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...

Husband was diagnosed with MS in March 2020. No treatment offered for over a year as it was deemed too risky, (immunosuppressive.) He caught Covid in late Nov. 2020 working as an NHS nurse and this accelerated the progress of his MS. He officially gave up work in May 21, after a very drawn out and difficult disciplinary process as he was both physically and cognitively no longer up to the job.
He has since had Covid a second time and again we have seen significant progression.
My whole family have struggled with our mental health as we adjust, and I’m trying to keep up with a career I love while meeting everyone’s needs. I’m going to go part time in a few months.

While MS was very bad luck it’s Covid that has really done a number on us.

I found lockdown itself easy - I am autistic and the pressure of having to go into the office where I experienced sensory distress every day was suddenly... gone. No seeing people. No travelling. No pressure to socialise. But covid did cause us to have to reschedule our wedding 3 times, cut much loved family members and friends out of our guest list and all my wedding photos have people with masks in! We were also in the process of buying a new build and it got delayed by 6 months. It seemed enormous at the time, but now I'm grateful that's the worst that happened to us.

But I'm heartbroken for my sister. The stress of the covid situation made her chronically ill. She now has M.E, cannot work and she and her fiance are struggling to pay their bills. She got a dog just because she got ill, and now struggles to care for him with her fiance being a police detective who works long, irregular hours. He has had to take time off due to stress, and experiences a lot of pressure being the only one bringing any money in. Due to covid policies, there were many delays in getting her the help and treatment she needed, allowing her condition to deteriorate to the point of hospitalisation several times.

Yep. We were pretty much on track to be able to go full-time self-employed in the summer of 2019, having built up to it gradually over the previous 18 months. Then the work dried up as so many of the companies and sole traders and events we would have worked for/sold to/at were cancelled.

We had to go back to nursing and the NHS respectively.

The nurse is doing okay with shifts in care homes (though knows they probably don't have many years of physical nursing left, and can't be doing with the beyond nonsensical NHS politics and HR sucking up you have to do these days, so won't be going back to the NHS any time soon), but I loathe every minute of it, mostly. Some of that is because the commute is a bloody nightmare and the Trust I currently work at is the most batshit crazy, badly managed, and financially opaque of the 7 I've worked at/for.

The main hospital looks like a set from the Walking Dead and everywhere is so badly staffed I really hope I don't end up having to have treatment there ever. If and when nurses do go out on strike and minimum staffing levels are applied, they'll probably be way better than what's currently in place. And yet they keep employing very well paid HR "gurus". The CQC think the sun shines out of its backside, which really makes me wonder about the CQC in this part of the country. And we're not even in winter pressures yet...

Loads of awful family stuff also happened from November 2019 (that date is more relevant than you might think even though it wasn't until the following spring that the pandemic was officially declared) to May this year. This includes COVID-19 losses of relatives young and old that might have been avoidable.

My only tiny consolation was that my partner's dad and my mam, dad, aunt and uncle (all grew up during WWII) had died years earlier. So they were spared having effectively another World War in the form of a virus at the end of their lives.

Still, as long as the government had their secret parties and made their mates that little bit richer for supply of rubbish PPE and other dodgy stuff, what do the rest of us matter, eh....

This is actually very helpful. It is good to verbalise how shit things were and for other people to confirm that the situation was indeed crap. I feel a bit better knowing that I am not just making a mountain out of a molehill if that makes any sense?

Also @Justhereforchristmaschronicles that is truly awful. I am so sorry that that has happened.

My Dad died alone in hospital in March 2021 (so the final lockdown, if I remember correctly).

I will always resent that we weren't able to spend his last couple of days with him due to lockdown rules, though I am glad that I broke all other rules to visit him at home before his final hospital admission. His death wasn't even Covid related.

Lockdown for me will always be associated with losing my Dad more than with Covid.

Yep mine.

I'm a single parent, and I basically lost my parents over it as they kept telling me to break the law or ignore guidelines and my mum had ago at my DDs headteacher over mask wearing during the 2nd Lockdown/November Lockdown. So I lost all respect for them both but mostly my mum.

Yeah we lost contact with a lot of friends and don’t socialise as much now. My granddaughter suffered so much she pulled her hair out , she’s doing well now but it was horrible to see and not be able to do anything 🥲
i truly think it has affected all people in some way and things will never be “ normal” again

Our son was the hardest hit what with going through almost all of his sixth form years in lockdown, including his 18th birthday. He never had the chance to enjoy those important years to grow and mature so is playing catch up whilst now at university.

It financially destroyed us. Both DH and I are in industries that were completely battered (think hospitality/entertainment/filmmaking/theatre). We hung on to our house by cashing in pensions and using savings to survive. We now have hugely reduced incomes and no pensions or savings. Neither of us benefited from one penny of support despite not being high earners. We just fell through the cracks.

I lost my newly set up Business, no help or support as not traded long enough. It seriously damaged DH’s business & income which is now having serious repercussions when trying to remortgage. I was also studying part time with the OU, that combined with young kids & homeschooling I ended up deferring so now 2 years behind. Dc1 struggled with homeschooling and is still behind despite efforts from him, us and school doing a lot to catch him up. Dc2 still holds a grudge that she was one of 3 out of her class not in school during lockdown 2 as we aren’t key workers. Had a big impact on our marriage too, stress and worry. Lockdown cost us a lot and is still having an impact personally.

