Has anyone else just not felt the same since Covid hit us

[Pancakeparlour]

I am no longer afraid of Covid or a pandemic as such but there is now a definite pre-pandemic and post-pandemic ‘Me’.
I have always suffered from anxiety disorders so this is obviously skewing my view on things but I felt my life (and life in general) was so so much better in 2019 and before.
I know we have had so many negative things going on in the world since (and sadly I have had many things happen personally as well) and that certainly isn’t helping my thoughts and views but (and I find it hard to fully articulate this as it’s such a deep seated feeling) I constantly feel as though I am now living on a knife edge. I am mentally waiting for something negative to happen all the time, something awful. I feel like I am mentally awaiting and preparing myself for ‘battle’ of some kind.
I feel physically unwell too and have put myself through a barrage of quite horrible tests but they have all come back as negative. Yet I still feel like shit!
Life is just no longer the same for me. I used to laugh and joke a lot but now feel in a constant state of melancholy.
It is bloody exhausting and whilst all my friends are merrily getting on with their lives, I feel like I just can not and life no longer holds any joy just fearfulness. I fear for my teen dc too and what pre-Covid times has in store for them.
I know this is no way to live and I have tried several antidepressants but they have made me physically unwell. I can only get typed CBT in my area, of which I had 6 weeks worth and frankly was not helpful at all, it felt like I was talking to a robot, which is another fear of mine as the world appears to no longer see human to human contact of importance and more and more screen based and AI focused ‘stuff’ which scares me.
I do think I am predisposed to overreact to stressful situations but surely I am not the only one?
Does anyone else feel like this? Like I say, I can not fully explain how I feel but it’s like the pandemic reset my fight or flight program and now I’m in constant pre-battle mode!

I'm so so sorry you feel like this, I have also not felt the same since the pandemic, although nowhere near the same as you, alot of this is to do with the terrible fear mongering engaged in by the government, this has never been done before and I think really affected people's mental health (see the stats). For me a big help has been that I am a Christian and able to rely on God and know there is something bigger than this but appreciate you may not have a faith. It is very hard for you to see others just going back to normal life with not a care in the world again I identify with this. Sorry I don't have the answer just wanted to commiserate.

My dad died of it in May 2020, and my DH died of it last April.

So, yes, it's changed me and my life for ever.🙁

Could it be generalised anxiety disorder? Are you near peri menopause? My main symptom was hugely increased anxiety. HRT really helped.
I completely sympathise, I had a month off work during the pandemic, absolutely poleaxed with crippling anxiety. I was suicidal with it at times.

I think there's generally been quite a pessimism in the media since covid mixed in with the economy going to shit and the lasting effects of covid and lockdown its sadly not surprising. I had to make a very concerted effort to get life back on track the past year or so, I am also different to pre covid me but better I think.

@Zebedee55 I'm so so sorry for your losses. Xx

For me the Covid response highlighted the corruption and incompetence of the people in charge of the country and even the world. Since 2020 I basically feel less secure about many things.

I don't feel as you do, but I've been aware of people who do. And I worried throughout the pandemic that the deliberate policy decision to try and frighten people into observing the rules would have this impact.

For me going through the Covid times was very eye opening as to how society responds to completely new scenarios. Fascinating from a sociological perspective but the scariest thing for me has been the proliferation of conspiracy theories into wider society, although perhaps that was happening anyway.

I think I felt how you are feeling now once or twice during the depths of the pandemic, in terms of a kind of stomach churning feeling of not knowing what’s ahead. I actually really like change and the unknown so for me it was more adrenaline from immense excitement than dread or fear, but I appreciate the depth of feeling.

I don’t think my outlook on life has changed. I’d lost a lot of people close to me before the pandemic so was already acutely aware of my own mortality and that of my close friends and family, so that side of it wasn’t really a shock. I just like to take an accepting approach to life and appreciate every day in which my loved ones are with me. It’s not worth worrying about what the future might or might not contain; what will be, will be.

A similar situation to me @zebedee55. I lost my dad to covid in December 2020 and my partner in August 2021, so I have a great deal of sympathy for you💐.
My life changed forever and not for the better 😪

Fascinating from a sociological perspective but the scariest thing for me has been the proliferation of conspiracy theories into wider society, although perhaps that was happening anyway.

