To think some people found lockdown really hard and it wasn't their fault

I loved lockdown but I absolutely understand that other people had it much harder and some really struggled

ds1 and his partner really struggled mentally and 5 weeks in had to come home and live with us…the only thing I regret is that they didn’t tell me how hard it was for them and that I didn’t realise, i feel guilty that i was saying that they couldn’t just pop home (which they couldn’t! But i could have said they could come home to stay)

I didn't mind it because we didn't obey it after the first round. I enjoyed time at home, I enjoyed cleaner air and a sense of calm.

I've posted this before under different usernames, but unless you gave birth to the miracle baby you spent years and multiple losses trying to have in March 2020, and you genuinely believed the world was going to end before anyone could hold your baby, and you paid for a birth announcement online because the register office shut down the day of your scheduled appointment and you thought the world might end without his birth being officially recorded anywhere, and the first time you brought him home from the hospital into a new world you stripped naked in the kitchen, boil washed all the clothes that had been in the hospital with you and Hibiscrubbed both yourself and your baby to get the deadly germs off, and no midwives or health visitors could come in, and your family had to look at him through the window, and you can't have another baby so that's your only experience of maternity after years of yearning and you feel so conflicted about the happiest time of your life also being the scariest, then you can't possibly understand.

I think it was a very mixed bag, and a lot depended on what your life usually looked like.
And I think the repercussions for many of us are still felt - job loss or reduction in income; business closures; missing education at critical points.

Op, your MIL lacks empathy if she cannot understand that her experience was not everyone’s experience. Try to ignore her.

I think it was difficult for most people OP.

Probably least affected would be financially stable adults with no care responsibilities who had the opportunity to work from home, or were retired. This may describe your PIL, and it is the position that me and DH were in but we recognised that we were lucky compared to so many people, and it's not something I could say we enjoyed or would want to repeat. I mean, yes it was nice being able to WFH and sit in the garden, but with a bit of thought, many people could have achieved some of the good parts outside of lockdown, given a bit of thought.

There was and still is a huge impact on anyone who was a child/young person, their parents, the elderly, those with health conditions, those living alone or in difficult relationships, those working in emergency services, health, care etc

my kids were 3 and 1. I was a SAHM and husband worked very long hours (not furloughed). The mix of lack of sleep and having to watch the kids constantly with not even a trip to the park to break up the day drove me to the very brink of my sanity and beyond. It took a very long time to recover. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must have been like with 5 children with SEN. How are you doing now?

Well, she sucks.

I was pretty agog at the expectation that parents should home school their children and school was basically cancelled.

And uni students? They pay the same money and got two years of probably half or less of proper learning?
That stuff was so messed up.

I personally found it alright as I have severe anxiety around crowds and could go outside feeling quite ok. Also I can't work so my livelihood wasn't messed with.

I also felt for people running small businesses that were supported by office workers. Cafes, pubs, bars, tailors, convenience stores etc in business districts all had to shut. Many permanently.

Your MIL is an idiot.

From a former health care worker.

My mil put a post on social media harping on about teens being "snowflakes". Just a week after I found my teen dd trying to hurt herself. Lockdown was a very very dark time for us. I still have awful flashbacks and it will stay with me forever.

Everyone’s situation is different. I was retired, my husband was still working in the NHS as a hospital consultant, so
that was worrying, but he retired during it…we are all completely unaffected by it. Lockdown didn’t bother me at all.

Of course for some it was awful! It was terrible for my DCs, their mental health went to pot. They were about to sit A levels and GCSEs respectively, had good social lives after a time of struggling with friendships a bit and were out every weekend partying etc. That all came to a complete halt and so they were left with nothing going on except what they could access online and in their heads. Not good.
For me personally, I didnt' find the first lockdown too bad. Was a relief not to commute to work, I handed in my notice when we got back. Weather was great and I sat in the garden a lot.
Financially we benefitted quite well as we were both still earning, not furloughed (DH runs his own business which he did remotely still) and I wfh but sporadically as my job involved a lot of meetings which just couldn't happen in lockdown.
Friendships definitely suffered though, but since then I've had more health issues so don't go out as much anyway. Would probably be even less affected now personally.

