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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

I don’t like this life.

426 replies

Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 19:59

It’s been almost a year, everything changed, am still suffering from covid from March, am inside for 12 hours per day with my toddler. My ‘Old’ life seems a far away, distant memory, the only highlight is going to do the food shopping, feel there’s nothing to look forward to.
I’m starting to feel just nothing inside, anyone else?

OP posts:
Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 20:39

I’m just sick of all the fear too. Today I drive a little further out to the only place open to get some craft bits for my Dd so at least we’d have things to do. It felt bizarre to think any minute police could possibly pull me over for being too far from my house (15 mins away) I’m in another country, slightly different rules. I actually thought ‘What the hell have we become?!) the masks, the no contact, for so very long, it’s not right,
I’m noticing so many people becoming nastier and more judgemental too,

OP posts:
firstimemamma · 01/02/2021 20:39

It's the supermarket shopping experience I hate the most these days. Everyone just marching about silently like zombies, dumping stuff in their trolleys with their masks on. There's just such a depressing atmosphere and the voiceovers they play about "staying safe" drive me nuts.

EveningOverRooftops · 01/02/2021 20:39

I think I need to move house after this. The same streets and park I’ve walked in constantly for a year seem so dull and boring. I need a clean slate and somewhere new.

roarfeckingroarr · 01/02/2021 20:39

Existing not living here too. Slipping into a dark depression. I only get up for baby DS.

InsufferableLKIA · 01/02/2021 20:40

Yep. Agree agree agree. This is shit and I’m sick of it.

Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 20:41

*Drove

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Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 20:43

@firstimemamma Completely, I hate hate hate the masks and the fact my Dd can’t see people’s faces and the way she tries to talk away to people and the majority just move away. In the past they’d be cooing over her and chatting away, smiling. It’s just so unnatural, all of it.

OP posts:
Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 20:44

It isn’t a life, how can it possibly continue like this for much longer.

OP posts:
opanon · 01/02/2021 20:44

I feel like many people I work with have just " gave up" with life, they seem to be really happy with the changes in a strange way .

So on our daily teams meeting most of them were all really pro " let's keep working from home I don't want to go back to the office ever", they were talking about selling their cars as they don't use them and they were fully on board with this new lifestyle of just being in the house no car .

I have a toddler , I work part time I don't want to sit in the house working all day I do 12.5 hours taking calls from a laptop connected to an inbound patient helpline . The shifts were bearable when I was In the office but now I'm working 8-8 waking my toddler up when he goes to bed as he can hear me talking . My career seems to be stagnant since being at home . I don't want to exist like this but they all seem happy to.

opanon · 01/02/2021 20:45

Also find it depressing that my toddler tries to put a mask on now when he sees one

TheSoapyFrog · 01/02/2021 20:46

I feel the same. I've had all the telephone therapy offered, taken the medication suggested but the truth is that until this is over, I'm not going to get any better.
If it wasn't for my sons I'm not sure I'd bother anymore. This isn't living and I don't feel lucky to be at home. I feel like I'm trapped in a living hell.
At the moment there is no light at the end of the tunnel and I don't dare plan anything or look forward to anything because I won't be able to handle another crushing disappointment like Christmas.

HappygoesLucy · 01/02/2021 20:46

If it's any consolation, your DD will be fine. Not only will she not remember this time (hopefully) but she'll be fine developmentally. Most toddlers don't go to swimming lessons or parties and play group isn't compulsary or necessary. She'll be happy spending time with you, even if you are exhausted and not your usual self.

Try to do some self care, even if it's just making your favourite dinner or treating yourself to a bath. Do you live with anyone? Do they support your MH?

thinkofablinkingnamewoman · 01/02/2021 20:47

It's the total lack of variety for me. I love walking. But there's only so many times I can do the same walk from home - ooh, left or right today? Agree with a PP that moving house will be very tempting at the end of all this.

Part of this is the weather admittedly but it's the same trapped 4 walls/garden/walk feeling even if it's sunny now.

latheritup · 01/02/2021 20:51

Yep, me too. Last night I was having some really dark thoughts. It's getting hard now.

squishedblueberry · 01/02/2021 20:53

Same.
I tried so hard to stay positive I’ve been exercising and staying on top of things, trying to vaguely make plans in my head.
But I’m feeling more and more anxious and stressed about the world I’ve bought baby DS into and feel a bit panicky when I wonder what his life is going to be like, what all our lives are going to be like.

Then I give myself a talking to and am okay for another couple of days until it starts again.

I’m also sick of wondering if every little twinge or cough is Covid. Currently had an upset stomach for four days and it’s constantly in the back of my mind that this could be covid even though I haven’t bloody been anywhere to get it.

