To think people living alone have been appallingly neglected?

[TurtleTortoise]

From the beginnning of lockdown, they have allowed children to move between households. Children were allowed to potentially spread covid (we didn't know then that they might not be spreaders) presumably because the risk of emotional harm from being separated from a parent was considered too great. So why the fuck, over eight weeks later, have they still not considered the harm being caused to people living alone?

There was a mention in the government document released last week that in the next stage, when schools open, they might change social rules for people living alone, eg. to be allowed to mix mormally with one household. For a start, WTF?? How on earth are those two things comparable enough that single people have to wait until multiple children and adults can be in a school before they can hug even ONE other person? If they delay schools going back, does that mean they'll forget us too? Are we supposed to wait until September?

Secondly, I looked specifically for articles over the last week that may be speculating or have further information about this. The only thing I came up with was this: Like millions, I've paid a 'single penalty' in lockdown – so why is no one talking about it?

The last hug I had was on March 9 — yes, so important I know the date. I’m on my own and feeling it. No love, no human touch. No hugs, no hand-holding. I hate this. Touch makes us feel safe, calms us and releases the ‘love hormone’ oxytocin. I miss oxytocin.
...
Those of us who are alone “are in a uniquely difficult position right now,” she adds. “We are social creatures; we are programmed from birth to connect with other people — our whole biological system (brain, body and central nervous system) is hard-wired to form attachments with others. We need other people. What’s the worst punishment inflicted on people in prison? Solitary confinement."

This was the only relevant article that came up in my search. So why aren't there more? Why isn't anyone talking about it, or better still actually making policy to address it? How can they be allowed to do this to single people without breaking some kind of human rights thing about right to family life or something?

I am really struggling, as is probably obvious. I'm actively being traumatised by this, on top of pre-existing trauma. Meeting one person at a time from 2m away just doesn't cut it. Why haven't they recognised the importance of human touch? And anyway, anyone can do that - why havent they considered people living alone specifically, before others? Why must we wait until it's safe for everyone to meet, when we have greater need and lower risk in terms of the number of people we'd pass it on to?

It seem so cruel. As if it's not devastating enough already to be without partner and children! Now our close friends and loved ones are torn away by this cold-hearted government, and no-one seems to care.

There is social media and the phone. Use them.

Who shall I phone? Looking in my phone I have my DCs school, the GP, the breakdown service and my dead parents. Which one will be up for a social chat?

and yes, physical contact would be good. I haven't had positive physical contact in years. I'd welcome a hug from just about anybody right now.

I'd be interested to know how many people voting "YABU" have lived on their own during lockdown!!

I do also agree that in the discussion around lockdown single people have barely been talked about - it’s well known that there are many, many ways that lockdown is affecting people negatively. But being alone doesn’t seem to have been included in that discourse, which may explain why you’re getting a bit of a tough time here OP. Loneliness just isn’t widely recognised as being as damaging as it is to mental health.

Things can be bad without being compared to other bad things, and a bit of recognition that your particular ‘group’ is suffering does help in validating the feelings you’re having, and in turn make you feel less alone.

I feel for you, but it's almost impossible to issue "rules" that are both simple enough for the people to understand without quibbling about, yet nuanced enough to address individual needs. I think the best rule would be "apply common sense, know your vulnerability and your needs and set a risk appetite for social contact accordingly", but that is way too complicated to pass muster. I live with dh and ds2 and would be happy to keep distancing, because we have each other and can wfh, for a long time yet if that helped keep the R rate down, even if that meant people living alone were seen to have considerably more freedom. I do think you are one of the groups for whom it's been particularly hard.

Some of these replies are really quite dismissive.
Grow up because I miss human contact?

People constantly go on about how important mental health is, a few singletons come along and say we are struggling and we get told to grow up. That's helpful. Thank you.

I'll just fuck off somewhere else and struggle yes?

Oh wait.

emmathedilemma if you've lived alone during lockdown you by definition haven't spent lockdown in sole charge of dependants, juggling childcare/ caring tasks with full time work or in lockdown with five or six people all home 24/7 in a 3 bed flat without a moment alone - as this is the only time lockdown has happened nobody thinking they are the most hard done by, neglected group has lived any of the other scenarios!

