Anyone still suffering lockdown fallout?

[EmmaEmerald]

I don’t want to tag any of the original people who helped me out a lot as I know this thread will attract a lot of nasty folk

but every so often I feel absolutely in shock still at how the fallout goes on.

suppose I’m seeking reassurance it won’t be like this forever but it might be, I guess.

Do you mean you personally are still in lockdown? Or are you adjusting still to life after lockdown? I'm still adjusting, I'm not sure I'll ever be truly the same. I can't stand going out to eat anywhere.

Sorry to hear things are still hard op

Do you want to say what kind of fall out or more for others to join in

I’m still affected by it. So much happened and it’s all now been swept away and never discussed again. It’s made me not enjoy staying at home in the same way. Feel trapped being at home too much.

My body hasn't recovered yet. I feel 100 years old and resentful I've lost my fitness and mobility.

What kind of fall out are you referring to?

What kind of fall out are you referring to OP? Can you link your last thread?

i miss how quiet the streets and traffic was,

My son (20) has only just started to overcome the depression he developed as a result of the lockdowns.

It's not just you OP.

I’m glad he’s overcoming it. Sometimes I think I am but then it goes wrong.

im being careful what I say here but hoping one of the originals will see this and just say hi. Understandably I think a lot of us don’t accept PMs.

I guess I’m the opposite - my DH was on life support during the second lockdown. It was an awful time as me and DS could not visit him and didn’t know if he’d ever come home. Thankfully he recovered and the experience has given us all a new respect for the sanctity of life and an appreciation of rach day.

Life changed. Hugely. The impacts will be felt by many, for so long. But we do adjust to our contemporary reality.

Hello @EmmaEmerald
It feels like DS2 is finally getting to where he should be.
DS1 is now an unsociable teenager, he was taught that human contact beyond the home was non-essential, despite rule-bending, but the fact that he was prohibited from going to school for so long, and it was illegal for children of his age to meet and be supervised was not a healthy message for an autistic child who was diagnosed at the end of 2019.

Older relatives became much more reclusive. Some have died anyway. My extended family feels weakened. Some relatives we got to see again. One we didn't because of the extended toll of travel and carehome restrictions. By the time it became viable to travel and see her, she was so deteriorated and wouldn't have recognised the DCs. We last saw her as a family in late 2019... she died summer 2022.

My social life is finally normalising. It seemed to take until 2023 for people to really find their social confidence or get over burnout and want to get back to more normal patterns.

2022-23 had a deluge of non-Covid health issues and bereavements to deal with while already not being on full power, so there's been plenty of life-crap and instability to deal with anyway.

Emotionally I've felt more like myself in the past year. 2021 was spent in a depression. That winter lockdown and slow re-opening sent me into a state of numb inertia. It is harder to self-motivate and chivvy the family since then.

I am healing, but it's been slow and life-shit hasn't helped. Normal life transitions have felt disjointed, not natural.

@BogRollBOGOF So good to see you! Thank you for replying. Any hugs going?

Sorry to hear of your troubles. It’s sadly unsurprising that extended family links have changed as well.

There was probably never a cat’s chance in hell of my friends coming back. I blamed myself for a long time before realising it wasn’t my fault.

I think about 2019 and want to weep. I can’t list how many things have changed permanently or not gone back to a 2019 without inviting in all the unpleasant posters - but you will know what I mean.

It’s wanting to go back to a place that doesn’t exist. Hiraeth. I think I’ve spelt that correctly, not sure. 😂

It’s my birthday soonish and it seems to be set now with mum and sis that “we mustn’t mention Emma’s birthday”. I used to love having a big birthday do every year.

I can’t get them to understand, I’m not remotely fussed about my age, but the way my life changed is the problem. And no one to do the stuff my friends used to do for birthdays.

I’m not particularly close to extended family so the experiences there kind of don’t register with me. And I forget a lot of things because my normal mental and social stimulation is gone and has been gone nearly 4 years now. Have searched high and low for replacement. Might as well as join a monastery for all the good it’s done.

I had a breakdown last year and initially thought it was due to caring for mum but now think it’s more about lockdown.

Just nice to share that with someone who will get it and not tell me off. You will recall the suicidal ones being told to pull ourselves together 🤷🏻‍♀️

hope your recovery continues and best wishes to the family xx

edited to add - I don’t say this stuff to anyone IRL, I’m not dumping on anyone.

It’s had an impact on our finances and therefore our lifestyle, aside from any other negatives.

I’ll always be in fallout from lockdown, 2021 was the year I lost my dh very suddenly to cancer, could only have 5 people to my hospital wedding and only 1 child.

dd2 completely disengaged from school and all 3 of my girls have been affected badly by the trauma we all went through.

i don’t go out hardly, feel safer at home, not because I’m scared of getting covid but because I got so used to staying indoors.

nothings the same anymore

Lockdown was awful.

But it's made me appreciate my friends, family, lifestyle, job, travel all the more.
I'm embracing life as fully as I possibly can, because you only get one shot at it.

Yes, a lot was taken away from us, so now is the time to take it back

Yes finances as well too here. It's so strange with school things too thinking of the chunk of life they missed - nativities etc. I suddenly have teenagers and I don't feel ready!!!

I have been in A and E with one of mines mental health. Not sure it's lockdown induced but what is shocking is how 12hour waiting times has become a things. Its horrific. I sat up all night with her on a waiting room it was so bad. It wasn't like that before covid.

OP what is it that you're finding difficult. I didnt see your original thread can we help? Sometimes just talking it through helps.

Cast- and yes to taking things back now! I don't have the social networks I had and we have completely fallen out of inviting people over. In some ways I like that... but its not doing us much good!

Well we all went through a Global Pandemic that hadn't happened for over 100 years!!

Of course we are all affected to a greater or lesser degree! This event was outside our living memory and hopefully won't recurr for at least another 100 years.

Millions died. Millions have had their health permanently impaired. Economies around the world are fucked and will be for many years to come.

It was a staggering event. I often think people just don't comprehend the vastness or seriousness of it.

I think everyone is affected by the economic problems caused by lockdowns, and a generation of children had their education disrupted. Some may never come back from that. Particularly those whose parents weren't in a position to help them.

From what I heard on the radio diseases such as cancer have increased because people couldn't get symptoms checked because of lockdowns. Late diagnosis resulting poorer prognosis.

I'm so sorry that it affected you so badly. Some people struggled far more than others because of their circumstances.

I think that the cancer rates might also be related to Covid- there’s research to say that it accelerates cancer and I think it also causes dander as well as heart disease and strokes etc

I never got back my social life. I'm incredibly lonely and isolated.

I feel cheated of four years, at the beginning I was just nudging into my new decade, now I’m heading out of it, with nothing to show for it. Been no where, done nothing. Can’t even say I’ve a super tidy loft.

I haven’t got back to all the things I did before because we are still shielding a bit, so gatherings of large numbers I avoid (very much health related, not mine but close relative). I get told off for not doing those things but I’d rather steer clear than lose my relative.

im not sure I’ll ever feel safe anywhere ever again, ie on a plane, a big church wedding.

just read that back and I sound super depressed, I’m not, I am sad about life though. I’ve been making an effort recently to go out a bit more but I think life as I knew it before March 2020 is a ship long sailed.

I hope you find your way back OP, or perhaps I should say a way forward, was there anything you were really into, a hobby, knitting? Something, that you could gently push yourself to get back to where maybe there’s a local group you could join and build new friendships. 💐

I don’t think personally… but at work (primary school) we do very much think that the impacts on children are ongoing.