To be more upset by the effects of Covid-19 on our society than the virus itself.

[TheoriginalLEM]

If someone had said this to me at the start of this i would have said yabu! That we needed to act quickly and decisively, which we did (just too fucking late).

Lockdown felt like an extended holiday if im honest, but we bumbled along, self employed DP wound up his business partly due to covid and got a permanent job. This is good, we reconnected and took a break from the world and listened to the birds.

He were are in the second wave and now it feels like its really going to shit. Im back at work and our way of working has been turned upside down. Clients are (understandably) not happy. My exams are fucked and i am having to do an alternative that is far from ideal, the examining body have been making it up as they go along and changing the goal posts on an almost daily basis. Causing untold extra work and stress.

My mum went into hospital in august, i have had to take the decision that she needs to be in a nursing home (not covids fault). We struggled to find anywhere to accept her, we had to chose a home with next to zero information and havent been able to visit. Furthermore, mum will go on friday and i wont be able to visit for, well, who the fuck knows?? Gaining access to medical/social worker help is practically impossible. I am going to see my mum tomorrow with the knowledge i might not see her again. She has some idea of the situation but no real understanding.

My dd is year 11 and struggling with her GCSEs, shes working flat out but is anxious that the schools will close before her mocks next month and the uncertainty about her exams is stressing her out.

We have no leadership and it feels like we are on the egde of societal meltdown. Im scared

I don’t think YABU

I personally don’t think we are on the brink society breaking down but it will be a long difficult winter

We are mostly too comfortable for that to happen. It’s a depressing thought of not seeing people love and that we just don’t know how this is going to play out along with Brexit makes many anxious

Everyone seems low in mood that I know (apart from children I think this will depend on age) and some are really anxious

How our lives have changed at times it’s mind blowing to think about the impact this virus has had in the whole world that makes me feel overwhelmed at times

I hear you. I'm nhs and work is exhausting - and we dont have an overwhelming load of Covid patients! It's all the changes, the PPE, the staff isolating, the continual bloody swabbing. Everything is so much harder.
More broadly the inability to plan or behave like normal human beings is having a terrible effect.

pandafunfactory I’m nhs too

The constant changes are exhausting and it becomes confusing and agree everything is harder. Constant management meetings it’s fine for managers working from home to come up with a load of new ideas for us to take on yet little thought is given to us managing day to day work in a far more stressful environment

I know how you feel. My mum died really unexpectedly during covid & I feel cheated out of the time I should have had with her. We couldn't visit throughout as she was shielding - then when she was hospitalised we also couldn't visit (although she was fully expected to recover) so the only time I seen her was in ITU to say goodbye for an hour and I had to go alone. It's really really shit & I feel so bitter about it. On top of that I've been working flat out during this on the 'frontline' so to speak - so I do feel cheated that I've put myself at risk to help other people get home safe to their families & yet I don't get the same. I know it doesn't make logical sense & obviously I do want patients to recover and get home it just stings a little bit. It's really tough and people are struggling now, i think it's because there's no end in sight but better days are coming.

I understand how you feel. In March I was very supportive of the lockdown, thought the government should have acted faster, but was willing to give them benefit of the doubt and trust that they knew better than me.

Now it feels like lockdowns and restrictions have no aim in sight except slightly delaying the inevitable spread of the virus. The government had 6 months to sort out testing and track and trace and have fucked it up - what is magically going to change in the next few months? Even when there is a vaccine they have said they won't be giving it to the under 50s, so I feel now like it is inevitable my family and I will get the virus, inevitable that it will spread through the population- what has been the benefit of the sacrifices we have made? We have obeyed the rules to the letter - have we helped save lives, or will the people who the lockdown saved just die now instead?

Meanwhile my dad is terminally ill with a terrible and progressive disease. Back in early March we were talking about how the only thing we could do to help us get through this was to spend time together and make memories while he was still able. I feel I've been robbed of the chance to spend time with him while he still had reasonable quality of life, and he has been robbed of the ability to enjoy and make the most of his remaining time. It has been traumatising for my oldest child who has suddenly been reintroduced to a very changed grandfather after months of not seeing him in person. And my mum has been robbed of the care and medical support she otherwise should have been getting to help with his care during this time, since only covid is a priority.

I was happier during the lockdown. At least with the kids at home all day I was distracted by putting them first and trying to minimise the damage to them, and I didn't have time to think about all this. Now I feel on the verge of tears every day. Work is stressful and without any of the fun parts or social elements, we can't meet anyone at weekends because of being a family of 4 and all our friends have children. Going out and doing anything involves some extra type of stress and hassle. I watched a TV programme the other day and was envious of the freedom the characters had - just to go for a coffee with whoever they wanted, meet up with big family groups, give someone a hug, even take their kids to a ballet class without having to stand outside in the rain, or take them to the park without worrying about whether they will get too close to someone and upset them. It made me realise how limited my life is now and how hard it is to find joy in things.

Totally agree with you op.

Couldn't agree more, but it is an unpopular view

@pandafunfactory @ItsAlwaysSunnyOnMN

It must be exhausting! Thank you for all you are doing.

