OP. Every single day, I drop my kids at school with such a full heart. My kids' teachers sent out visit-the-classroom videos which made me cry. Their semi-forced enthusiasm and genuine effort to appear optimistic at a time of great spiritual darkness really made me sad. I know how hard those teachers are working. I know how impossible it is to have to try and keep children's well-being at the forefront while your own takes a back seat. It's a thankless task. It is really, really, really fucking hard and people like you have my deepest respect. You are keeping this ship from sinking. People like you in your position are part of that great engines feeding rarified stability into this stability-eating machine consuming our collective well-being. You're doing this faster than you can keep up. And it is utterly exhausting.
And your post is why I feel angry when posters say things like "OOOhhh all the drama! Everything will be alright. We survived the wars! This is just a challenge which we'll overcome." Yes, it's true. We will get through this. Of course we will. But some of us will get through it by the skin of our teeth. I am sick and tired of the tedious platitudes I read on MN because they totally and utterly devalue the experiences of teachers, doctors, nurses, delivery drivers, police, and on and on and on and on. Sanctimonious platitudes silence the unhappy. You're not allowed to be scared or unhappy or angry. We talk each other's jobs down. "I'm in a worse position than you. Why are you moaning? You have a term time job! I'm more exposed to the virus than you are." It is shitty for everyone... every single one of us. Some of us have it harder than others. And we wonder why we have a mental health crisis? Because people who are so alone in their fears cannot even voice their unhappiness and woe on a forum without being condemned for it. All of the competitive resentment and saccharine-soaked platitudes completely undermine the valid fears of those who are going without. My husband is a GP. I am not privy to his consultations. That would be an enormous breach. What I do know is that my DH is broken. He spends his whole day trying to manage the unfixable. He can't magic money for a hungry family spiraling into mental health crises. He can't bring wellness or decent care even to the elderly patients no longer being regularly tended to by district nurses run off their feet in ways they've never known throughout their entire careers. My DH goes in and cleans up the piss and the shit of elderly patients dying alone in their flats. I write this knowing that some fucker on MN will probably try and report DH to the police because he's breaking some fucking rule by being a decent human being. By next spring, I won't have a brother anymore because everything has been so slowed down, it's too late to treat his cancer. Maybe a vaccine will allow us a normal funeral.
Platitudes sugar-coat the reality of this invisible enemy: Covid-19 and glide right over the next huge hurdle to fall, Brexit and above all, the impact the combined two are having on people. These are gloomy times. We just have to put one foot in front of the other. We are ALL allowed to have a moan, even those with a job and a steady income. This is not some race to the bottom here. The impact of covid-19 and the worry of a no-deal Brexit gather to create collective stress and anxiety. It's really important to allow people a safe platform where they can vent without being bullied or being labelled as 'dramatic' or a 'neghead'. No one should have to just 'suck it up'. We do, by default, but it's cathartic to just let shit out and verbalise our fears.