Does anyone else feel like this post lockdowns?

[LizzieWallace]

OK, I admit I don't think I feel in a great place...I'm just going to write about how I'm feeling and maybe someone has some advice on how to feel better or has been through similar.

January 2020. Myself, DH and DS (10months), all happy. DH had to go away abroad with work for 2 months which was awful but we got our head round it. While he was away covid hit along with lockdown. He had to stay longer due to not being able to travel/changes in his work due to covid. Basically due to everything the 2 months away turned into just over 5 months. We don't live near any family.
DS was a wonderful baby and I honestly enjoyed every second, but at this point he was still BF and up 5-6 times every night. I was coping ok though so I thought. We just plodded along, nice walk every day, occasionally going out to get shopping etc. I didn't work at that point due to mat leave, then I couldn't go back to my job as husband was away, so it was literally the 2 of us. Contact naps, up a lot at night, and playing.

I feel like I just spent the whole lockdown just thinking "Thank god were still alive, I don't need anything else. Thank god my family are safe, I can wait to see them. I don't need solid sleep, my baby waking up means he's healthy" etc etc. I must have been running on pure adrenaline constantly. But I honestly felt OK.

Then DH came home. He wasn't in a great way mentally due to being away, missing so much of DS so that was hard. My parents struggled a lot not seeing DS as much too (although we now get to see them monthly). I started to feel so worn down.

Things are much better now. Everyone is happier...and it's like it all just hit me. I know, I'm so so so lucky not to have lost anyone due to covid, but I honestly feel like I'm in fight or flight mode constantly. Whenever I hear certain music (the opening/closing credits to moon and me on Cbeebies) I just can't stop crying. I heard that music a lot when DH was away and it just takes me back there again. I'm crying now as even thinking about it just upsets me so much.

I look awful. I'm fatter, I look older, my hair is awful, my IBS is constantly flaring up. I don't smile as much as I used to. But I can't quite pinpoint what exactly is bothering me.
We're all back to normal now. I can see my family, dh is much better, ds is thriving, im back at work. Yet I just feel so overwhelmed and exhausted....and every time I hear that fucking song I lose it!

Why is it only now the dust has settled that I feel like this?

You held it together because you had to and now that things are back to normal you have other people to support you and means it’s all came flooding over. My dad was ill when I was a child and in hospital for months whilst my mum worked hard at work and so hard at home so we didn’t feel the impact. She now says that she couldn’t stop/think or ask for help because it would all have came crashing down. When he came home and got better she then had the chance to process it all. I truly appreciate what she did for us and never remember feeling scared or worried. You have done that for your son so a massive well done to you it takes a strong person. Don’t be hard on yourself it’s been an adjustment and one you really pulled it together for. Now you have opened up to your husband it’s time to move forward and get yourself back.

I recently realised that those first few months of lockdown, I don’t really remember. I was trying to work from home with a 7yo and a 3yo, and DH was hardly around as he works in the emergency services and his father was dying as well. I know it was hard, I know it felt relentless but… It’s like I’ve purposefully blanked it. Possibly easier that way.

It’s a human response I think, the stress sees you through and then you collapse.
when my gran died I had so much shit to sort I was being very logical about everything and got through it. Then when the funeral was over and the house was sold I folded like a cheap deck chair and sobbed my heart out for weeks.

and I also get you about lockdown. I don’t feel like I’ve come out of fight or flight mode properly yet.

There are big parts in the first one especially that I don't have a clear memory of.

It’s good to read that you’ve spoken to your dh about how you feel.
There is not right way to feel after what you’ve lived through.
Im a counsellor and I’m seeing this response with clients more and more.
stuck in flight or fight mode,
not understanding who they currently are.
feeling different but unable to work out why.
Talking therapy may help you op.
keep talking to your dh if you can also.

@glamourousindierockandroll yes I also feel much less tolerant of being cooped up at home with my dc since lockdown and mine are older than yours. I'm much more snappy and shorter tempered with them than I ever was. Before the first lockdown I always looked forward to the school holidays and couldn't wait till they finished for the hols now I absolutely dread it and can feel myself becoming depressed and anxious at the thought of them being home for weeks as it reminds me of lockdown which I hated.
Like another poster said I find it hard now to enjoy things such as days out etc in the same way as I did pre lockdown. it's definitely changed me. I absolutely hate everything that reminds me of 2020 and 2021 I even hate fkin rainbows!

I get it. I don’t feel like the same person I was before Covid.

I get it too OP, although my circumstances are very different. I wrote a long reply which was cathartic, but just too personal to post here.

Parts of the last two years feel like blanks to me too, as others have said. I just remember feeling so stressed, especially at the start.

My bf described it as being on a train that stops suddenly yet everything behind keeps coming Such a good description.

In real life, no one seems to be talking about the emotional after shock of the pandemic. I thought it was just me being pathetic!

You might like this thread OP, few months ago now, about what people have lost due to lockdown and restrictions.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/4429003-Someone-somewhere-needs-to-articulate-the-lost-quality-of-life

I’m struggling with this too.

I absolutely hate everything that reminds me of 2020 and 2021 I even hate fkin rainbows!

Yes!

And at the same time as terrorising us, the bastards were laughing behind our backs and going to parties.

I completely empathise. It must have been even harder with your DH abroad. Like others have said, in the moment you just fight to survive. Now you are safe and you are finally feeling all that you've surpressed. Just thinking about that time is making me cry. I had a baby in lockdown 2, so found out I was pregnant with our rainbow baby just before the first lockdown. I felt like I lived in constant fear, constantly on edge that something was going to happen to her... And then the birth was just traumatic with my husband being send away just 30 minutes afterwards. LO and me spend days in the hospital, all alone. Sometimes when I try to sleep, it all comes back to me. I'm trying to make some big changes now to move forward and get a new start. We're selling the house, which I loved but now feel like it's suffocating me, and are relocating to be close to family. After that, I think I might genuinely need therapy.

