Did covid screw anyone else's life up?

[girlmeetsboy]

Interested to hear on this as I have been reading a thread where people loved the solidarity of it all. For me it was redundancy, house lost, business lost and savings...

Lost my lovely dear dad to Covid, put on two stone in weight, felt trapped and stir crazy. Hated being under the same roof as DH 24/7 with his piss poor unstructured WFH practices.

I’ve come out of it now, lost half the weight, had Covid twice but would not ever want to do it again. DH back in the office.

Fortunately, all four of us were key workers and worked throughout.

It definitely screwed us up financially and will take us years to recover, massive mental health impact for all of us, especially DH and my 21 year old daughter, also I got fat and can't seem to shake it off. My 17 year old loved it as she didn't have to sit her GCSEs and got to spend most of lockdown on a horse.

Depression, a breakdown, suicidal thoughts and lost my job in September 2020 as I couldn't return due to the agoraphobia it all left me with. I live alone and didn't leave the house at all for 18 months - I still can't go into any shops or crowded places, or bear strangers near me. The isolation and fear nearly drove me over the edge.

Yep. This pretty much.

I finally got covid in June. I was quite ill...I was in bed for a week. I think I may have long covid but am steadfastly ignoring that.

I moved my mum from her home of over 50 years to sheltered accommodation during covid, ran a foodbank, home schooled a y6 child, supported a y12 through their online a levels...

I remember - setting my alarm at 2am to get a grocery delivery slot, traipsing miles to a farm shop to get eggs as it was only place to get them from, timing my walks so I didn't go over 1 hour, sitting metres away from mum almost having to yell to be heard in her garden...all whilst those in Westminster partied and laughed at us.

Funerals I could not attend, medical conditions missed/treatment stopped.

It was awful tbh.

I think I'm still just so tired from it all.

Name changed for mine but it resulted in my husband gaining a bad drug addition , ruining his business for months cheating it was awful I’m lucky that I have family money or I would of been royally screwed , mentally I suffered more than I ever have thou I had a newborn at the time aswell.

Another one here. Marriage breakdown

I'm hoping it was a capability process rather than disciplinary. It seems shocking to me if the NHS disciplined someone for being ill.

I'm sorry for what you have been through.

My industry (events) was completely shut down. I'm self employed and fell through all the cracks of government support because I'd switched from paying my taxes by PAYE to self assessment 8 months before lockdown (so no furlough or SEISS), had been saving up for a house deposit (so no UC) and was renting (so no mortgage holiday). I remain bitter that I was told not to work and then given no financial support to make that possible. I'm especially bitter that Rishi Sunak, the architect of the systems that failed me, is now PM.

As it became abundantly clear that I was expected to sacrifice everything for the general public while no one gave me any help whatsoever. I'm certainly feeling less public spirited than I once did.

Lockdown also precipitated the decline, and ultimately the death, of an elderly relative. They were already frail, and it wasn't covid that killed them, but the sudden loss of social contact basically sapped their will to live. Ironically, they left me some money, and that's the only reason I'm not currently homeless.

Anyone who looks back on lockdown as being a positive experience can get to fuck.

Friendships faded away and I feel a lot more isolated then before. As an extrovert that’s a big mental struggle for me. Gained loads of weight which I’m now struggling to lose. Work from home which I prefer but means I’ve never physically met half my colleagues so don’t really have proper work friends. People died and we didn’t get the mourn them properly. Had to have a wedding with no guests - had a party last year which was great but hardly the same. So many things have changed and not sure it’ll ever be the same again.

Notable that many of people’s bad experiences were due to lockdown / other measures rather than Covid itself. Maybe we need to learn something from this.

Yes. the distinction is vital.

My story is very, very similar to yours (unfortunately).

And I agree about the getting to fuck.

Thanks for starting this thread, very interesting to read both the good and bad experiences.

We lost money and then gained in our business.

My mum lost her independence and is now in care.

I lost friends but gained even closer new ones.

Long Covid from 13/20 is breaking me a bit now.

