consciously or not) taken that onboard and amended their own outlook, and the way they behave, accordingly.

Life pre-Covid was pretty shit. During-Covid I lived my best life - I am self-employed and WFH meant my job took off in a way that I could never have predicted. I had no time to think or worry or be down because I was working round the clock. Plus I never tested positive for Covid or felt that I had caught it.

Post-Covid I'm still doing a lot of remote working and work has quietened down, though thankfully not back to the pre-Covid lows. So life post-Covid is definitely better than it was pre-Covid but not as good as it was during Covid. Appreciate I'm probably an outlier.

I'm not stopping anyone from mentioning anything. I am merely stating my own perspective - it isn't my place to speak for others.

And fwiw, as an employer, I am very much feeling the impact of recent policy changes, and particularly the NI increase, which will be very costly for us. I'm pretty underwhelmed by the Labour government's performance to date. But I still think they're better than what we had before.

Keyworker school was the first time my kid with SEN felt comfortable in school because it wasn’t such a noisy bunfight all the time.

I feel like Covid made us realise things about ourselves that haven’t fitted in with trying to return to ‘normal’ though. It sounds like quite a few people feel that way. We haven’t had the money to change things though so it’s not quite working for us or a lot of people. Everyone seems stressed out and anxious.

I wanted the new government last summer to mark a big 1997 style optimistic emotional change of gear. They just seem dour and stressed too. No sense of a positive collective vision for us as a country. I do wonder if we live in an unequal age where all governments are just going to have to re arrange the deckchairs while for the vast majority, living standards and public services hugely decline and we have a handful of stratospherically wealthy people at the top.

DS - 17 came home said he and his mate were complaing about how relentlessly negative all the news was.

I was 17 it was end of John Major government constant rangling about EU - and Bosnian War - yet it never felt quite so bleak felt like opposition had plans and just had to wait it out plus I was excited about hopefully getting to uni - DS is - DD1 enjoying uni currently - but he worried about uni debts - finding work rents prices as well.

I think public trust has been eroded in many insitutions and basic infrastructure - we had ever rising public transport costs with declining reliablity - but never seen so many pot holes on roads in my life.

Personally we are doing well or no worse - yes there constant money pressure - but I think it's external negativity - the zeitgeist being decline and depression.

I didn't realise before covid how much I maintained my mental health by booking day trips/ holidays and having something to look forward to.

When the restrictions were released I suffered with anxiety constantly thinking things would be canceled at the drop of a hat and I had this feeling the OP seems to have of things are going to be like this for ever.

However time has healed things for me and I've started to feel normal again. There are still some things that seem to have sticked that really annoy me .(having to book everything in advance for example )

On the plus side we have WFH and better bond with our children and a load of big jobs completed on our house that never would have got done with out all that time out.

I agree with pp litter is depressing and dog poop

That has ramped up since Christmas in particular

Life is pretty much the same again for me. I think I'm more content doing things at home though now rather than going out as much. I enjoy going out but I also enjoy being home.

Life has been very difficult for my autistic teen but I don't know if it's lockdown related or whether we would have had these difficulties anyway.

Such an interesting thread. Like many others, I feel that the pandemic was the catalyst and magnifier of many of these things, rather than the actual cause. It hid the effects of Brexit for a while, making them feel starker when lockdown ended (avoiding the 'boiled frog' effect).

It also feels that we emerged from the pandemic into a much lower-trust society. Partly this was down to all the lies and the gaslighting of government, partly it was how lockdown changed many societal norms, making people less considerate of others (terrible, aggressive driving and loud music on public transport spring to mind) and partly it was the massive increase in screen and social media use that has fundamentally changed how many of us interact with and experience the world.

But it's other things too: my London suburb had changed almost unrecognisably in demographic terms by the time the lockdowns ended. Many families took the opportunity to move of London between 2020 and 2022, and they seem to have been replaced by a huge influx of immigrants from cultures not especially similar to ours. This happened very quickly, while most of us were oblivious on our screens at home, and has added to the sense of reduced trust and community spirit in the area. It's not an exaggeration to say it's nothing like it was in 2019.

A few observations (among many others) that I think have changed or been exacerbated since Covid:

• very anecdotal, but a disproportionate number of the children I know who were born during the pandemic seem to have SEN or physical disabilities of some kind. Most of our NCT group had 2nd children during this time and almost everyone has been affected in some way.

• the children starting school alongside my DD in 2022 were undoubtedly behind developmentally as a cohort. According to the school the cohorts immediately above and below them have been even worse affected. DD was flagged up as 'exceptional' simply because she was one of the only pupils to be considered 'school-ready'.

• degraded street environment, more litter and fly-tipping, more graffiti, more anti-social behaviour. Probably mostly COL/austerity linked, but also connected to a breakdown of social norms I think

• adults and children alike are now hopelessly addicted to phones and social media. Doing the school run I see other parents walking into street furniture on an almost daily basis as they are walking along absorbed by whatever they're staring at on their phones.

• no one dresses up any more, for anything. In some ways caring less about appearances is a good thing, but I think that for many it has tipped over into lack of self-worth and not caring what anyone else thinks about anything at all. I notice many more parents wearing pyjamas for the school run etc.

• agree with PPs that as a country we somehow seem stagnant and 'stuck', which is especially noticeable when you travel overseas. There is very little genuinely new and exciting happening, and many 'new' things are actually tired rehashes of something else.

Not true - I am in Ireland. We didn't Brexit and it's shit here post Covid too

Personally I don’t feel any different, but loads of people seem
to have anxiety and can’t commit to plans.

DC’s school are hyper-focused on teaching resilience - DH was in Reception/Y1 during lockdowns. Her and her peers are absolutely fine.

DSC who were in the middle of secondary at the time, (and their friends) all seem to all struggle with MH and anxiety.

I don’t know anyone who cares about Brexit. It’s not affected working, travel or living abroad in my industry, thats’s still ongoing, maybe that’s why.

Well my life hasn’t been the same. Covid killed my fully vaccinated husband in 2023.😢

I used to be a total stickler for rules, often to my own detriment. I was that child who always pointed out others doing wrong, and who baulked at my parents telling me to disobey the "no cycling" signs in the park.

Now, I decide for myself which arbitrary rules (not laws) are to be kept. It's liberating.

Probably happier. COVID enabled work from home which meant we could move abroad
But I'm every other respect I've forgotten it

I think Britain started turning nasty after Brexit.

For life in the rest of Europe, I feel the attack on Kyiv was the turning point, not COVID.

I do feel this a little bit.

Just in things like my friends and I used to visit each other's houses far more often for a cuppa etc. Now if we meet it's always out. Also, I'm definitely used to spending more time at home myself, I used to go out a lot more than I do now.