To feel like we are just existing now

[Ghostlyglow]

In a miserable, joyless world of queues and masks. A couple of friends have lost their jobs this week. Where are we going with this?When will it end?

@Canalhouse

I’m nearly 60 and have lived through some incredibly shit times personally as well as through frightening world events. I’m resilient, optimistic and pretty strong. This current situation is really getting to me though. I feel frightened, angry and dismal. My fear comes from needing a government who is in control of this, who acts at the right time and listens to other countries who have been through the same situation. Our government at every single stage of trying to get this into a containment situation, has buggered every single thing up. I think I’d put up with restrictions and the ‘new normal’ if I felt there was a plan which was effectively being implemented but there’s just chaos at every turn.

My family are either overseas or at the other end of the country. I live alone. Bit by bit I’m doing less ok despite really trying hard to eat healthily, learn a new skill etc. I’m scared of getting COVID but I’m too scared be out and about much as I am supposed to be shielding.

If someone who is usually really good at dealing with crap, hard situations isn’t doing very well, I fear for those who are far more vulnerable.

I am really struggling too and am of a similar age to you, been though shit before, but this is a whole different ball game.

Financially we are fine, which I am so grateful for. But my husband is disabled and I am his full time carer. Our situation can be difficult and isolating even at the best of times, but at least we could get out, go to the gym (which had disabled friendly equipment) go for dinner now and again etc. Now there's nothing. My husband isn't on the shielding list but is vulnerable to the virus and like you, doesn't want to take risks, so hasn’t really been going out at all.

I also worry about the wider implications. So many pubs, restaurants and shops are going to go bust, will anything replace them or will our towns, villages and cities be a plethora of boarded up buildings? How will those people find work again? How will the NHS and dentistry catch up with the backlog of people in need of treatment?

@LavenderLilacTree

It will end when a vaccine e is available or when they find effective treatments. Existing is better than dying.

That's a moot point.

Quote paap1975

I rather be in the UK than in Europe even if the lockdown is two weeks behind. Do not feel sorry for me.

@Moondust001

Spot on.

I'm looking forward to the vaccine and then working towards getting back on track. In the mean time I'm not dwelling in the shit

I’m sorry but statements like this shock me. Looking forward to the vaccine? You do realise there will probably never be one? Enjoy yourself whilst waiting though!

@ConstantlySeekingHappiness Well, fortunately, you are not in a position to police what people choose to moan about. They can moan about whatever the hell they like, because that may just be the thing that sends someone into a spiral. I accept that perhaps you have little experience of poor mental health (and I hope that is the case) but something that may seem insignificant to you can be huge to someone else. Just because it's not on your 'approved list of moans' does not mean it's not valid to them.

I've had treatment cancelled because of lockdown and Covid19. Am I thrilled about that? Nope, I'm worried sick. I'm bored shitless because I'm shielding etc etc. But that's my life at the moment and hold no resentment for others who are having a different experience. We're all just doing what gets us through.

Honestly I think finally we are breathing now. So many of us fill out lives with appointments, classes, meetings.... now we have time to sit back and actually take stock, allow the world a little recovery from the human plague.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel for anyone losing their job, having to exist without the support they have had, trying to survive, trying to work and home school. There is definitely different stresses but also some stresses for a lot of people have been removed. Maybe we need to be bored, I think most of us have forgotten how to be!

I'm retired so in many ways it doesn't make alot of difference to me compared to younger people. I try very hard to be positive but there are still days when it gets me down.

You need to understand that people are suffering it's not just Covid and you shouldn't dismiss that. If you feel that way like I said this isn't the thread for you

I do understand that, please stop being so patronising.

And also stop trying to police who is and isn’t allowed to post on a thread. Perhaps this thread isn’t for you if you can’t consider someone else’s point of view - a view that extends further than some trivial complaints - without advising them to post elsewhere.

What is weird is that in any earlier time in history, we would be toiling away without the luxury of feeling bored or restless. Not suggesting what we feel is not valid but it helps to appreciate that we feel how we feel because we live privileged lives. For the vast majority of us, life is not do or die.

It will end when a vaccine e is available or when they find effective treatments.
Existing is better than dying.

And what do you suggest happens if that doesn't happen? Should we carry on social distancing, not getting close to family, wearing masks forever?

If that's what you want then fine, you carry on existing. Don't inflict it on the rest of us who want to actually live and are happy to take our chances.