If people have to have experienced all the scenarios to vote then nobody is entitled to an opinion.

YANBU OP. My best friend loves alone. She goes out to food shop and exercise but has no physical contact with another person.
She also isolated early as she had symptoms but subsequently tested negative. As such it’s been 3 months for her. Add to that a milestone birthday she spent alone in her flat.
I would love to go for a socially distanced walk with her but she’s over an hour away and there are no toilets open in her local park.
I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. For now we’ll have to manage with zoom calls, messages and fantasising about our plans for once this is over.

This sounds an awful post over who has it worse. Crikey an adult person feeling jealous of children? I’m sorry I don’t understand it.
It must be hard, hard mentally & emotionally to be alone however to get tit for tat over who has it worse is very strange. My situation is oppersite & heavily pregnant with a one year old and no support whilst DH keyworks has been maybe hardest time in our lives. No worse than thousands of others, everyone has it tough let’s not compete

Totally agree OP All single people should have been required to keep working and take their chances with the virus to prevent them becoming bored or socially isolated. Clearly lockdown provided them with no benefit at all.

Why not retrain in one of the keyworker professions? Then you'll be required to risk your health in any future pandemic and wont risk being ordered to stay at home?

FatRascalsAndJam the OP has invited comparison in her first sentence - she's complaining that children of divorced parents are allowed to see both their parents! The "grow up" comments probably are a response to the petulance of complaining that small children are allowed to see their parents and that this isn't fair because they are getting something single adults aren't!

People constantly go on about how important mental health is, a few singletons come along and say we are struggling and we get told to grow up.

what do you want people to say? There are plenty of things you could do, no one is locking you inside your home, and look: you are actually communicating with total strangers right now.

You could chose to communicate with local people instead and do many other things

The fact it's harder for other people doesn't make it any less hard for you, OP. But you're not alone, others are feeling it too. I've no words of wisdom for you other than to take care of yourself and try not to dwell too much on the whens and what ifs. It will be over, the normal may change but you will get a life back, hopefully sooner rather than later.

But the thing is, people acknowledge the difficulty faced by keyworkers, parents juggling working with home schooling, those living in overcrowded conditions.

I don’t agree that single people should be going tit for tat in a game of who has it hardest, but the fact is that there has been less discussion around how this particular group has been affected, despite the effects of loneliness on mental health.

If you’re already feeling lonely and isolated, being told you should be grateful you’re not stuck in an overcrowded flat with 5 kids isn’t going to make you feel better. Plus, living alone doesn’t mean you aren’t also facing other challenges of lockdown - loss of income, health concerns, living in poor quality housing without outside space, worries for vulnerable family members, plus the same everyday struggles that existed pre-lockdown, yet you have no one there for physical comfort.

I don’t even live alone, but can we’ll appreciate the difficultly.

@AllIMissNowIsTheSea I read the OP as highlighting that there are caveats in place for certain households to mix, so by extension concessions could be made for single people.

The lack of empathy in some of these replies - wow

Most people I know who live alone are surrounded by people at work all day, or are out and about in parks, on walks, catching up on stuff at home, online, and yes, meeting people.

I live alone and yes am still work, but at home instead of in the office. So i am most certainly not surrounded by people at work all day, I am sitting at my laptop alone. I go for walks but have never bumped into anyone I know. I did have two meetings in park at the weekend, my first in person conversations since 22nd March.

Those of you who aren't huggy or tactile and aren't bothered about being touched and who think we are being ridiculous are very lucky - I wish I had no need of human touch but I do. Going a few months without touching someone/being touched may be fine for some of you, but it really isn't for me and I don't think that makes me odd, or pathetic or needy or somehow unable to cope with life as some seem to be suggesting.

My hug would ideally come from my boyfriend or close friends, but as a PP said anyone would do at the moment! And no I can't just go and move in with someone as that would leave my flat empty and invalidate my contents insurance. Not to mention that the only person who lives close enough for me to move to and has room for me to sleep wouldn't have room in their flat for me to be able to wfh from there. Keeping in contact online is great, but for me and others it absolutely is not the same as seeing someone in person.

