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...

My niece developed anorexia. We had horrendous famiiy arguments due to living with two adult children who lost their jobs and were developing mental health issues being trapped day after day in a melting pot. Our family has not recovered.

To add, I was a thriving person in 2019 and I did lots of giving back by vilunteering etc.

In terms of the rules, I spent fucking hours trying to figure out the differences between law and guidance because I'd lose my work if I was convicted of something.

I barely drank and never smoked before lockdown. Now anything that shortens my life is a plus. I don't smoke every day but I have pneumonia atm and rather miss it.

from nearly daily gym to smoking and drinking. But...I didn't actually kill myself. So it's a win.

Yes, one friend shouted at me about living alone and said "you have no idea what people living with families are going through". Also two young adults in her case.

she never returned my calls after that. Perhaps I was foolish to say "living alone is hard atm". I always loved it before, but saw friends at least two or three times a week.

It was tough but I thought we'd got through it OK despite all catching Covid from DH working in a high risk environment throughout the lockdowns.

My DD 13 went right off the rails though when the lockdowns ended. Fell in with a terrible group of friends (dangerous friends), turned against us as parents, particularly me and completely changed in character. She has ADHD and ASD so that complicates things. It's hard to tell what's SEN and what's teenage behaviour and what's mental health problems.

Thankfully, she left the friendship group after a few months. She realised how dangerous they were and what she was being sucked into. Things are improving but I do feel that, unknown to us, she really struggled during lockdown and was far more vulnerable than we realised. I'm hoping, one day, we get her properly back again.

I lost my confidence and patience. I gained weight and did no exercise. My eldest daughter started looking at websites on line about self harm and my youngest was constantly worried we would all die and she would be left alone. There are still after effects from it , even though on the surface all seems to be back to normal. It was a time I never wish to repeat. Even with all of this I consider us lucky, we didn’t lose anyone.

I don't get why we didn't try to kill it off. It was madness thinking a virus that tricks the body into thinking it's a carbon and part of the cells rna is ever going to be prevented by vaccinations. Don't get me wrong the vaccinations have def reduced the affect of covid IME, but controlling it? No way.

I've put on 3st. It's a nightmare trying to get rid of it. Healthcare is crap now, the nhs is dead in my opinion, I've taken out private insurance.

My DD is on the lsle of Man getting some heshefor mental ill health she got none here. Prob is it's costing about £25k pa to keep her there just to get basic medical help cos shes not an islander and cant get a job (mental ill health is a pre existing matter so not cover bynprivate health insurance).

I also had to spend £2.5k on a minor op for my son - he was in pain, but it wasn't a priority (again pre-exisiting, he'd already waited 3 years for it) - bloody good job I was working throughout the whole thing.

I despise what government did to the self employed - I didn't need help but so many people made destitute by our now PM.
I despise what they've done to the nhs.

Covid was shit but made shitter by an uncaring sleaze ridden government.

I think as a society we need to be able to tell all our stories of covid. Eg what happened in hospitals and to NHS staff was less visible to lots of us than the immediate effects of lockdown, so it's easy to underestimate how disastrously worse it could have been with far more cases in that first year. Meanwhile, the effects of the way the money was divvied out were disastrous for some people, and that's not always well known. Likewise education, people had very different experiences when some kids were at school and others not. Some people's relatives died of covid who would be alive and well today without it; some people's relatives died of other things but were cruelly affected by lockdowns in how their last year or so played out and that has caused a lot of pain to their families too. So many different stories and they all matter to give a full picture. This has been a good thread for that, thanks OP. MN as Mass Observation, covid-style.

I’ve really struggled with long covid and it has had a massive impact on my health and life but I am fortunate that I’ve not lost my job over it or anything.

I was classed as homeless just before covid so I was in temporary accommodation and then covid hit and everything shut down which meant me not being able to find anywhere to live properly and all my things were in storage.

But I realise how lucky I was compared to some people as at least I had a roof over my head.

Working from home made me realise how much I love my home. Find it hard to arrange travel now as chaos reigns on the roads and at the airports still.

I had a family member have major surgery postponed over and over again and their quality of life really suffered. It would have been too dangerous for them to have it during any of the big waves though, so it wasn't because of rules but because of covid itself. No major financial issues but definite dc MH issues, and family members stuck abroad.

It fucked with my mental health.
All friendships died the death - fairweather friends obviously. Once we weren't meeting as part of social and hobby groups it was obvious they didn't get a shit. I tried to stay in contact with people via WhatsApp and phone calls and meeting up 1 to 1 once that was allowed but nobody was interested and basically ignored my messages.
I haven't recovered from that and finding it very hard to make new friends. I think lockdowns caused people to place more emphasis on their own family groups and very small friendship circles and I think a lot of people have continued like that.

My sibling finally started AA in Jan 2020 and things were going brilliantly until all in-person meetings stopped 3 months later. My sibling didn't want to try the online meets, never resumed when things opened up again and the alcohol addiction is now worse than ever. It's effectively game over.

