That in the pandemic hasn’t all been bad

[Shiraznowplease]

I am wondering if AIBU in feeling the pandemic has not all been bad. I am aware I may get flamed and yes it has been horrendously bad in people dying, difficulties nor seeing loved ones and problems for business. But I feel for me , and talking to friends, others too it has made me/us grateful for my family and friends. It has shown me what is truly important, stopped the endless round of business trips for dh and after school/weekend activities for the children and instead we have spent quality time together playing games, cooking and enjoying one and another’s company. My Dc have seen dh more this year more than the rest of their lives combined.

I am a health professional so have worked all through the pandemic but have been grateful to have PPE, even if initially I had to source and fund it myself although the stress has been incredible, I feel I have made a real difference to my patients.

I am lucky that dh could work from home in a relatively secure job.

I have missed my parents and meeting with friends dreadfully though am thankful for zoom, FaceTime and other things so we could keep in touch.

It has also brought out, in my experience, community spirit and helping each other out.

@Calmandmeasured1

There is good and bad in every experience.

Some experierences are overwhelmingly bad though. This is one of them. At least for me.

I don’t see any problem with individuals finding positives in their own situations. But I think you are not doing the right thing in publicly posting it as you have. You are under estimating what some people have lost.

No OP. 2020 has been probably the worst year of my life. Have you been to a funeral held under the Covid restrictions? I've been to two, it was grim.

I saw my Dad once during the last five months of his life after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. DD and I had to sit on our own at his funeral. We couldn't sit next to any other family members.

DP was given his cancer diagnosis alone. It was only because of the humanity of one of the nurses who took him to a day room that DD and I were able to see him for half an hour after he had been told.

I am now a single parent and having to try and get back into the work force in my 50s at a time when unemployment is rising by the day. DD has SN and is devastated at losing her Dad.

I suppose if your housing and work situation is secure and you haven't lost anyone then things may not seem too bad.

But just maybe, before making a post like this, have some empathy for people who have lost, their homes, loved ones, jobs or businesses. I'm sure you didn't mean to be insensitive but I am afraid that is how it will seem to many people.

@feellikeanalien

No OP. 2020 has been probably the worst year of my life. Have you been to a funeral held under the Covid restrictions? I've been to two, it was grim.

I saw my Dad once during the last five months of his life after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. DD and I had to sit on our own at his funeral. We couldn't sit next to any other family members.

DP was given his cancer diagnosis alone. It was only because of the humanity of one of the nurses who took him to a day room that DD and I were able to see him for half an hour after he had been told.

I am now a single parent and having to try and get back into the work force in my 50s at a time when unemployment is rising by the day. DD has SN and is devastated at losing her Dad.

I suppose if your housing and work situation is secure and you haven't lost anyone then things may not seem too bad.

But just maybe, before making a post like this, have some empathy for people who have lost, their homes, loved ones, jobs or businesses. I'm sure you didn't mean to be insensitive but I am afraid that is how it will seem to many people.

Oh lord. So sorry, I hope you can find the strength to get through....don't know what else to type but have a and and totally agree with your last sentence.

Thousands dead, thousands unemployed, education disrupted for young people across the nation.

I already knew what was important in life. I didn't need global devastation to enlighten me.

[quote Porcupineinwaiting]@museumum - illness, bereavement, divorce, being in an abusive relationship, fleeing from conflict.....[/quote]
How would the pandemic have solved any of those???

Ok. I do understand the PP who had a child who had to be wrestled with school finding lockdown less stressful. Sorry.

But I’m still a bit worried by those who say that their kids now not having their activities and interests is a good thing. I think it’s awful they’re missing out.

It's not been too bad for me. I got on with all those little jobs around the home I kept meaning to sort out. Relaxed. More family time.

However I've a friend who was in Hospitality Management. Her son & DIL worked for the same company. They've all lost their jobs. Quite a few of my DC's friends (all in their 20s) are struggling, with no work.

DP is vulnerable, I worry about him. My DB had Covid badly but thankfully recovered. I'm not feeling great about lockdown, I do think about the impact on people's mental emotional and financial health. & people who live alone with no family nearby.

So, great for you if it's been ok especially as you have support. But your post is insensitive, comes across as if you wanted to put smug to paper. I don't think it's the time for it.

So whilst it's not been too bad for me I don't tend to say it because I'm mindful that it's just too awful for some, so they don't need to hear my experience

Been a crap year, medication upset physio and oesopath to try and resolve issues ( 2.5 weeks only).
Paid ok during lockdown , missed seeing my brothers abroad and the heat.
Daughter in law secondary cancer too, work tougher now too.
Living on my own it’s tough

@museumum what I mean is, if in 2019 you lost your mum to cancer, fled an abusive relationship and ended up homeless, 2020 might not be so bad by comparison, pandemic or no. Depending on your individual circumstances of course.

