AIBU to still feel utterly defeated by it all this morning?

[Matchsticklady]

I was so upset yesterday - Tier 4, no mixing - it just felt like the icing on the cake of a really shit year. Christmas was the one little bright spark before Brexit and the further doom and gloom of January and now there is just...nothing.

I thought I'd wake up and feel a bit better this morning - see the reasoning, accept it, but I don't. If anything I feel worse. Everything seems so utterly pointless. It's not just about Christmas, it's the constant infringements on our liberty and choices, often last minute, that are hugely impacting on our mental health.

I'd remained upbeat, tried to see the positives, understood it was a strange time that we've not experienced before and tried to see the logic in what the government has been doing throughout all the previous lockdowns but I'm done. I'm at my limit I think.

Had DS at the very end of 2019, and it's his first birthday soon. I don't want to be in this fog for it, it's a day we'll never get back and I don't want to look back on it and remember it as feeling sad and lost and hopeless but I don't know how to get out of this numb fog I'm in.

Are things going to get better? I really truly believed they would but now I'm starting to lose faith a bit.Sorry, just needed to get it out.

Anger can be used to elicit positive change. Its true we can't do anything about the situation now, but remember how you are feeling now.

Remember it at the next election. At the next election, maybe people would tell you to vote for the tories because its better for the economy and you would pay less tax and its the immigrants' fault. Don't listen to them, remember this moment at your lowest and how you felt.

Things were never going to be normal by September.

I wish we'd had a different PM to be honest just for better messaging.

Yanbu, it is shit and still feels no end in sight.
Then on top of that we have the north who will be blaming us soon when they finally get this strain which sadly is inevitable considering this has been floating around for atleast a fortnight already.
Those threads will be fun ..

@DonnaScozzese

I'm in Glasgow which has already been in tier 4. We're out now but whole country bar the islands going back in on Boxing Day. It's not that different to tier 3. If you really notice the difference in your life then you're out too much and part of the problem. That said, I feel awful for all the businesses affected.

Bit of an over simplification, you could work somewhere in tier 3 that you can't in tier 4?

Not earning money makes a very big difference to quality of life.

Same here, OP. Have been tearfully today -nothing specific and we are the lucky ones -just feeling defeated and impotent to fight against the nonsense we are being peddled and the way everyone is just rolling over and accepting it

Regarding a glimmer -at least tomorrow is the shortest day so the days will start to lengthen after that...

I'm in tier 2 and even I'm sick of it and sick of the draining dickheads on here who keep reminding everyone that it could be worse. STFU, you're boring.

I'm with you completely OP, Tier 4 here too. It wasn't about Christmas itself for us, it was about just being able to spend even 1 day with my Mum and siblings. This year we lost my remaining GP and my SIL died last month from suicide and as we were not able to have a "proper" funeral for either of them nor grieve together as a family, this would have been a chance for us to remember them and and have our celebration of life for them. Now we can't do that and it is just so utterly shit. We are allowed to feel upset/angry or whatever it is we are feeling and no one has the right to tell us otherwise. I do hope though that having it confirmed you can bubble with someone as you have a child under 1, has maybe given you a little silver lining

Well we don't know yet if the vaccine will work against this new strain so I'd prepare for another year of it

Now this is interesting, because back in the summer many were saying that if we don't get a vaccine and it's still here next year, there'll be no alternative to "just learning to live with it"

Using the scenario where we do have a vaccine but it doesn't work, I wonder if folk still feel the same way or if they're content for this to simply go on and on?

Yes- it is miserable but it is only weeks now until people 70 plus have had vaccine. Even if it takes over a year to vaccinate the rest of the population, hopefully once the most vulnerable have had the jab things can start to get back to normal for younger/less vulnerable people as the NHS is going to be in much less danger of being overwhelmed.

The problem isn't getting the elderly vaccinated so that everyone else can be released from lockdown. The problem is getting enough people of all ages vaccinated quickly enough to wipe out the virus before it mutates to a variant that the vaccine is ineffective against.

If you immunise the elderly whilst allowing the virus to run rampant through the rest of the population there's a good chance of a mutation that will render the vaccine worthless and we're back to square one with the elderly at risk again.

