I've re-joined MN just to join in with this thread. I'm grateful to have found all of you.
I'm really really struggling. I've gone from being terrified of the virus (honestly, utter raw terror. I'm sure some on here can relate. I have mental health problems and although initially I wasn't scared, the sheer number of horror stories the press was putting out finally got me down) to feeling angry.
I want lockdown to end and for people to be trusted to social distance of their own accord and as they see fit. There is clear evidence people were doing so before lockdown started. I'm in an age group where 0.2% of people die. I don't want the economy to go down the pan. I want vulnerable people to be protected where they can be (obviously! Don't we all?) but I'm also a pragmatist and don't think life is worth saving at all costs. I am a bit baffled by how many people think it's a serious tragedy for a old person in a care home who has no quality of life and who might have had years of health problems to pass away from a brief respiratory illness. My own late grandparents were thankfully very practical when it came to facing their own deaths and thought it a nonsense to get upset about dying at a good age after a life filled with lots of good things. That has rubbed off on me.
I have spent the last few years pulling myself out of a very serious mental health crisis after a lot of horrible trauma. I worked really hard and was proud of the life I was building for myself. So much of that is now at risk. There are a number of ways in which the lockdown is having a very serious and life-changing impact on my life which are too private to share but they feel devastating to live with and have pushed me to feeling suicidal at times in the last few weeks. I have good phone support for now so am doing better than I was.
Increasingly I'm just feeling hurt by seeing all the aggression about how if you don't agree with lockdown you are SELFISH and you want people to DIE. I don't, I just don't want my future to be more affected than it has to be bearing the death rate is pretty low. We seem to be standing in a sea, trying to hold back a tide which is so stupid.
It's been a very gradual shift for me to the above position so I feel a bit dirty voicing it and a bit wobbly in it all still. I do care about minimising deaths and protecting people where we can. But if we had a really bad flu year and we were told double the usual numbers would die over the winter, like hell would we shut down the whole economy like this. Why are we so bad at living with the idea of dying?
Oh and I reached out to a close friend at a low point two weeks ago and asked if she'd come and sit in my garden with me for a chat at a safe distance. She said she genuinely wanted to but people on our local FB page are shaming anyone who does things like that and she was scared. I was sitting there wanting to die and she couldn't help me (for good reason. I don't blame her. I wouldn't want to face that aggression). What the effing hell is wrong with people? Apparently I don't matter that much of society afterall.
I am not going to be going beyond this thread, I don't think. And I'm so disappointed MNHQ hasn't shut down some posters.