My DM died suddenly in October, I had only been able to see her twice since March. The last time I saw her, she had wanted to hug me but as one of my household is clinically vulnerable I didn't feel able to. I wish I had now.
The funeral she had planned couldn't go ahead in the way she wanted so now I feel guilty about that.
This year has been incredibly awful.

Without the pandemic my DH wouldn’t have been able to work from home and spend so much more time with our baby DS. He’s been here for every little special moment, and they have a wonderful bond that I just don’t think they would have been able to form the way they have if DH was out of the house 7-7 every day.

Without the pandemic I wouldn’t have been able to start an access course and being retraining in a totally new career- the money we pay the childminder who looks after DS two days a week whilst I’m in college would have gone on DH’s train commute to London. So in that respect (assuming the access course, uni and beyond all works out) it could have actually altered the course of mine and my family’s life for the better.

But otherwise, it’s been an absolute fucking dumpster fire.

Op perhaps your title could have been better phrased, but while I acknowledge the horrendous impact on individual lives through illness,bereavement, financial difficulties to name a few, the change to work from home for part of my week has reduced my stress levels enormously.
I enjoy my work much more and do more unpaid overtime while seeing more of my own children. So definitely a better work life balance.
In fact I’m dreading the day that we have to go back full time to work.

@ClockworkNightingale

Thousands dead, thousands unemployed, education disrupted for young people across the nation.

I already knew what was important in life. I didn't need global devastation to enlighten me.

This , 100 per cent

I already went loads of walks / cooked from scratch / hung out in my garden etc

Pandemic isolation is utter crap

I agree with you OP, que the onslaught....

For me personally we have been better off. I have health issues, not being around others and when I am everyone is masked up or religiously using hand sanitizer is a dream for me. I used to get mocked for being a germfobe. I’ve not had one cold or viral infection and only one round of antibiotics in 10 months, I’d normally be sick 90% of the time and had at least half a dozen courses of antibiotics by now. Financially, DH has been able to work from home and we havnt had to pay for kids clubs and activities, saving a fortune. The mortgage break allowed us to do much needed repairs on our home. Homeschooling was hard but we did what we could and just let the kids be kids, they are in Primary school and to be honest not seeing their friends had more of an impact on them than missing school work. We avoided family dramas by not being able to see people and I didn’t have to drag my backside out of bed while ill just so I didn’t appear rude.

I understand so many others havnt been as fortunate and we have done our best to pay it forward.

My personal opinion is that if people had just stuck to the rules and stoped acting so entitled by flaunting the rules, not wearing masks, socialising, having party’s, kicking off because they had to avoid the pub and shop for a while then we would have been in afar better position than we are now.

I think this post has been very eye-opening. Reality seems there is a Covid divide as there was with Brexit (v different I know), but it will affect our society for years to come. Thank you to everyone who has shared and wishing you all better times ahead.

I think if we had never gone into any lockdowns, just wore masks and SD we would be in a better position than we are today.

What I think is happening is the harsher the lockdown the worse the number of deaths.

Wales had a supposedly strict firebreak lockdown and have more problems now than they did before.

Instead of just keeping going. (Infections were in a lot of places falling) and letting people do their Christmas shopping over a couple of months we locked down and have now got crowds in the shops. If you can actually get in the shops as where I am the car parks are full and the traffic jams trying to access the car parks are huge.

Switzerland didn’t have this second lockdown and it’s figures have continued to fall.

Areas around me were going down and had reduced by about 40 people per 100,000 and were reducing. We are now worse than when we started and the infections are rising.

This does come across as insensitive op. Yes there will always be positives for some people but as a country and a planet it's been a horrific year and the consequences will be felt for decades in terms of recovery - ecomonic/ health etc

Personally it's not even come close to my worst year but that is due to privilege and luck. My personal worst year was where both my parents were seriously ill and one died. Many people will have experienced the same circumstances ( but not able to even see their dying parents) this year due to covid. I can't imagine how awful that has been for them.

