Is everyone OK?

[Plussizejumpsuit]

I'm really feeling like many posters on here are really not doing OK. The number of harsh, vitriolic, downright mean comments is through the roof. Yes I know I can just fuck off if I don't like it. I probably should. I'm also far from perfect but this feel like more than individuals.

I'm seeing so many posts which end in a pile on. Or just loads of really nasty comments regarding a fairly innocuous subject. It's like many people seem to think that something somone is saying is directed negatively at them.

Is this just a sign of the times? Are people just really stressed and taking it out on people here? Or am I imagining this?

I've thought the same. Perhaps people venting frustration here. Certainly an increase lately.

I’m generally unhappy at the moment if I’m honest. The world is small, I had my first kid in the first lockdown, I’m lonely, unfulfilled and anxious for some reason. I find myself getting snarky on here and have to have a break from it.

No, I think very few people are ok. Taking it out on strangers online seems to be the new norm. Not very healthy but indicative of the nation’s mental health state.

Amen OP. I've seen some awful posts on here recently. I think some people are just cunts, pandemic or not.

I think a lot of people are not ok. It feels like everything is hanging on a thread at the moment.

Not good.

I am lonley, good friends have their own dramas going on which I understadn but I feel very sad and isolated as I am on my own with my kids day in day out (like us all). I feel anxious and guilty that I have done something as massively insecure.I hate myself

You're so right. I'm definitely not OK, but would be the one choosing to leave a thread where people are being mean rather than the one being aggressive.

@LibrariesGiveUsPower45321

No, I think very few people are ok. Taking it out on strangers online seems to be the new norm. Not very healthy but indicative of the nation’s mental health state.

This. I’m utterly fed up, apart from Christmas Day I haven’t sat and had a conversation with family for 6 months due to being in an area which has had constant restrictions. I now have long Covid and have spend 11 weeks either in bed or on the sofa unable to do much at all for myself. I spend far too much time on Mumsnet because it’s the only interaction I get a lot of the time when DH is working. I can be an arsehole I admit when people are flouting the rules because I caught it from working as a community nurse with someone who must have been flouting the rules. I’m bitter. I hate that I’m bitter but I am.

I don’t think anyone is really ok. Our worlds are tiny. I barely tolerate my only family some days. Internet strangers may seem like fair game. Sad.

Some people on here, and I do notice more of it lately, cannot seem to be able to handle the notion of other people's opinion being different to their own.
They get all snotty and correct you.
It's no longer "we have different opinions on this" but instead "you're wrong, so wrong, could not be more wrong, you stupid bastard".

I had someone following me about "correcting me" not too long back. I eventually snapped and basically told them to fuck off using nice words.

Ok so we're seemingly not on from the few replies so far. I when and got a coffee and cookie and totally forgot I posted. I'm not sure I'm OK either fwiw.

I was being a bit flippant saying this but I'm now actually feeling a bit teary at the people saying they're not ok. Sorry everyone is not doing OK.

I do think people are taking it out on others. I'm nit even talking about the covid stuff. Which I get is emotional and I feel bitter for different reasons to pp who is a nurse.

I suppose what I'm musing on is why is this a way of behaving online as a response to things now.

Sorry this thread made you feel sad.

I feel really sad. I texted a friend 2 separate times and she has seen them and not replied. I feel worse and I can feel myself spiralling into quite unhelpful thoughts.

No I’m not. I cried buckets just now because DS’s music teacher sang Hallelujah in his Teams lesson, that’s how close to the edge I am right now 🙈.

You’re right that people are being down right nasty though. I think it’s a self perpetuating cycle; when people see posters, especially “well known” posters being nasty, they jump on the bandwagon.

Yeah people are being really horrible today on this site, much more so than usual.
Some people are struggling, but some seem to just love the anonymity and want to tear others down.

No. I'm not even slightly OK. I'm done.

I think the problem of online hate and thinking that your online comments don't hurt anyone because 'you know, it's just a forum!' has been exacerbated by the fact that most of us have had limited face-to-face interactions.

No I'm not and I've been nasty on here, with full awareness that I would like someone else to feel shit because I'm not doing well.