Everyone is fed up by lockdown but our numbers still aren't at the manageable stage. It was a total balls-up to have a lockdown that was too late and not strict enough. If we'd got to grips with it properly like other countries who were in a similar position to us in the early stages, like Switzerland, where cases have dropped low enough that they can pretty much get back to normal.

The government really needs to stop opening new places up for at least a couple more weeks and properly get to grips with contact tracing. If there are outbreaks in hospitals, they need to put proper infection controls in place so that non-Covid parts of hospitals can start seeing patients at normal levels.

Lockdown was supposed to be to get the rate of infection low enough where it could be manageable by local containment and the time should have been used to put systems in place so that we could operate more normally again. The UK government has failed to do this, so we're going to end up with more restrictions in place for longer than many of our neighbours that handled things better.

@geekone There are many things I could say in response, but will merely say that I think you are posting on the wrong thread, and you perhaps need to find a 'isn't lockdown lovely' one so you can share your thoughts on there with people who haven't been contemplating taking their own lives as a result of this "breathing space".

dotty12345, why do you only see your teen for 15 minutes a day if you live in the same house? Asking because I'm so as well living with a teen.

Well I am tired and very envious of people who had time to craft/garden/diy/exercise/bake/read... Between work and homeschool, it's non-stop. We just all do what we have to.

What I find astonishing is the dementor attitude and the need to turn an inconvenience into a massive drama. All you were asked to do (note the PAST TENSE) was to stay home as much as possible.

Now we have posters comparing their "ordeal" with the lucky victims of WW2 who were dancing in the street together 😂 I am not making this up, it was on another thread, she must have confused historical movies with a musical
We have threads about "lost generation and lost childhood"

People need to get a grip and mainly stop pretending things were worst or the rules stricter than they really were (again, note the past tense...)

It was a total balls-up to have a lockdown that was too late and not strict enough.

That.
The British public would never had accepted it, but a much stricter lockdown would have been so much better. And much SHORTER too!

We might be a lot busier and a lot more populated than New Zealand, but we are an island too..

Both my running club and my son's football club have had sessions in the last week.
Carefully following guidelines of course.
I also went for an open water swim a couple of weeks ago.

I saw people, my son was with his friends.

It's not a return to normal, but it certainly is going the right way - for us anyway.

Same. My son is 15 months old and we’re all just existing in this house at the moment. Work, exhaustion, work, exhaustion. That’s it and it’s deeeepressing.

It says something when the most exciting thing happening for me this week is that I've got an appointment at the tip to get rid of some garden waste and clear out stuff for a house sale.

@geekone

Honestly I think finally we are breathing now. So many of us fill out lives with appointments, classes, meetings.... now we have time to sit back and actually take stock, allow the world a little recovery from the human plague.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel for anyone losing their job, having to exist without the support they have had, trying to survive, trying to work and home school. There is definitely different stresses but also some stresses for a lot of people have been removed. Maybe we need to be bored, I think most of us have forgotten how to be!

This kind of complacent, misanthropic fervour for suspending people's freedoms dressed up in sentiment and faux concern disgusts me.

It can basically be summed up as

"My life was shit, and now you must all be punished."

It does at least have the saving grace of being honest that their lockdown enthusiasm is not about saving the world from a killer virus.

So many of us fill out lives with appointments, classes, meetings

Um I still have all those things except now I have to juggle them with looking after the DC 24/7 as well. I was on back to back zoom calls yesterday.

I love living in Wales normally, but am fed up of BJ announcing easing various restrictions when they never apply to us. I was so looking forward to the shops reopening on Mon and only just realised that again, that won't apply to us in Wales. And don't get me started on the 5 mile thing...….not that any other bugger is actually adhering to it!

But to me life is still good - I live in a lovely area, have an amazing DH and DS, and we are all safe and well. We also are lucky enough to have dogs and horses to keep us occupied so have plenty of reason to get up in the morning.

I’d take schools atm. One if my dc is back and has completely changed to how he was. Online learning and friendships are a substitute only for so long, he was lagging. Now the other dc is.

As if the lunatics demanding a harsher lockdown would have wanted it to end any quicker.

We had good compliance because our lockdown was more reasonable.

And I'm glad to live in a country where people wouldn't accept locking children I doors for 6 weeks or welding people into their apartment buildings.

I would not have wanted a harsher lock down. Sun light and exercise is key, not least for children.