I remember thinking this when we came out of Lockdown the first time. We had moved to the countryside so had fresh air, space, had furlough, no kids yet. We lost some holidays and pre booked things but it was great. Then we went back to london to tie up things with work and so many of our friends had been freelancers, in tiny flat shares. It destroyed peoples mental health.

I think we had to act drastically at the beginning when so much was an unknown and the people in my family who are NHS and worked up close with this stand by the lock downs. However, had there been a comprehensive report of what worked, what didnt, lessons for next time etc?

I also hated watching people die on a daily basis while at work.

This is what those who made the absurd roolz (and disobeyed them) simply did not understand. It’s all very well for Saint Boris to say “just a little bit longer, it will be normalish by Christmas, I mean significant normality by Easter, I swear” from his extremely privileged lifestyle, while everybody else struggled, watching their livelihoods and children’s mental health crumbling before their very eyes.

Ditto billionaire Sunak saying “just hang in there” while people have to choose between eating and heating.

I hated lockdown. I hated not being able to get out of the house like I normally would. I was/am a key worker, so I was still going to work, but it wasn't enough for me. I hate being stuck indoors.

I now have a 2 year old, and he's just like me. He needs to get out and about every day. I can imagine it being even harder if we had to do it again.

Also any sort of media was incredibly toxic, I wasnt on this forum but I would imagine it being very similar to forums I was on at the time where you were essentially viewed as a mass murderer for going shopping or going into work with other people. I worked at the office at the time, I didnt work from home. I also went to the shops a lot and went out a lot walking, driving around, cycling, days out. This it seems was akin to murder.

i loved lockdown and i broke every rule.

Everyone's circumstances are different, and we all react to those circumstances differently. That isn't a matter of 'fault' or people being in the wrong for struggling, or not struggling.

You found it difficult for completely valid reasons

Your MIL is being an idiot.

Because some of us are extraverts and being alone longterm triggers mental exhaustion, anxiety, depression... I personally continued to see a "bubble" of people who had kids, always the same people, because it was the only way my children and I could remotely stay sane. It was still so hard...

I was very fortunate, lock down wasn't awful for us.

I had a 3 year old and an 8 month old and was on maternity. The weather was great and it was lovely having DH at home, we had picnics in the garden at lunch a lot. Where we live people were not paranoid, they would still stop and chat if you bumped into them out on a walk and it was not unusual to agree to conveniently be out on a walk at the same time as a friend. People used to let their children play out in front gardens where they would chat over fences with other kids.

My neighbour was juggling work and a two year old and use to park him on the drive napping in a pram where i could watch him for her while she did calls and things.

My kids were young enough to barely notice.

I found lockdown very difficult, both of my parents were failing at home, admitted to different hospitals, eventually moved to a nursing home that I couldn’t visit because I wasn’t the ‘named visitor’, my two sisters were.
I eventually saw my father for an hour on the day he died, three months later I was stopped from visiting my dying mother.
I’m profoundly deaf, flask masks were an absolute nightmare because I couldn’t lipread so I became increasingly isolated, something that still continues. I rarely go anywhere except to walk the dog or the hairdresser or occasionally a cafe.
I have become used to it now, that’s my life.

I didn’t mind lockdowns, my kids were young and easily entertained, cases were very low where I was as a result of extremely strict rules (likely went on longer than needed).
however, I’m an introverted homebody with a large yard so it was easy to throw the kids out.

We had drive by birthdays and did our best.

i was fortunate. So many others were not. I’d never say because my experience was fine that someone else’s wasn’t hell.

Of course it wasn't your fault! It must have been awful gor people with small kids, or people without gardens, people who couldn't manage on less money.

I loved it. It gave me the excuse to just be without pressurising myself that I should do x y z. But I live in a big house with a big garden in the countryside near the sea. Not sure how Iwould have felt in a flat.

I do struggle to understand why people found it difficult, aside from trying to multitask wfh and childcare. I still respect that everyone’s situation was different and some people just had bad situations they had to deal with so lockdown was bad for them for whatever reason.