I’m crying at this post now. Simple things set me off, the head teacher telling the children well done is enough. The need announcement yesterday that all care home residents had been offered a vaccine. Life is so incredibly hard even though I recognise I’m in a ‘privileged’ position to many. I just want to see the end of this and it feels we see a glimpse then it’s gone. It’s not right but it’s easy to vent frustrations here rather than at home with a DH on his knees and no one else.

I’m tired at the moment. All the coffee in the land doesn’t seem to be working. I want to be drinking it in a coffee shop without anyone wearing face masks, ideally with a friend.

I'm definitely not OK and I know I'm more agressive as a result. Poor DH gets the brunt of it, as he's the only person I see

to everyone who is not ok

Anger is a manifestation of fear. A lot of us are very frightened and anxious at the moment. Some because of COVID but most, I think, due to uncertainty and isolation.

This too shall pass.

MN is a forum predominantly composed of women with children. Lockdown places a disproportionate burden on their shoulders - so many women on here are broken with trying to work and home school, trying to find childcare because their employer makes them come in and they can't get a school place, so many families struggling due to losing jobs/business difficulties, loneliness, worry over cancelled medical proceedures for the/elderly relatives, not being able to see family - I haven't seen mine for over a year, etc etc. It is really tough for so many people so it isn't surprising that they come here to vent.

No, I'm not OK either. I feel like in my family I have to be the keeper of everyone else's mental health - DH is prone to depression and anxiety as is DS and my own is feeling so fragile. DD is a constant optimist and full of sunshine but even she is having moments and I know it's due to her not being in school, not seeing grandparents, not being able to have friends over or to go to theirs.

I have spent nearly 12 months so, so angry at life. I realise that I am in a small minority who do not think that lockdowns were the way to handle this. I wish I agreed with it, I wish I'd been scared, it would have made life more bearable. As it is, I'm just cross. I have stuck to what I see as these utterly ridiculous, utterly pointless rules, that I think are ruining the economy, livelihoods, our children's present and future. I've tried not to be a complete arse here or elsewhere though. Although there is one poster who has just made me angrier than anything else throughout this whole thing. Is there a way to block one poster? FWIW I have never replied to her.

I'm going to be different and actually say that I am OK. I'm not happy, no but I am coping.

I'm managing far better than I was in October/November when everything was just a constant stream of bad news, cases spiralling and anything I had to look forward to being cancelled. Home life was miserable in the autumn too thanks to living in a dusty cold building site (I'm still in a cold building site but it's no longer dusty and I've found ways of making life in it tolerable, the plasterer came yesterday too which is progress).

I never have many plans for January anyway so what you've never had you don't miss. I'm just spending my non-working hours hibernating instead.

I've struggled right from the start. In one week, the structure of my life was torn up and disregarded by the rest of society.
I care deeply about my children, but society doesn't give a fuck about them or their peers.

I try hard not to get personal with other posters. My comments on certain topics are written with deep, frustrated feeling. Most of the time, I'm fairly civilised. I can sympathise with those struggling whether their circumstances are similar or not. I had no patience with the almost gloaty tone that some people had in lockdown #1 and how wonderful it was to have so much family time. It was probably the reinforcement that I'd sacrificed my career to make time, then built up a purposeful life around it, then had that stolen from me. Plus DS1's SNs do not make him very obliging about wholesome shit like banana bread and painting rainbows and wants to be left alone to minecraft.

Much of my anger died by the second week of November having brewed up by June. I spend much of my time feeling numb and feeling vaguely relieved when it's evening enough to not feel guilty about what I'm struggling to do.

I've had so many times of feeling lonely, and overstimulated by the constant presence of my family. All at the same time.

I no longer care at how many hours my DCs stare at screens. If they're not bickering or having a meltdown that's sound. It's not really OK, but we are existing.

School can pick up the education shit after. They were warned. I do what we can manage with our emotional reserves each day. Today was leaving the live learning early and filling in the maths sheet. Live is too short to have meltdowns over fronted adverbials. If school don't like it, they could have had the grace to respond to me.