Interesting point. There's definitely been an uptick. Which to me seems a pretty clear indication of a general decline in mental health. It's a bad sign when people are more vulnerable to conspiracy theories.

OP, it sounds like your anxiety is absolutely permeating your life, and it sounds horrible for you. I think it sounds worth investing in private therapy. I appreciate this might not be financially possible, but I think if it is at all possible, treat it like the life investment it is and find a good therapist that you click with. In my humble opinion and experience, CBT is bollocks (more akin to life coaching imo), whereas talking therapy or something more trauma-focused like EMDR can be utterly life changing. Sending love.

I'm exactly like you.
The thing is Covid is here to stay.. just different variants and we now have vaccines.. but I've just had it for the fourth time and it was horrific.. just as bad as the first time before vaccinations..( 2nd and 3rd were like flu) l just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up to get rid of the pain and the awful side effects. I was and still am suffering long covid from the first time.. as are my daughter and Grandson.. my daughter has RA and POTS from covid.
My Grandson was 16 when he caught it and reverted back to being a toddler.. my daughter had to dress/ feed/ bath him.
I am very scared of getting it again. I am 64 and vulnerable.
Yes we have tried to get on with our lives and be " normal"
But I've gone back to having counselling because the fear of something bad happening to my daughters and Grandsons is overwhelming me. My OCD is getting worse... ( thinking if l don't do certain things something bad will happen). .
It's going to be like seasonal flu.. new variants.. I've just had the B1.15 and it gave me laryngitis and left me deaf in one ear.
My youngest daughter is in hospital as l type with complications from long covid.
I hope to God my four Grandsons don't have children when they're older.. l don't want any off spring coming into this world.

Coveescapee I often do envy people with a strong faith, I’m sure it helps so many people get through tough times.
Zebedee55 I am so sorry for your losses. Covid has ruined so many lives. I lost my mil too.
UseyourforkStormShadow That is basically it! I have been left with a feeling of great unease that the people who I truly believed had our best interests at heart, really didn’t, not at all. That’s how it feels to me too.
GreenMarigold That’s one of the hardest things to have hit me also, I suppose it’s the change. I have never coped well with change. I have had many irreversible changes in my life since the pandemic and that unrests me greatly. The rise in conspiracy theorists since all of this also drives me insane. Sometimes I don’t feel I now what is real or not anymore!
Squirrelsnut I have had GAD for many years so that obviously isn’t helping and I am 50 so smack bang in the middle of perimenopause, I have tried a few different hrt but can’t find one that works for me atm.

I am sorry for your losses fetchacloth
tattygrl I would love private therapy but sadly can not afford it, it’s so expensive and I was made redundant a few weeks ago.
wendyjoy I am so sorry our are suffering still. I too have long Covid and it has exacerbated my digestive issues which are currently ruling my life. I hope my dc do not have children when they get older, I can not see the world becoming a better place and if I were younger I wouldn’t be bringing children into this world either. I appreciate I may currently have a skewed view of things atm but it feels a horrible place right now.

I scares me how so many were left on their own and to ‘fend’ for themselves during the lockdowns and the pandemic and that has really scared me.
My parents are old and vulnerable, mum has Alzheimer’s and as soon as Covid hit literally every service for her shut down, they were left on their own and if it wasn’t for myself they would have been completely shut off from the world.
My mil was going through treatment for intestinal cancer and all her treatment was abruptly stopped, she died in 2020.
I also helped care for a 92 year old neighbour who had no family and again, just left on her own. She eventually succumbed to Covid.
That experience, like so many others, has left me feeling that we are all so vulnerable and at the mercy of our governments and leaders. I can’t move on from that fear especially as I am getting older. It felt like the old, poorly and vulnerable were purposely forgotten about and left like dying animals in the wild. I need to move on from that fear, I know, but that was my personal experience so hard to forget.

Covid certainly changed my life - I got it, so did my husband and 1 AC. I ended up on a ventilator for 2 weeks, during which time I had a stroke (5 actually, as I had 5 clots on the brain). I spent 6 weeks in a hospital, 70 miles away from home. No visitors allowed, and I was isolated as I keep testing positive for Covid (so I didn't see any other patients). 3 months of physiotherapy followed, and I'm no longer fit enough to work.......................