Yes, I feel very similar. My son was 13 months when we went into lockdown, and I did lose a family member in the first wave which was terrifying. I mostly just try to ignore it and carry on, but I don't feel I have recovered from the lockdowns and am not sure I ever will. I think this is me now. I am deeply, deeply tired. I've aged faster than normal. My brain doesn't focus as well as it could before. I'm more lazy and care less about my appearance and what people think of me (possibly to a damaging extent). And yes, the Goodnight music on Cbeebies reminds me of lockdown, because that was the point I could stop trying to parent and work at the same time, and just focus on getting my child to bed so I could go back to work without distraction for the evening.

I feel like I need a proper break - maybe a sabbatical from work, or a long holiday on my own. Obviously that isn't going to happen, so I just carry on.

We have benefitted as a family, long-term - we both now work from home, see our child more than we would have, life is easier without long commutes. But my physical health is worse because I'm not doing that commute, and I find socialising much harder now, The world has changed, our lives have changed, and we can't just go back to 2019.

There was a thread on this a while back
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4484911-to-find-storm-triggers-horrible-lockdown-memories

My lockdown was also ordinary level of badness but I still get horrible shudders at particular places, games, songs etc.

I'm finding it comforting to read other people articulate something I'm struggling to. I feel changed by the pandemic, particularly the first lockdown.

I feel more burnt out now than at any point in the last 2 years. I'm thinking of changing my job as I just don't have the resilience I didn't previously.

This is my second post as I came back to check in. I also find it somehow comforting that lots of people feel similarly. I actually don't have this outlet with friends in real life, there's a culture of get on with it and roll on freedom don't look back etc. So I feel like I'm the miserable pessimistic one if I am still sorting through feelings and feeling odd.
I was really poorly with covid for a long time with little support, starting from the beginning of pandemic. It was isolating and so tough with young DC. I'm largely better now /, but also find days at home with no plans triggering. I couldn't get up and out due to I'll health. Now I can I'm out as much as I can. I feel completely differently about work- do the bare minimum and focus on health and family now. Theres a lot to work through, I think this thread resonates with you then you have a high emotional intelligence, empathy for others and obviously care about society and the world. Don't be hard on yourself for feeling as you do

I totally get how you feel op. I've had a trying time since Christmas to say the least-disastrous things have happened. I coped with it all. Now it's all over and things are touch wood getting better gradually, I'm a wreck. I can't cope at work, I'm low on mood, the slightest mishap seems huge to me, my confidence is gone. I know it's a reaction to what I've been through and dealt with-but what I can't figure out is how to turn it around!

I feel the same as others. I keep coming back here too as I'm finding a lot of comfort in this thread. I have literally felt a weight lift over the past few days.
There's been lots of tears but I think that's a good thing.
I'm so thankful to everyone that has posted here, although it breaks my heart that so many of us are feeling like this. I find it hard to open up with friends about it too, especially as I had a seemingly easier time than others.

I feel so heard, and I feel validated.
Thank you all.

I'm struggling to reply to everyone individually, but just know that I've heard you. There's a lot of us in the same boat. While it doesn't necessarily help, it gives me some comfort.

I think the mental health impact of lockdown is probably going to take a long time to play out.

I've thought more about this thread. I never much cared for fashion or how I looked. But I was ok. However - Since 2020, (that's how I refer to it, so sick of the P word) I do not give the tiniest shit how I look. I really do look like I get dressed in the dark. I've just banned any further purchase of any trouser without a pocket (totally fucked off by lack of pockets). I have no wish to be anything other than comfortable. If I have a tight band, somewhere, or if I'm too covered or too uncovered, anything even remotely uncomfortable I won't tolerate it for a second.
I lost a parent and my dog in the last 22 months. Parent was 2020, all treatment for the illness was done under lockdown. I'm never going to be the same, and I don't look the same and I don't care one bit.

I feel like this too!

So many of these posts resonated with me. I had my first DC in the first lockdown and whilst I adored the newborn bubble initially, I look back and I was absolutely losing the plot and ended up on antidepressants. A lot of things can trigger me back into those lockdown feels and I either panic or can't help but cry. I spent the whole of my baby's first year in and out of lockdown - first birthday party there were still restrictions in place about max numbers of people that could meet outside etc. I was terrified of supermarkets (would panic) and also the recent shortage of goods in supermarkets has made me panic again. I sometimes see the gaps on shelves and am straight back to March 2020. I made judgements on whether people were "safe" enough to mix with us and DC, that has had a lasting impact on relationships with friends and family. I'm pregnant again now, and have found it gives me a lot of flashbacks to that time. I also have no idea what maternity leave is like not in lockdown? My work is also only just now starting to head back into the office, and it's like my brain struggles to compute that we won't just go back to how work was "before" covid and even though we are in the office some of the time it's much quieter, there are say 20 people in on a floor when there used to be 300+ and we spend most of the day on zoom calls. I find myself getting angry that it won't just go back to how it was and I'm kind of in mourning for my busy, networking opportunity filled, glamorous feeling working life of pre covid in a big city. I had waited for years to get a job like mine in the city, and a year later covid hit - and now as a mum I feel like those wine filled networking evenings have passed me by even if they do ever return, and the rapid career climb opportunity I would have achieved by working in person in the city has all but disappeared. I do feel like a totally different person, and like a PP don't know how much is down to becoming a mum and how much is down to covid.

How is everyone doing? I had a tough one this week. Took DD to toddler group, witnessed her terrible social skills and felt a deep bitterness/ rage/ depression that so many opportunities to socialize her were lost at a key point of her development.