I think the news about the SA variant, although inevitable, has just crushed any positive spirit I’d built up after feeling buoyed by the vaccines etc

squishedblueberry · 01/02/2021 20:54

Also, before the “you need to get some resilience” brigade turns up - I’ve been through a LOT in my life and I am usually very resilient but nobody is endlessly so, everyone has their limits

merryhollybright · 01/02/2021 20:55

My youngest was born June last year. Now she's got teeth, she's sitting up, babbling. I feel almost panic that I'm not enjoying her babyhood properly because every day is the same so I miss things just trying to get through.
She's my last child and it's being spent like this. I know other people are living much worse lives than we are but it really upsets me.

squishedblueberry · 01/02/2021 20:59

@merryhollybright I know exactly what you mean. I feel a kind of grief for my sons first year even though I am so lucky to have him etc etc and I do thank my lucky stars we are fortunate etc but I can’t stop myself feeling this way

Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 21:02

@HappygoesLucy That’s the thing though, she had all those things, we had a great little life for her, she’s v sociable and I saw how those things benefited her even more.
I’m generally a very resilient person and great in front of Dd and make things as fun, interesting and varied for us all as I can, but how long can you keep forcing that?
I’m still ill some days but then also feel fear I’ll catch it again and become worse and I worry for my parents mh and catching it, it’s just too much for everyone isn’t it,

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Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 21:04

@squishedblueberry I do too, all the special things we should have done together, she’s never even been to soft play etc as here they closed them immediately.

OP posts:
Draineddraineddrained · 01/02/2021 21:04

The weather is what is making it fucking unbearable. The only thing we can do for pleasure is go for another fucking walk and it's not pleasurable because it's cold and shit.

Thank fuck for my daughter and the baby I'll be having in the next month or so. Although in many ways small kids make lockdown harder (trying to balance working from home with a preschooler whose care provision has been on and off like a bloody strobe light the past year whilst increasingly knackered from pregnancy has been horrible) they are, as many note on here, a reason to get up and keep going. They aren't miserable and provide some light in a crappy situation.

I do sometimes envy people who are wfh and child free as life must just seem to be so much easier now - no commute, no staying late at the office because the boss hasn't left yet, etc - and I was properly envious of those on furlough, especially those whose employers (like mine for those impacted) made it up to the full 100% salary, as basically it's like paid holiday for months.

But actually, I think it's us with the small kids who are in some ways luckiest - we have to keep going and finding the joy where we can, for the kids, so we do. And a lot of the stuff people are missing - nights out, restaurants, parties, pubbing and clubbing, hooking up, expensive hobbies, glamorous holidays etc - were things we didn't have much of anyway with a child who needs to be in bed by 8PM every night. DP and I are doubly 'lucky' in that our parents live at opposite ends of the country and we live in the middle, so didn't have any 'grandparent care' or much contact at all really so having to do it all ourselves is nothing new either.

I kind of waft between being OK with it all and being out of proportion enraged at silly things I can't do - like this week my DD is in isolation due to covid positive in her nursery bubble, and the fact I can't even take her to the swings is giving me a red mist.

I can't do the news. I apprise myself of the latest rules/guidance and then switch off until the next lot come along, always assuming between times that once this tranche is over things will go back to normal or as normal as it's ever been since this thing started - anything else and I just lose the will to live, all the speculation and doomsaying and new variants and what ifs and death rates. I have to ignore it, I can't do anything about it, and I can't know what any of it will mean for me and mine, so why drive myself insane following every twist and turn?

Anyway YANBU OP. It's a pile of suppurating shit.

fearfulexchange · 01/02/2021 21:04

Dead inside and numb, you've just summed up how I'm feeling.
The way people are behaving in the supermarkets has become so aggressive it's quite scary really.
I am exempt from face coverings but I am considering wearing one to avoid the hostility. The food shop was the highlight of life and now I completely dread it.
I don't believe it will end any time soon, like mentioned above the moment there's a positive outlook or resolve we get hit with another outbreak of a different covid. It will be never ending. There is no quality of life and with no end in sight.

Sunnydays999 · 01/02/2021 21:05

I can’t cope much longer with this

Maskedminger · 01/02/2021 21:05

@opanon My toddler reminds me to get my mask, I hate it.

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GreenlandTheMovie · 01/02/2021 21:08

I know OP, its actually ridiculous when you think of it. I started a new job in the middle of it and have met precisely one colleague in person. I'm in the prime of my life and I seem to spend it all alone. I'm lucky not to be a depressive person, so I'm just incredibly, exceptionally bored.

If I hear yet one more person wailing "If people would only obey the lockdown then covid would be cured" I think I'm going to explode. Ditto "you're so lucky to be in good health - well not stuffiing my face and never moving helps with that, funnily enough - or "stay safe". Stay safe - I'm actually worried I've caught no bugs at all this year so that my immune system will be compromised when next year's normal flu bugs come along!