Is anyone else just finding it's all too much lately? Everything seems to be becoming so unstable.

[GrogusMam]

I've always had anxiety, so maybe it's that playing up but it just feel like the whole world is starting to crumble.

The price of living. Basic shopping. Everything is so expensive. Covid still hanging over us. Everything and everyone seems unsettled and on the edge of... something. I don't know how to explain it.

It feels like I felt the UK today was too progressive for us to be in such an awful place but it's all just been a false sense of security

I feel like giving up, since beforeChristmas we’ve had a constant flow of bad luck, the biggest issue right now is is facing homelessness, I’m so scared of temporary accommodation to Theo king it makes me feel suicidal which is ridiculous but it’s making me so stressed, I just want to find a home for my family

I feel the same, everything seems to be spiralling. Our car got stolen 2 weeks ago too and now our DD has a sickness bug, every time I think life can't throw more shit at us it does

@EatSleepRantRepeat

In fact l think this is worse. As bad as WW2

I think you may need to think about that one a bit more... our partners haven't been sent away for 5 years to a foreign war front, our kids haven't been evacuated to strangers in the countryside who will abuse them or use them for free labour. Thousands of people per night aren't sleeping in bomb shelters and losing everything but the clothes on their back.

For the vast majority of people in the UK we have shelter, food and access to warm places - we're not expecting a v1 bomb to drop out of the sky and blow us to bits.

Couldn't agree more. Have a word with yourself, OP...

We have seen a sharp rise in crime in our otherwise usually peaceful town. Things like people having their handbag robbed from the front seat of their car, muggings and burglaries. I guess that's what happens when times get hard? some who have little, decide to deal with inequality by robbing others that they perceive as having more.

During Covid there was a sense of "all pulling together", that seems to be over now.

To be fair it wasn’t the OP saying it was worse than WW2, that was someone else.

Leaving a handbag in the front of a car isnt the best move however. Yes petty crime is bound to be spiralling.

It was me who said the WW2 thing. I meant it is the worse time since WW2. I’ve been through strikes, 3 day weeks, stagflation, huge youth unemployment, Regan and Thatcher, the Cold War, and loads of other stuff.

I can’t remember a time as depressing as this. And Covid aside, it’s the rise in energy prices, inflation, housing costs and poverty that I’m referring to. It’s just a perfect storm of a shit uncaring government.

It’s like going back to Dickens.

[quote Armadeus]@EatSleepRantRepeat the press are entirely justified in getting that useless oaf out, sooner the better.[/quote]
Not by fucking with people's mental health they're not. He's already done enough to get him removed if the populace want that - overhyping issues and making up stories just isn't necessary.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

It was me who said the WW2 thing. I meant it is the worse time since WW2. I’ve been through strikes, 3 day weeks, stagflation, huge youth unemployment, Regan and Thatcher, the Cold War, and loads of other stuff.

I can’t remember a time as depressing as this. And Covid aside, it’s the rise in energy prices, inflation, housing costs and poverty that I’m referring to. It’s just a perfect storm of a shit uncaring government.

It’s like going back to Dickens.

I can even just in my lifetime - the late 80s/early 90s recession, when the 80s boom turned into shitloads of homes being repossessed, massive unemployment from mining and manufacturing going south, and our tradespeople having to move abroad to make any money.

The economy moved into service industries and less than 10 years later we had Cool Britannia and New Labour, the minimum wage, and in the 2000s we had a boom again with cheap credit and mortgages.

As worrying as the Ukraine situation is, I don't think we're at the Bay of Pigs level quite yet.

I am feeling very bleak about things. The energy price increases are going to make lives extremely miserable for most people. I actually don’t know how we are going to manage. We barely have enough to do anything “fun” or non essential as it is. It feels like we are all just surviving.

yes 80's wasnt that great - i remember as a graduate that there were 80 applicants for most bulk standard grad business jobs; interest rates hit 15% so loads of people had houses re-possessed and people like us who hung onto theirs had to work their guts out and still be broke. Many more people died from cancer as treatments were so basic. IL's in ex mining town were much worse off than now. Nothing like universal credit available

I logged on to MN just now hoping that there would be a thread like this because this is exactly how I feel.