I’m with you op in that it ‘hasn’t been all bad’.
Obviously that’s for me personally. I’m not talking about the thousands of deaths, those still unwell. Those effected job / money wise. Overall it’s been a shit year.l for the world. But I agree ‘it hasn’t been all bad for everyone’. Not saying it’s been better - just ‘not ALL bad.
If you haven’t been effected by loss of life or job / money, I do feel that people need to buckle up. Stop winging about not being able to hug a friend, see the positive side that you still have your health and job and look at the positives in the situation. For me it was spending more time with my family. My girls won’t remember not seeing their friends in the same way, but they will remember the months we were all at home together.

If you haven’t been effected by loss of life or job / money, I do feel that people need to buckle up. Stop winging about not being able to hug a friend, see the positive side that you still have your health and job and look at the positives in the situation. For me it was spending more time with my family.

But surely you realise that not everybody has had positives in the situation? I’m glad for you that you got to spend enjoyable time with your family, but plenty of people did not get that. And plenty of people were facing very difficult situations beyond ‘not being able to hug a friend’.

I know plenty of people who had a fairly nice time during first lockdown. All baking bread and Joe Wicks and family bike rides and #makingmemories on furlough. I’m glad they got that, but the utter insensitivity of the smaller proportion who wittered on about how great it was for families while not comprehending that not everyone was in their position made me want to bang my head off a wall.

Personally I haven't found it to be too difficult for me, but for different reasons to the OP. My family have all been healthy and relatively unscathed financially. It's been really helpful having DH wfh (he's been brilliant with helping out with DD and pulling his weight with housework) although we only have a small flat so it's also been stressful in some ways. We're in London where activities and attractions were opened up as soon as they were allowed, so we have been close to being back to normal for quite a while. We're in a very central location so not so much community spirit here, but in a way I've been glad because there was also none of the nosy neighbour issue of monitoring how often you were going out/whether you were clapping etc. Our family are quite insular and I'm not a very sociable person, so not seeing friends has not been an issue for me.

My DD is a toddler and I'm a sahm so we already spent almost all day together. I always took her out to lots of classes and stay and play, and plenty of day trips, so she definitely missed out on the social interaction from those, although during lockdown1 I took her out on walks to parks and gardens every day. We didn't spend that much time at home doing the whole baking/crafts thing as we spent most of the day outdoors. But we only missed out on activities for a few months, because we started p/t nursery in May and then went back to some classes and other activities in August. We quite enjoyed the unstructured time just exploring green spaces during March-August, but we're busy doing all the endless music/dance/gym classes now, with visits to attractions like museums and theme parks at weekends. We don't socialise with others, but it's nice visiting places where there are other like-minded people just wanting to get out and enjoy day trips with their dc. I know in some parts of the country there haven't been any toddler activities or places to visit since March, I suppose being in London there's been more of a commercial pressure to reopen and I'm grateful to live somewhere where that's been an option for us.

I voted yabu for your lack of empathy. You had a shit life before, now you have been forced to spend time with your family and curb your spending you find life is simpler and more connected. A lot of us knew that before but didn't need this catastrophe to teach us. I'm glad you are happy but there are so many people suffering, and it's not because they have a negative attitude.

I know plenty of people who had a fairly nice time during first lockdown. All baking bread and Joe Wicks and family bike rides and #makingmemories on furlough. I’m glad they got that, but the utter insensitivity of the smaller proportion who wittered on about how great it was for families while not comprehending that not everyone was in their position made me want to bang my head off a wall

This x 100. Why the need to crow 'Im alright Jack' publicly?

As for the posts about being home with the children as if children would rather be stuck at home with parents than socialising with their friends/peer group - deluded.

Yeah they may have enjoyed not having to get up for school, bit more time with Mum & Dad. But no way have Covid fears, a whole different world and timetable and being cooped up with Mum and/or Dad, hardly able to go anywhere different, life thru a screen, been highlights for them that they'll look back on with fondness.

My own experience has been ok. I have managed to still see my friends, I have no children to keep inside, my parents have isolated in the countryside and I kept my job, working from home. I got to see all my family in-between lockdown back home in France. I got covid, but with short symptoms. I have learnt crafts, and exercised. If I was living in a vaccum, it would have been an Ok year. But I am not, and the pain and grief of people around me, and around the world make it so that the pandemic can only have been a terrible, awful thing.
I know I have been extremely lucky, and cannot even begin to comprehend how difficult it has been and still is for the vast majority of people.
My own family has suffered tremendously from containment, lack of socialization and worry about elderly relatives. I have seen beloved colleagues on their knees with exhaustion with their little children and no contact with their families. The mental health impact on some acquaintances has been devastating, and this is just for my direct circle. The rest of humanity is in pain, and while my compassion levels are never very high, this pain is too big to not impact how I look at life during the pandemic. I struggle to see the good in this pandemic.