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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think covid has made some people lose empathy?

126 replies

LydiaMcadamand · 18/12/2020 12:29

I see plenty of threads in which an individual is looking for support.
And this could include wanting to see their partner, wanting to see family on christmas etc.
And these always include comments from other people who instantly state about the 'rulez'.

Why have some people lost so much empathy that they get angry at the fact somebody wants to see their partner and stay the night? Why do some people get angry at the fact people actually want to see family over christmas?

Why have we become a society that normalises telling people they can't visit their parents, grandparents etc.
Is this not choice of each family what their boundaries are?

I find it sad that people are belittled and shouted at for wanting to have celebrations with their family at christmas.

God forbid a parent wants 4 of their adult children around with their partners for christmas dinner.

What a sad time we live in.

OP posts:
Spangledangle · 18/12/2020 13:21

Just to add i am desperately sad and sorry for everyone in this situation. People who have lost jobs,homes,loved ones and freedom. People who have put themselves in the firing line and those who have sacrificed their lives to look after others. Those who have seen things they can never get out of their heads.I'm sorry for young people who can't experience what young people should experience. I'm sorry for the lonely, the sad the separated and the mentally ill. I am sorry for all of us.

ChristmasTreeFairy5000 · 18/12/2020 13:21

On here someone could ask what colour they want to paint their bathroom and some Covid Nazi will tell them they're not allowed to go B&Q because there is a pandemic on!!

hammeringinmyhead · 18/12/2020 13:22

Do you really genuinely think it's fine for, say, a teacher to "risk assess", decide they are young and healthy so it's fine to see their teenage nephew - then go into school and pass the virus to 30 7-year-olds? Give over.

goopsoup · 18/12/2020 13:22

The problem is even ppl who are keeping to the rules (e.g. the woman who is upset that she won't see SIL/BIL on Xmas as planned) are being abused.

goopsoup · 18/12/2020 13:23

@Hardbackwriter

I love my family and I desperately want to see them. But I couldn’t live with myself if they became ill after seeing us. I don’t want my children to live with that either. It isn’t ideal and it will be very different to what we are used to but we will make the best of it, all of us, and still have a wonderful day.

And to be honest, I am looking forward to spending Christmas with just us because although I adore my wider family, I also love my husband and children and feel lucky that I have them when others aren’t as fortunate.

A perfect example. What do you think posting that achieves other than a chance for you to be sanctimonious? Well done you for not just following the rules, as am I, but feeling lovely about it. You definitely win the award for being a better person than me because I feel sad and low about it whereas you're Polly fucking Anna. Congratulations.

Well said @Hardbackwriter
nosswith · 18/12/2020 13:26

More people have died from the virus in the UK than died from bombs dropped on this country by the Nazis. Many of these deaths preventable, largely because we have the most incompetent and slow to react government in history.

Those who want people not to think they should be an exception to the rules, inadequate as they may be, are people who are placing a high value on life and people not being ill. It may come across as angry, and indeed may be expressed in an angry manner, but it is caring.

Calmandmeasured1 · 18/12/2020 13:28

Seriously OP, from your responses to everyone, I am starting to worry whether our education system is fucked has failed you.

GoldenOmber · 18/12/2020 13:30

@goopsoup

The problem is even ppl who are keeping to the rules (e.g. the woman who is upset that she won't see SIL/BIL on Xmas as planned) are being abused.
Yes. And a lot of people who are quite liking the idea of a nice quiet Christmas with ‘just our little family’ putting the boot into others for not feeling the same way.

But I think it’s possible to have a lot of human empathy for the position so many of us are in, and still have a problem with OP’s ‘each family should just make their own decision about how many people they want to meet’ approach.

GoldenOmber · 18/12/2020 13:32

@Spangledangle

I have found the whole thing a real test of the idea of intelligence being defined as the ability to hold two separate ideas in your head and acknowledge both to be true.
  1. If we let the virus run the hospitals will be overrun and civil unrest would almost certainly follow, along with dangers of infrastructure collapsing.The overrun hospitals are not because its a particularly deadly virus for most but because of the effect it has on the elderly and our massive ageing population in the west.
  2. It is terrible that people can't see their families and that it isn't natural for humans to isolate.it is awful that the economy is suffering and that people are losing jobs and hope.
Some people struggle to hold these two things in their head at once and seek to find black and white answers to a very grey situation. There are no easy, win-win answers, each option is deeply unpleasant and destructive and will cause misery,it is a matter of nature and degree. I think that's why there is a rise in disbelief in the virus as some people simply cannot comprehend the above and so choose to believe it doesn't exist.
Yes, very well said.
ForestNymph · 18/12/2020 13:35

I agree OP. Lockdown is ridiculously hard and shouldn't be a long term solution. They fucked it up.

GiveMeCamembert · 18/12/2020 13:36

The trouble with Mumsnet is that most posters seem completely unable to understand situations they don't relate to.

I have stuck to the rules. I live on the opposite end of the country from my family so seeing them has been an impossibility. I haven't visited them in over a year. It is very, very hard and if in the New Year I am still not "allowed" to see them then I will probably break the rules at some point.

Not to mention the fact that if you live apart from your partner but don't qualify to bubble up with them, then technically you won't have been able to have a single bit of physical contact with them since March. That's insane. It's completely unrealistic to expect people to stick to that.

Congratulations to the people who are able to cope, or who live close enough to loved ones that they can see them in a socially distanced outdoor setting. Unfortunately for lots of people it's just too hard.

Hardbackwriter · 18/12/2020 13:38

I agree with every word of what @Spangledangle wrote.