I do t think the late 80’s were as bad as this though. They were bad, but not as … is unremitting the word?

Houses were affordable, power was affordable, interest rates were high, but this is like everything at once. Including shit working conditions. Even the late 80’s there still some strongish unions around. But now is just like living in black gloom. It seems unending.

I'm really craving sunshine now so I'm booking a short break to the canaries. Need to get away from it all. Everything is dreary and depressing.

Everyone who feels this way should turn off the news. Delete social media. Get out for walks. Volunteer at a shelter. Meet up with family. I’m not being flippant, but I think the media catastrophizes everything these days, and having 24/7 access to it doesn’t help.

Main concerns are cost of living, and climate change. Spend 10 mins a day thinking of ways you can improve your lot, and then try to put it out of you mind and get on with living your life.

Yes I remember the repossessions of the late 80s and 90s but life seemed easier. Though I was much younger energetic and resilient. So perhaps that helped I guess. Less jaded than now.

Yes. Been feeling the same. Mostly worried for my teens. How will they ever have the basics in life - a job, a home, food on the table. Plus thousands in debt from uni fees. When I grew up I got a flat in a vibrant city on 3 times my salary yet these days a flat in a crappy area in the middle of nowhere is 10 times that salary. Life is getting so hard. It also seems that those in power are stealing public money to make themselves richer ( PPE contracts to Tory friends - Jacob Rees Moggs offshore accounts , energy companies and bankers making massive profits etc) while the rest of us work our asses off on low wages just to make them richer while we just about basically survive as more and more gets taken away from us. February is a tough month and now with the storms and threat of war on the back of a pandemic it feels like a collective situational depression. Just got to keep going one day at a time, stay hopeful, vote wisely for political change and try and do things that make us feel better. Today a bracing beach walk was uplifting but even then I’m finding it really hard to stop the sinking feeling in the out of my stomach. Sorry for the negativity but it’s good to know others are struggling too.

Part of the problem is we’ve become too blasé about cheap energy, cheap credit, cheap clothes, cheap everything really and the reality is it’s only in the last 30 years or so this has become the norm … it’s become easy to flick a switch and have heat, light, without a thought to the cost or consequences …. Maybe we have to accept that this time of consumerism is now gone and we may have to readjust expectations.

@happydaze

Part of the problem is we’ve become too blasé about cheap energy, cheap credit, cheap clothes, cheap everything really and the reality is it’s only in the last 30 years or so this has become the norm … it’s become easy to flick a switch and have heat, light, without a thought to the cost or consequences …. Maybe we have to accept that this time of consumerism is now gone and we may have to readjust expectations.

I agree somewhat with this. There were plenty of supporters for extinction rebellion over the summer who didn't seem to realise that tackling climate change so drastically would also cause dramatic increases in living costs (new electric vehicles, new heat pumps, new insulation) and drops in standards of living (cheap industrialised food and meat products, cheap plentiful energy, fewer consumer goods on-demand or next day delivery).

However, in that scenario, we'd all be going through it together, rather than the lowest-paid going completely without and the richest just spending their way out of trouble. This is hopefully what will eventually bite Boris in the arse - but we need an effective opposition party with creative ideas instead of just pointing and complaining. New Labour won in 97 by creating a sense of optimism about a new future, I'm not seeing that from any party at the moment.

suffolk - when i graduated the flat i bought in 87 was 10 times my salary - and it was only a basic 2 bed flat in a slightly iffy area of London - nothing special.

A house that was worth £64k in Hanwell West London back in 1985 was converted into two flats and now worth £440k each. House prices really do need to be a lot lower and also the appallingly high rents. No wonder many people are trapped renting forever.

I think buy you let should be banned. That’s what’s using the housing stock up.

For lots some degree of hardship the way things are now.
Yes I’m concerned about energy rising, tho what I most want is for my brain to connect with my eyes (3D), bi polar related, 9 months, optically well tho.
Hoping it can be sorted

I feel like you.
There's no security - covid showed us that. We'd got complacent about things.
This govt don't care. Really don't care and tbh for alot of them this is the goal. Have the populace unhappy and focused only on making ends meet and making money for the rich.

I am normally very positive and upbeat, but it's all getting a bit much at the moment. The weather doesn't help either.