No - I feel exactly the same. Covid was frustrating because it showed up both the media and the public for being easily lead, but other than that it was not a big deal. Hopefully, it has taught Governments around the world not to overreact again, so from that point of view it may have actually done some good.

That experience, like so many others, has left me feeling that we are all so vulnerable and at the mercy of our governments and leaders. I can’t move on from that fear especially as I am getting older. It felt like the old, poorly and vulnerable were purposely forgotten about and left like dying animals in the wild. I need to move on from that fear, I know, but that was my personal experience so hard to forget.

I think that has probably affected a lot of people. It's the experience of having been treated as collateral during the pandemic. Now I think it's possible that lockdown and the restrictions we had were the least worst option, but all the choices the government could make involved prioritising the welfare of some people over others. My family fell into the latter category.

The way in which we coped was to rely on and strengthen our extended family and close friend networks. I value living in a tight knit community infinitely more now, especially when I hear about some people's wannabe Stasi neighbours.

I hear you, OP. Therapy is prohibitively expensive for so many of us. My partner would benefit from it for similar reasons to you, but like you, we also can't afford it right now. It's top of our priority list for if/when we can. It's horrible when people talk dismissively about Covid as if it was all a big lie or conspiracy, and act like it was overblown. It's changed and ruined so many peoples' lives and that should be acknowledged and respected.

Yes me. I don't look forward to the rest of my life anymore, it feels like something to "get through".

It's not just covid though, it's the rest of the shit going on - war in Russia, environmental issues, UK going down the shitter.

I can relate OP. In fact, my decline started ten years ago when I had a double bereavement. After that, things have seemed to be going very wrong. Trump and Brexit and all that and then the pandemic, the economy. The huge elephant in the room that is climate change. Everything feels dystopian and I unfortunately spend a lot of time catastrophising and wishing I had not had children (they are wonderful and I adore them but I am terrified about the world they are inheriting). I have found myself being tempted by conspiracy theories at times which is not something I thought I’d ever say.

So yes, my mental health is awful, and my physical health is poor too (probably caused mostly by anxiety). I feel like I have aged 20 years in the last ten.

I am on HRT (I’m 45) which helps a little, but not enough. Probably going to have to go back on SSRIs which I didn’t really want to do but might be my best option.

I think it’s understandable that lots of us are living with lasting trauma. Even if we didn’t personally lose loved ones.

I look back at 2020-21 and have to ask myself… did that really happen? I’ve blocked vast swathes of it all out. And yet when I’m trying to remember things in recent years I very much think of everything as Pre Covid and Post Covid.

So many repercussions for me personally. I can’t enjoy Christmas anymore. My trust in politicians (not that I had much) is now gone for good. Also - and maybe this is just because I’m over 40 - the feeling that everything is pretty grim and all I have ahead of me is raising teenagers, menopause and the eventual loss of my parents.

I can completely understand your perspective, and I'm so sorry that you feel like that. Weirdly I've found that the mental health issues that I've dealt with for most of my life have been so, so much better since the pandemic.

I've had pretty horrific health anxiety since I was a teenager which centred around the idea of a global pandemic. I remember sitting in a therapy session with a new therapist in 2018 and her asking me what my worst-case scenario was and I replied saying a global pandemic. She told me "well, that's very unlikely to happen, isn't it." And then it did! 2020 and 2021 were very hard but I think ended up being sort of immersion therapy for me, and after I had a particularly rough mental health episode in 2021 I've turned a corner that I never imagined I would. 2022 and 2023 have been some of the happiest, most stable years of my life, I feel free from a lot of the anxiety that used to have a really tight grip on my life. I truly live my life in a completely new way - it's changed me for the better. Life is too short! I also think my outlook on life had been in a strange place ever since I suffered a bereavement a few years ago and the pandemic seems to have reset that.

I think where I differ to some other posters is that I already had no faith in things like the NHS so none of that has been a shock to me, and I just don't worry about the big-picture world stuff that I can't help anymore. As long as my family and I are happy and okay, then I am happy and okay. Maybe that's selfish, but at this point I think staying focussed on the day to day things that impact us is what's best for me and my loved ones and I'm happy to do it.