Covid was much worse than lockdown for me. I've been unwell for 8 months but am almost better I think although still tired and with some issues. If I had to choose I'd choose lockdown rather than covid but obviously different for people who had covid mildly or not at all.

My dad passed away without being able to see or hug anyone so yes. My bf also turned into a nut case but that's nothing compared to how my dad died.

It accelerated the health decline of my grandparents, one of whom died in hospital without having any visitors for nearly two months, including his wife of over 60 years.

I had my second baby in April 2020. Even now, I feel that I never really made that leap of going from one to two children, and I still actively avoid going anywhere with both of them on my own because I worry that I can't watch them both well enough. At the same time, being in the house all day with both of them makes me feel very claustrophobic, so I'm between a rock and a hard place tbh.

Agree with friendships and socialising fizzling out. I miss it now, but also love it when people cancel.

The students I teach have worse classroom behaviour than I've ever known it. I am very much hoping that it's Covid aftermath and that we'll see a return to normality over the next few years.

Covid or in my view the lockdown that came with it has caused so much heartache and suffering for many people. I believed at the time we should either of had a short full on lockdown or nothing and carried on as normal - instead it was constant drift of months on end with lockdown and restrictions which has caused no end of damage. I think the impact of the lockdowns will be with us for years - I too have a teenager who suffered greatly. I feel younger people were ignored, whilst there was severe damage to those of working age who saw careers and livelihood suffer, those in the older age bracket who still held a more active life saw there life reduced to the four wall around them. What made me cross at the time and continues to irritate is that it we were continually subjected to people on the television explaining how we needed to protect the vulnerable and elderly. Many of those people did not mix anyway, rather than just ask those people to stay at home we locked up everyone.

But I kind of developed a fuck it attitude and arranged a wedding within a year that had been on the back burner for 10 and make more effort with friends now.

this i also me.
I was my best in 2019. Now a mess, gained a huge amount of weight during first lockdown when I injured myself and was trapped in my house for months. Hardly any friends left as they disappeared with those good times, nor family as they are abroad and we haven't been able to see them.

I was one of the original Covid long haulers from March 2020. In the midst of a relapse now and don’t think I’ll ever return to full health. Hate it.

Aw such sad stories here, heartbreaking what this has done to so many people businesses etc health of many

One child had psychosis directly caused by lockdown #2. Thank God she was cared for brilliantly by CAMHS and is completely better now but I recognise we were EXTREMELY lucky. Another DC still in counselling for extreme anxiety caused by lockdown.

I would if I had followed da roolz.

I very rapidly decided that if the financial support didn't apply to me then da roolz didn't either.

The dog was walked more than once a day, and I sat on park benches. I saw family, and have no regrets whatsoever about that. Unfortunately there were many roolz which I couldn't physically break (e.g. I'm in the events industry and would merrily have returned to work).

My frail elderly family member was reliant on family support to manage at home. I think we lasted about a week before realising that less support was guaranteed to do harm, vs a risk of harm from catching covid. In the end we took the attitude that quality was better than quantity. They died, but not of covid.

landlord had our house back, kept everything in it. Ended up at my mums which was mental torture, then me and my daughter living in a hotel for months. Also lost our cats, had to re-home. Yes we lost everything

I have ASD, it completely took away my ability to mask. It was just me and the kids for a year solid, by the time I ventured back out into the world I couldn’t cope with it anymore.

But it’s helped in a way, I’m much more open with people now and I’m making friends for the first time in my life so I suppose it’s not all bad even if I am feeling extremely overwhelmed at times.

it set my business back 8 years in terms of customer base- so many children dropped dance classes over the lockdowns either disheartened by zoom or after massive breaks where we couldn’t hold our classes. I lost 75% of my 2020 customers, the business is now hanging on by its teeth financially, and am back in a situation where I can pay my business running costs but can barely pay myself anything. Cost of living crisis means that new customers/ growth is slow. I’m financially back where I was when I first started up, and it’s soul destroying.