I've been shopping continuously through the year, from 3 baren supermarkets to pick up fresh supplies for a top-up shop during peak panic buying (had built up preparation shopping through February, so was not on a quest for bogrolls or pasta), through the queues and restricted hours in April, wondering if I could buy rapidly growing DS some essential "non-essential" shorts. It was odd as something changed by the week, screens here, barriers there. I joked at the till that it was going more like the Crystal Maze each week.
The first couple of weeks did feel strangely Handmaids Tale. Eerily quiet. Still limited stocks and restrictions on quantities. That eased off.
By May, things felt relatively normal apart from the extra screens. Hours had normalised and I haven't queued since then because I go at a naturally quiet slot anyway.
In June, the non-essential shops opened, and I've been to town and retail units, stocked up on the needs of growing children, made a few impulse buys.
It's the masks that have tipped me for a variety of reasons. Warm humid air has always been a trigger for sensory overload, and I have form for panic attacks, particularly in a situation where I feel trapped (shops/ queues were a trigger especially when pregnant). I'm also a lip reader and can't cope with the muffling of speech quality from the masks and screens and loss of 2/3s of facial movements. I'm sensitive to faces and have been unsettled by things like the stupid selfie filters that distort facial feature or turn people into animals. There were masks around early pandemic, but they were an anomaly and faded off by May, but the expectatation that everyone has to wear one is my limit. I am trying. I had a panic attack 5 minutes into my weekly shop at the weekend and the mental choice of risk panic attack by complying or risk verbal abuse from non-complience is absolutely not helpful. I cope better in a setting that lasts about 5 minutes in total with a couple of things to get. I find it's head down, breathe, grab what I need, breathe, go to till, breathe, get out ASAP. Social distancing and manners are likely to be collateral damage. No eye contact, no faces, breathe. A weeks shop is too long, too much mental processing for my limits without risking overload. I have coped with two medical appointments which were calmer environments and involved sitting or lying still and that was better. (For dietry reasons online shopping is not practical) As someone who still finds glasses annoying after over 20 years, and has always struggled with humid air triggering hyperventilating, this problem is not going awsy with a patronising bit of practice around the house.
So yes it is pretty distopian. Unnatural social controls. Overly clinical, sanitised environments (masks, screens) Fear of castigation for getting it wrong/ non- complience. Fear of the unseen enemy- virus (except I ceased to be significantly concerned about that 3 months ago when community transmission plummeted, and I fear it no more than flu, norovirus, shingles or any other illness)