@AllIMissNowIsTheSea it's not a competition to see who has it worse, my point was more around those implying that there's no hardship to be had in a lack of human contact for 8 or more weeks!

FatRascalsAndJam a post worded differently might have got that acknowledgement, but one complaining that it isn't fair that children are allowed to see their parents if there are no special rules to ensure single people get hugs is never going to go well.

I don't know anyone who's shut themselves away entirely.

A person’s social network tends to reflect their own circumstances. If you live in an area where most people live in houses and not flats, you’re unlikely to know many people living in flats. (No chatting through windows for flat-dwellers!) If you have kids, it’s likely many of your social network also have kids.

I haven’t spoken to another human being, apart from a very small handful of phone calls/Zooms (maybe two Zooms/FaceTimes a month) since early March. My entire family are dead, my friends all have so many extra responsibilities and demands on their time now that they just aren’t available to chat on the phone, I’ve completely lost contact with all the people I used to see through work who were my main source of social contact (work involves a constant revolving stream of new faces, rather than a fixed pool of co-workers), and I moved to a new area right before this started. And all my mental health support has been stopped.

Realistically I can’t see or speak to another person until it’s safe for me to use public transport to do so, and even if that happened it would be hard to convince my friends who have families and go out to work to let me visit.

An awful lot of people are completely isolated, and I don’t know what the answer is, but it does feel like we’re being ignored or treated with hostility for pointing out how damaging total isolation is on mental health.

HandfulOfFlowers, that's easy for you to say when it's not your family member dying 20-30 years before their time. We don't need to accept that people will die at all. We need a better more logical system, risk assessments etc and should have done from the start. A person living alone and following guidelines being visited by a family member or friend also following guidelines would never have caused more of a spread. Sadly it was not the people living alone that never stuck to it really, it was people that are self entitled and mostly not living alone!

emmathedilemma voting VABU does not imply there is no hardship (you might infer that, but you can infer anything you like, it isn't the implication), it implies that the OP has written a post which people perceive to be unreasonable. The language used and the comparisons and claims in the openning post are such that a lot of forum users judge the poster to be unreasonable in what she wrote.

Of course there's scope for lonely and isolated people to get contact. If things are that bad then you are vulnerable and may benefit from someone coming into care for you (note you would still need distance tho so no hugging). You are also allowed to move in with someone so that may be an option and can also end in a hug perhaps? Who would u usually hug? Maybe start with them. Can they come to you and look after you or can you move in with them?

We have a friend who lives on his own. He suffers with heart and lung conditions. He regularly suffers from his health problems, depression, needs days on his own without any contact, and occasionally calls out to a friend for a chat as he's in a bad place. He is a lovely person in his 50s and has two good friends who totally support him (DH being one of them), and one good thing is he can confide in them without them putting undue pressure on him.

Since Covid, we found out he's phoned the Samaritans twice, both times they've said they'll send the police around to support. First time he refused the police, this time he accepted. Apparently he can self refer to a mental health unit within a mile from home. He hasn't done so yet, but is seriously considering it. It so hope he does in the hope it'll give him support he can take forward for the future, and also the fact he'll have company - even if it's say a brief check up from doctors/nurses in PPE, someone making sure he eats properly. It's so sad. They'll be many other like him.

Those of you who aren't huggy or tactile and aren't bothered about being touched and who think we are being ridiculous are very lucky - I wish I had no need of human touch but I do. Going a few months without touching someone/being touched may be fine for some of you, but it really isn't for me and I don't think that makes me odd, or pathetic or needy or somehow unable to cope with life as some seem to be suggesting.

This, many times over.

My partner and I are in a committed relationship but maintain separate households at the moment because we live 30 mins from each other and our older teenagers are at different schools (he is a sole parent, as am I). He and I live part of the week at his house and part of it at mine. We effectively live together but at the start of this, we followed the rules and located at our own homes with our children. Our family is being torn apart by this now, it's gone on so long. I'm furloughed and he WFH, neither of us sees anyone else bar doing essential shopping.

Our MH and that of our children is being affected by this prolonged separation and disruption to our normal life. Neither of us are in vulnerable categories or high-risk occupations. We are all really struggling. This is not healthy.