Some people enjoy patronising and depressing others

[Esprohuy]

Clearly everyone is having a different experience of the current situation. It seems to me from the posts here and elsewhere that MN is full of people searching for threads from people either asking genuinely when others think the restrictions may be reduced, or people expressing mental or emotional.distress due to being locked away, sometimes alone. The pattern is the OP posts, there are a couple of sympathetic/in the case of lockdown speculation dovish opinions then the Depressor swoops, usually with a formulation along the lines of:
If you think these restrictions will be lifted anytime soon you are a naïve fool. Christmas will be cancelled and things will never fully return to normal

In the threads expressing mental distress their standard formulation is a variety of:
FFS pull yourselves together. It's been (insert number) weeks, how the F do you think people coped in the war the. All you are being asked to do is stay in and watch Netflix

There seems to be a remarkably large number of people among this cohort who claim grandparental involvement in WW1/2 and have a partner/sibling serving as a front line NHS worker. These depressors seem to scour MN looking to pounce on people expressing povs like the above.

I guess it helps, to be grateful to not be that bitter. Gratitude and compassion brings about happiness. I had a bitter mother and never want to be like that. It sucks the joy from everyone - they do just shame you and think it is not in their nature to change. I tried for years, it didn't help.

@FallonSwift Thanks for that!

I had a bitter mother and never want to be like that

God, yes. Absolutely.

I've relished lockdown but that hasn't made me happy. I think its shown me that I need to make more of an effort with people. It's shown me that when I get depressed and anxious I want to be on my own and retreat into my own head. When this is over i am going to make more of an effort to be sociable.

Choose wisely though

Spot on with the risk assessment/ critical thinking stuff.

I was saying that to my DP who I haven't properly seen for 6 weeks now (longest ever time in 3 years of being together, and 10 years of knowing each other). We are both engineers and risk assessments are an every day occurrence. Critical thinking is like ingrained into my brain.

But nobody is permitted to think about this (unless your name is Chris Whitty). You CANNOT mix households.

Scientifically and statistically speaking, if we were to break social distancing, we would be at no more risk than any other couple in the country.

But if you even admit to thinking about this then you are patronised for "believing you are smarter than a scientist". Or patronised for thinking you are special. We're all suffering, remember?

Nobody is allowed to think. Thinking brings the hope that maybe this won't be so bad, and that is unacceptable to the Dementor.

Although the armchair experts calling him ‘Wittless’ and thinking they are having us all rolling in the aisles can take a humility pill.

@Chockablok yup. I've studied statistics at Uni for social sciences, my Dad who is very frail but still very sharp has studied it as maths and sciences. Both of us are well able to figure out that, if we follow the government guidelines, hes got a good chance of dying without having a proper family meetup, and also we might all be able to go and see him and he might not get ill, although there is a risk (which can be reduced with distancing, face masks etc).

I did raise this with a dementor recently and he couldn't seem to accept it was undesirable, unworkable and cruel for very elderly, frail and bereaved people to not see their families for a year or more, and also somehow it would affect him. But also wanted lockdown to go on forever.

There's definitely something in the revelling in not allowing people to think critically. It has kind of infantilised the population. Dementors in some way (nostalgia for childhood? Unresolved conflicts?) want this infantilisairon and black and white thinking to go on forever. So they have us in 2021 still gathered around the wireless waiting to hear what The Politburo say the R rate is, they want this, they need it. Any dissenting thinking, or creative thought processes are dismissed. The irony is, they need the non Dementors to provide them with the bouncy castles of speculation about holidays or visiting friends in order to have the sheer orgasmic joy of plunging the needle into the plastic and hearing the beautiful (to their ears) sound of air rushing out and knowing that they were responsible. They actually hate the fact that 98% of people have complied and are making the best of it.

I think this quote applies here:

“Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man’s spirit than when we win his heart” —Eric Hoffer

It makes them feel “powerful” in a world where they have no power and a chronically low sense of self worth.