HopeYourHighHorseBucks · 18/12/2020 13:40

YANBU. You read it on here a lot

"I'm desperately sad that people are losing jobs/homes BUT we must follow the rules"

For the person who is losing everything there is no BUT. That is their life, telling them it's for the greater good and least they have their health means absolutely fuck all to them.

Original poster
LydiaMcadamand · 18/12/2020 13:41

@Calmandmeasured1 and I think the same about you, if you can't have a debate without automatically getting personal Hmm

OP posts:
Original poster
LydiaMcadamand · 18/12/2020 13:42

@HopeYourHighHorseBucks exactly! And I find most people who police other people are perfectly fine, in terms of living with their partner, still having their jobs etc.

OP posts:
Original poster
LydiaMcadamand · 18/12/2020 13:44

And to say "at least you have your health" to someone who lost their jobs and livelihoods and then not seeing family, is wrong, as their mental health is most certainly not going to be healthy.

OP posts:
Bringonthebloodydrama · 18/12/2020 13:44

With respect, you cannot risk assess. The virus is random.

I say this as a teacher who is lying in bed with Covid. Got told to isolate as a member of dept tested positive. I took a test the day I isolated and tested negative. Five days later tested postive.

I am fucked. I am a healthy 41 year old and I find it hard to climb stairs. I am aching. Exhausted. Wheezing. Sweating. Freezing.

The only advice I can give people who are talking about five day bubbles and bleating on about missing family, is if you love them then stay put in your own fucking house. It.is.not.worth.the.risk. you could kill them.

I haven't seen my parents since last Christmas. I miss them so much. I've only met my baby niece once. She's 14 months.

But I'm not risking anyone's health.

I've put my own health on the line for months which is another matter entirely. So yes, I do judge and I judge very fucking harshly.

Stay home. Stop spreading it.

JassyRadlett · 18/12/2020 13:49

I will admit that I find it really frustrating when people say they are stretching or breaking the rules, which already carry quite a bit of risk, because they really miss their families.

It’s like they think those of us not doing likewise don’t also miss our families.

And that they don’t get, or they don’t care, that the more people who make those choices that we know increase the risk of transmission, the longer it will be before we can see my vulnerable in laws, and even longer before I get to see any of my family who are all abroad. It will cause more job losses and business failures because of tighter and longer restrictions.

So I’m not going to berate people, and I haven’t been ‘policing’ (🙄) my neighbours’ loud parties or my friends who are planning a big Christmas dinner.

But the suggestion that it has to be done because they ‘really miss their families/friends/whatever’ does make them sound like thoughtless twats who don’t really care about the impact of their actions on others. And it is frustrating that people think it’s fine to do this,

AlexaShutUp · 18/12/2020 13:50

And to say "at least you have your health" to someone who lost their jobs and livelihoods and then not seeing family, is wrong, as their mental health is most certainly not going to be healthy.

I have lost my livelihood (as the main breadwinner in my family) and I haven't seen my family for months, as my parents are elderly and dsis is CEV. Yes, my mental health has taken a massive dip, not helped by the fact that I can't meet up with friends in the usual way either, but I'm actually very grateful for my health and very anxious not to spread the virus because I am not a selfish idiot!

Original poster
LydiaMcadamand · 18/12/2020 13:51

@AlexaShutUp yes and that is you but please don't call those who need to see their families or who are on the verge of a breakdown so spending times with their loved ones "selfish idiots". You don't know everyone's backstory.

OP posts:
GoldenOmber · 18/12/2020 13:52

[quote LydiaMcadamand]@HopeYourHighHorseBucks exactly! And I find most people who police other people are perfectly fine, in terms of living with their partner, still having their jobs etc.[/quote]
Okay. Try looking at this way.

In my extended family/friends, the big group I’d usually be meeting over Christmas in a normal year, there is:

  • one person waiting for non-urgent surgical treatment for a painful condition, postponed since March but she’s now got a date for it
  • three people whose employers/business is just about hanging in there but who risk losing jobs and careers if that goes under
  • one person who has only seen his son (through a window) and his carer for months and months and wants to see the rest of his family again, but is genuinely vulnerable to covid and worried about getting it from them

If we have another big wave of covid, then:

  • my relative waiting for the op won’t get it, because it’ll be cancelled, so she’ll stay in pain
  • the people at risk of losing jobs might well actually lose their jobs and suffer as a result
  • my elderly relative will stay isolated and not dare see his family.

The quicker we are out of this, the better for all of us.

Original poster
LydiaMcadamand · 18/12/2020 13:53

@Bringonthebloodydrama and these statements of 'you can kill your family so please stay home' are very gaslighty.

OP posts:
KylieKoKo · 18/12/2020 13:57

With people I know in real life I've found that the most judgemental and preachy have actually broken the rules in some way but believe it was ok in their circumstances because they had some special reason.

OoohTheStatsDontLie · 18/12/2020 13:59

Wheres your social responsibility? Why do you think it's ok for people to do activities that are against the rules that a democratically voted in government made to bring the death rates down? Because even though I'm relatively young and relatively healthy, I still don't want other people to die needlessly because some people only care about their own happiness. And while I have a job that hasn't been too badly affected by corona and I can work from home, i recognise that the longer this goes on for, the more that people who work in retail etc jobs will be affected.

Why cant you see the big picture? That the effects of spreading the virus are going to be much much worse than the effects of not seeing auntie Sue and uncle Derek for a few more months until they're vaccinated

OoohTheStatsDontLie · 18/12/2020 14:06

And I get people that are living alone or are having mental health issues or want to break the rules to see their very elderly and might not make it to next Christmas anyway grandparent etc and I don't actually have an issue with these people. I do have an issue with people who have kept their jobs and their health but are just breaking the rules because 'why should the government police who I have in my house'. That's different and they are not breaking thr rules because they are desperate , they are doing so because they dont give a shit about other people