@runningpram

Yes- it is miserable but it is only weeks now until people 70 plus have had vaccine. Even if it takes over a year to vaccinate the rest of the population, hopefully once the most vulnerable have had the jab things can start to get back to normal for younger/less vulnerable people as the NHS is going to be in much less danger of being overwhelmed.

They will be overwhelmed regardless . Once covid becomes less of a threat ,the hospitals will be overwhelmed with all those who were ignored or had their treatments cancelled because of this bloody virus .

I'm in tier 4 and tired of being locked up so that the government can try to eradicate death. It also scares me that lockdown is the "go to" option now, nowhere near a last resort. We have Nightingale hospitals standing empty; how has it happened that the default option is remove people's civil liberties and imprison them indoors, rather than let's staff and open the hospitals we've built for this purpose?

There still wouldn’t be enough staff or beds if they did that.

Once covid becomes less of a threat ,the hospitals will be overwhelmed with all those who were ignored or had their treatments cancelled because of this bloody virus

Well yes, but in theory at least they can control planned treatments, whereas Covid's supposed to be en emergency and the worst one ever at that

Not that many treatments resumed in any major way even over the summer, so I wouldn't expect them to restart any time soon

Well exactly.

I feel deflated and all at sea after this weekend, and I’ve been under tier 3 for ages.

When are the Government going to address the elephant in the room of high schools/teenagers and their roles in driving the pandemic. I just can’t see how things can get better if we refuse to do anything about the main driving force of it!!

@JovialNickname a) they’re not trying. To eradicate death b) the building’s not much good without staff to staff it, nice idea but there’s been a quiet admission within the NHS that they were never going to have enough critical care staff and respiratory staff to man them and hospitals.

There’s also the social issues of having rafts of seriously ill people and the issue of long Covid.

Incorrect @Fluffybutter

@SofiaMichelle

If you're in T4, you were in T2 or lower until very recently.

Many of us have been under much stricter rules than you all through the year. Where I am, we had literally a month where after the first lockdown we had a bit of freedom to see people, and since then we've back under extreme measures. Virtually no contact with friends family, no social mixing. Most of the time all pubs/restaurants closed down completely.

I feel for everyone who's struggling but you've been in T4 for what, 8hrs?

You obviously don't feel for everyone who is struggling. People can be struggling across all tiers, for all sorts of reasons. Some people will cope just fine in tier 4, others really struggle in tier 2. You dont "win" because you've been in a higher tier for longer.

Also and this totally anecdotal but I know 4 people who have died now, and two who’ve been in ICU (un vented). None were ‘elderly’ I I think it’s really worth getting that out there.

5 men and one woman all ages between 54 and 62. Only one had underlying health conditions, but this was a chronic totally manageable condition that he would have died with not from.

@ForestNymph

No. I hate it and am sick to death of it. Its stealing my kids chidhoods and I've had enough.

It’s not “stealing childhoods”. They are still children.

It just looks different than you imagined.

@LovePoppy of course it is. Many kids are stuck indoors bored not being allowed to socialise and play with other kids which will have an affect on their mental and social development. Most kids have also missed a substantial amount of schooling due to having to isolate which will no doubt have had an impact on their education too. How can you even argue that their childhoods haven’t been ruined to some extent?

Because it’s been one year of this being weird.
If this is still the same In 2/3/4 I might agree.
But one year doesn’t ruin a childhood. It’s not stealing childhood.

Jesus.

It’s teaching them adaptability and resilience.
Does it suck? Is it hard? Absolutely. But there are still ways to have fun and learn abs be social.

Instead of focusing on the bad, my children (with encouragement obviously) focus on what’s been great about this year.

@LovePoppy

Because it’s been one year of this being weird. If this is still the same In 2/3/4 I might agree. But one year doesn’t ruin a childhood. It’s not stealing childhood.

Jesus.

It’s teaching them adaptability and resilience.
Does it suck? Is it hard? Absolutely. But there are still ways to have fun and learn abs be social.

Instead of focusing on the bad, my children (with encouragement obviously) focus on what’s been great about this year.

Good for you.

Not everyone is in the same boat though