Well, my small friendship circle who looked after me, and vice versa, through illness, bereavement, etc etc ....still no. I think some people are just genuinely only mixing with partners. Or they all hated me for 25 years!

I've got long Covid. It's affected my heart, lungs, thyroid - and that's the organs I know about. I can't do dance classes or go on long train journeys or any of the other fun things I used to do without a second thought, because I get shattered. Had a half-day out yesterday and today I feel like I've been hit by a bus. Over two years now. I am self employed and was too shattered to work for around three months, so had to hand several thousand pounds worth of work to a competitor. I am getting better, slowly, but I do wonder if I'll ever go back to how I was before.

I first had it Dec 2019 and it nearly finished me off but no, I enjoyed lockdown. Was still working as a key worker and my girls in school which helped massively. Can see detrimental effect on young people I work with though 😢

Yes, our local drug and AA place closed for good.

My DS19 has long covid. His life is completely on hold - can't study, can't work, depression. Good days, bad days. It's really hard. No idea what the future holds for him, and I have to stay positive because I can't say, this could be your life now. Some days it breaks my heart

@AssignedSlytherinAtBirth I completely sympathise - it's a horrible condition. glad you're starting to recover slowly.

On the flip side, covid has actually improved my life. Got made redundant, but walked straight into a much better job. I wouldn’t have considered changing jobs before, but being forced to has ended up putting me in a much better position.

Also the advent of working from home made my son starting school much easier. Either my husband or myself are always home for school drop off and pick up. Not sure how we would have managed if we both worked solely in the office.

My heart breaks for all of you suffering. But my overriding emotion is fucking anger. It didn’t have to be that way.
It was a bloody knee jerk reaction.

Same here with the fucking stupid rules too, @SurpriseWombat. My DC went to meet friends, and had friends here (the ones who hadn't been cowed by the "People will Die" mantra). If it hadn't been for that, my youngest would have been in an even worse state than now. I went out every day, several times, and saw my own less law abiding friends. I would happily have returned to work and taken my chances with Covid in the same way that I take my chances with every virus going/getting run over by a bus/etc, had my sector not been shut overnight.

One really, really shitty thing is that my parents were made so scared that I haven't seen them since early 2020. They more or less barricaded themselves at home and are now so used to it that they won't go out or see anyone, including their own children. Before lockdown, I saw them every few weeks (not local).

It's been a sobering read.
Comparatively, we were lucky not to lose out financially and I don't feel our DC suffered too much (only affected end of nursery/reception). During the first lockdown, my husband was furloughed so was able to look after DC while I wfh. We are also fortunate to have a garden.
However, during the other lockdowns, my husband had to work, on site, leaving me having to juggle looking after DC and working. It meant working at night a lot, catching up. I was constantly shattered, I felt I was doing a rubbish job as a parent and as an employee.
My family live abroad and I wasn't able to visit them for so long due to locked borders + restrictions with vaccine passports, etc.
My grandmother contracted covid and passed away. My father, her son, thankfully was allowed to stay by her but I wish we could all have been.

On the surface, things are back to normal for us but I still feel drained, perhaps burnt out by the whole thing. I don't know if I could cope going through this all again.

I think back to all the threads where people demanded it. It’s so sad.

Hesma I won't lie, I see people who enjoyed lockdown as being unusually cruel or unusually stupid.

how could you enjoy the enforced misery, the desperation, the suicides? I know some posters didn't believe in local parks being patrolled etc, did they we were lying or just enjoyed sticking the knife in?

it's one thing to say "I enjoy living quietly". It's another thing entirely to say "I enjoyed lockdown".

there's a local business owner who killed himself and some of the neighbours were desperate to claim it must have been for other reasons, even after his children said what was in his note.

My elderly parents were very badly effected mentally. My partners business took a hit initialy but did stabilised.

I have lost friendships due to conspiracy theories, one of my oldest closest friends stopped speaking to me because I wouldn't break the rules.

For me the worst thing was my work. I work in local government enforcement, a job I have always loved. Overnight we were told to work from home and couldn't do home visits. Our work load went through the roof and other than emails, phone calls and letters there was nothing I could do. I have never been verbaly abused so much nor had so many customers sobbing to me on the phone in desperation. I was allso seconded 2 days a week to help support vulnerable residents with no support or guidance guidance to how I could get through it all, whilst home schooling 2 x children

Doing such long hours and having all that negativity in my home realy affected my mental health. I started having panic attacks, vomiting and my hair was falling out in clumps. My employees have used so many staff badly and cut services under the guise of covid. I have lost all respect for my employer and am actively looking g to move away from a job that has been my life long vocation.

I am just so glad my children got through relatively unscathed. I don't think my daughter would cope with lockdown now she is in her teens. So sad to hear so many tragic stories.