I am so very sorry to read this.

My partner took his life during the first lockdown. I have young kids. Our lives have changed forever.

I'm so sorry to read everyone's suffering. It's really quite unbelievable people lost so much for a virus with a quite similar infection fatality rate as the flu.

Covid itself didn't cost me much, had Delta last Nov, Omicron two weeks ago, that was a two day cold. I'm unvaccinated so maybe it would have been a one day cold if I had taken it. That's what they say anyway, that it's less awful if vaccinated?

The lockdowns, vaccine mandates and removal of civil rights have had all sorts of impact on my family and friends and I fear we are only at the tip of the iceberg for the real damage to be unveiled. I can't believe it was illegal to leave my county at one point. My cousin was forced to give birth wearing a mask, despite testing negative and having asthma. My father in law died alone, only twenty allowed at the funeral and no gathering afterwards. My friend's son suffered a stroke two days after his second vaccine, he's 35 and now housebound.

Personally lockdown for me was not too bad. I was able to work from home and quite liked the peace. However I am very aware of how awful it was for so many people, business owners and elderly people in care homes etc, just terrible. I have found I have struggled to get into a routine since lockdown. I feel restless and aimless. I just wish it had never happened because it seems it was a pointless bloody exercise anyway. I have to admit I was definitely happier in 2019 than I am now.

Does anyone else regret following all the roolz now? My DD's MH was massively affected and I just wish now I'd said 'Sod it, go and see a friend' or whatever.

@CCC2 I am so sorry for your loss. Lockdown stole so much. It’s stole the ultimate from you.

My husband's CNS lymphoma was finally diagnosed in the early weeks of covid The unknown state of the virus clearly played a large part in the medical team's decision not to offer treatment that would have required destroying his immune system. He died six months later. His daughter and granddaughter were not able to get back into the country to see him. We were only able to have a tiny funeral. Our son took a year out of university to process his grief. He is currently in his third year and had just about got back on an even keel but is now isolated in his room with covid. I took voluntary severance from work in the middle of all this and am only really just beginning to be able to process it all.

AgreedAgreed
Did you loose respect for Professor Neil Furguson who predicted 500,000 deaths if we didn’t lock down and then proceeded to invite his married lover over for a bit of afternoon rumpy pumpy. Lying fucker didn’t believe his own predictions.

My ds was diagnosed with autism during lockdown and all of the services to help me in our area had closed, I couldn’t even see my mum or talk to friends about my worries over a coffee. I was homeschooling in the day and working nights and was stressed and worried about my son. I went on sertraline for anxiety in the end and in a rare side effect it caused a bowel disease I will have for the rest of my life which in turn caused severe anaemia and fainting. I haven’t been able to care for my children properly for the last 8 months. I had always been healthy before lockdown I’m now tired and unwell all of the time, covid lockdowns ruined my life.

I went through a phase of not feeling able to go out and a related eating disorder but the real impact was on my DC. Both had dream scholarships for 6th form boarding decimated. Both ended up with mental health issues and one has side effects from long covid. DC2 suffered from excruciating back pain which took ages to diagnose (had to go private in the end as GP only offering online appointments) as a fractured vertebra probably the result of endless pounding the pavements as running was the only available exercise to help with her lockdown related anxiety. This screwed her A levels over.

How Chris Whitty can sleep at night with what he has put our young people through I really don't know.

Yep. OH had covid before we really knew it was a thing, in December 2019. Has developed long covid and now I don't think he'll ever regain full health. Can only work 3 days a week, so financially it's knocked us.

My consultancy work disappeared overnight - the whole thing was just wiped out due to the arts industry effectively closing. I've still not got it back.

My eldest has debilitating MH issues and has not been able to go to school for nearly a year now.

Shitshow for us

Some aspects of long-covid (tinnitus lasted 18 months, recurrence of asthma that hadn't been an issue since childhood) but I suffered from terrible guilt - had been doing a very long commute each day, kept my job, WFH - gave a lot of money to charities, bailed out friends and family and carried out random acts of kindness, sometimes with hilarious results.
In a better place now, but saw a side of some people that I won't forgive or forget.

Covid took both of my parents. I wasn't allowed to visit either of them, so they were alone in hospitals, the pain of that can be overwhelming at times. I grieved alone in lockdown. I have been fighting long covid. I'm slowly rebuilding my fitness and have somehow kept my job. I'm looking forward to getting some semblance of a life back, I think I am due some fun. I rolled my eyes at neighbours and their 'lockdown savings' that lead to an endless procession of tradesmen renovating their already perfect houses.

It nearly nearly did. Not the virus but the terrible, unnecessary, fascist restrictions and the accompanying hysteria.

Locked in a flat alone, having to listen to all the smug social media posts about fucking banana bread and bbqing on furlough while I worked 15 hour days from home and it was illegal for me to have a hug from another human.

the only reason it didn’t was I have a wonderful network of friends and a family member who ignored the rules for me, met up, kept me going and because I was so determined the lockdown lovers weren’t going to win and ruin my life.

Lockdown should never ever have been allowed in the way it happened.

Lockdown destroyed my mental health. Important hospital appointments have been delayed and delayed. I missed my last Christmas with a family member who randomly died in a horrific way. I hope we never lock people away again (unless you’re a criminal).