It would be sad if it wasn’t so toxic to others

Thinking critically:

Erm... isn't the point that we're trying to not spread a potentially lethal virus. So if I have taken the children out for their walk in the morning, and I then go off in the evening for a 10k run in the arse end of nowhere with no one around to infect, what's the problem? It's within the realms of English law, and frankly I doubt I'm going to find the police down a random farm track/ public footpath anyway.
♟"What makes you so special? Stop looking for loopholes. PEOPLE WILL DIE!!!"
No, I don't think I'm special, just fitter than Michael Gove, and 1) I'd like to stay that way and 2) if I happen to be infected with a nasty respiritory infection, I'd rather keep my lung capacity to where it was last time I ran a race back in February.
♟If you touch a gate, PEOPLE WILL DIE!!! Exercise indoors like all the shielding people. STAY INSIDE!!!

Which has made me wonder... are the Dementors so obsessed with the people that will die because they want to turn them into witless Inferi?

@BogRollBOGOF 😁

See there is a legal loophole and that is to get yourself a dog. Everyone knows the virus 🦠 gives you a concession if you are with a dog, and that's why dogs can go out several times a day with no additional risk to dog owners.

But don't let your dog off leash in the empty field because that sounds like fun. Oh, I meant... that WILL spread the virus. No dementoring here I am just trying to save lives and stop the spread. Honest ♟

On the picnic thread I told them of the police guidance that it was ok but even then they just ignored it and said they hoped I got the virus, was an idiot etc. Anyone can see there's no risk to others from a walk and picnic with close family.

After that I thought there's no point just do your own risk assessment using guidance and common sense. Leave them to it

It's the smugness. The unrelenting, insufferable smugness and the way that you can see them really relish the opportunity to stick the boot in.

I don't like most people at the best of times But I am so fed up of all of this; it makes me want to stick my head under the surface of a chavvy sex pond and stay there.

It’s like on the ‘Would you do this for another 12 months’ thread that’s running now.
Cue a load of posters proclaiming ‘yes, because I DON’T WANT PEOPLE TO DIE’. As if those of us who want to get back to normal at some point, and those of us who display slightly more critical thinking skills are just selfish murderers.

it makes me want to stick my head under the surface of a chavvy sex pond and stay there

If I didn’t have three children under 7 that’s how I’d be spending my day . Occasionally popping my head out for gin and a curly wurly.

and the way that you can see them really relish the opportunity to stick the boot in

One thread a few weeks ago had a dementor popping in to say "Sorry to burst all your hopeful bubbles, but..." followed by some worst-case scenario presented as fact.

Remember a few weeks back when we were worried about overloaded hospitals and rationing of ventilators? You'd think most of us would see that as good news, but the biggest doom-monger voices haven't even acknowledged it, just skipped straight to "yes well the second wave will be even worse." Getting the impression some people were quite looking forward to the drama of it.

It definitely helps my own mental health to have a break from them for a bit. It can be so triggering if you had a parent like it.

Christ, they’re at it about Tom Moore and his birthday cards now. What a bunch of miserable fuckers they are. I’m about to go and plant a ♟ on the thread.

The dementors are hating the way businesses are finding safe ways of work and starting to get up and running again. The worst of them really do want martial law with soldiers on the streets and stasi at the door punishing those who break the rules.

I’m hugely envious of those you with chavvy sex ponds, my garden is too small and sloping for one. However after a trip to the supermarket I have unnecessary mint clubs and hot cross bun flavoured fudge, the purchase of which will surely cause seventy trillion people to die, so life isn’t too bad.

My DM is a natural dementor. She's always been a worrier, but it got progressively worse as she aged, to the point that now it's unbearable trying to have a conversation with her for longer than a few minutes. Everything is the worst possible thing to ever happen and she is obsessed with the past and raking over old wounds.

That must be awful and so draining @FallonSwift. Mine was exactly the opposite, she alwayś found the best in everyone and everything, which is one of the reasons, I suspect, that the crematorium was packed for her funeral. I imagine that’s quite unusual for someone of 97.

There were a few "I predict riots" and "Why aren't people rioting" threads.
Sometimes I think there posters who are disappointed there haven't been any riots.

To be fair a riot might brighten up my dull day

Haven't you noticed it's the same people that keep asking for a riot. First Brexit and then the election and now Corona. Then they will be dementing about people rioting