@Fromthetopmakeitdrop I'm sorry about your mum. I lost my mum years ago and it still hurts. I can't imagine being in that position now, and I'm sorry you both were.

I feel the same.

Completely agree OP. And to the nhs staff I completely agree with you.

@Fromthetopmakeitdrop @rainylake

Both of your posts are incredibly sad. My heart goes out to you both. Your posts also highlight to me that as a society, we haven’t got the balance of COVID health and all other health right. I strongly feel that we are going to see lots more problems, both in terms of health and society, because of the neglect some areas are getting now.

Thank you. I do understand how important it is we adhere to the guidelines of course, but can I honestly say would I have followed them as stringently had I known my mums last few months on earth were spent in the house without us & her grandchildren? No. I would have taken time off work and seen her every day. But of course that's not how the world works, and as someone who works in covid wards I would not wish it on my worst enemy. I think only when you have multiple deaths per shifts and thats your new 'normal' of course you want people not to lose hope with the rules and measures in place. I'm not frightened of catching it as I'm lucky enough not to be in a vulnerable category but my worst fear is not knowing & passing it on to a patient. That's also a burden nhs staff carry each day & we are expected to carry on as though it isn't taking a toll on us. I don't know what the answer is honestly, but to think this is our life for the foreseeable future is very depressing indeed.

I can understand people feeling like that, but I don't feel like that myself. Lockdown felt like a holiday for me too, but although I'm now more into the 'fed up with it now' mindset, I'm an optimist at heart. Like other periods of disease and disaster throughout history, it will pass. Life will go back to normal, either due to a vaccine or due to immunity. The Tories are useless arses, but I don't believe we are on the edge of societal meltdown. I have a Year 11 dd too. She's a bit too chilled about her studies tbh and she's hoping mocks and GCSEs will be cancelled and she'll get centre-assessed grades.

I do realise that, like everyone, my outlook is massively affected by my own (in my cass relatively fortunate) situation though.

One thing will take a long time to recover from is the conflict between "we are sacrificing our young people" and "the vulnerable are being left to rot". Whichever side you are on, it's a bit of a jolt to find out how many of your fellow citizens feel you are expendable, whether it's because "you've only got about 6 months to live anyway" or because you see your whole future being thrown on the scrpaheap.

YANBU to be more upset by the way your own family has been affected by anti-COVID measures more than you are by the disease itself, because it sounds like that is what has caused the adverse impacts in your case.

That doesn't mean all our lives wouldn't have been even worse if these steps hadn't been taken though. Your family members (and not just the obviously elderly/vulnerable) could have been seriously sick, if not dead. Even if they weren't actually infected, emergency treatment for other issues could have been entirely unavailable for six months by now if the health service had been utterly

I think the restrictions are starting to take the piss now. We can work and we can buy like good little bots. Its becoming ridiculous

I am most upset by the worst Prime Minister in our history and his response.

I agree with you, the numbers of deaths are really meaningless to me, no one I know has been personally affected and if any of my relatives did die, it would just be one of those things.

The cancelling of education and impact restrictions have had on young people is unforgiveable, and something we will be paying the price for for a generation. The loss of jobs and as yet unknown impact on the economy is also disastrous and has far reaching consequences.

I don't have the answers but it's a massive problem. If another 150,000 mainly over 80s had died, would that have been worse? Not for me, as I don't know anyone who is over 80. I think anyone who is that age has had a good innings tbh, though I know that's an unpopular opinion.

I have to say I don't agree that action taken in march was too late. It has always been clear to me that the community epidemic should have dropped like a stone after 2 weeks (otherwise, how would a circuit break work?). It's pretty clear that we all stayed at home while thousands of people caught the virus every day in hospitals and care homes. Most of the people who died after April clearly caught it in one of these settings, not in the supermarket.

YANBU at all. I'm sorry about your mum. I have some extremely ill people in my family and it is hard.
I'm self employed, trying my hardest to earn pennies, can't pay all my bills right now but I plod on because what's the alternative? I hate all the changes, it is exhausting trying to understand it all, making sure my business is compliant, and constantly worried on the off chance someone complains I'm doing it wrong.

The biggest thing I dislike, is how as a society, everyone is turning on one another. It's really ugly.

I feel the same - the first lockdown felt like a temporary thing, to overcome Covid. Now (I'm in tier 2) it doesn't feel like it's about the virus anymore; it simply feels like I used to live under a government regime where we had civil liberties, and now I live under a government regime where I don't. I'm not a conspiricist; I of course believe corona exists. But it doesn't feel to me like it's about anything to do with illness any more - the situation has transcended that. Even if we had a vaccine tomorrow I feel the current situation would remain. Scared people would continue to shout the loudest and the government would obey. Fear would rule. There's a sense of permanence in this there never was before.

It would almost be laughable that all this happened over a virus that for most people has no symptoms, or at worst manifests as a bit of a cold. If it wasn't happening.

I agree with you also Jovial. This whole thing now is a farce