To, in actual fact, be grieving life before Covid and our collective lost future?

[StarsAndsunbeams]

Just that. I'm a ball of knots, despite trying my best to deal with this all.

I'm starting to doubt my inner reserves and my ability to adapt to change.

Please cast your vote. I need to know that I'm definitely not alone in this feeling. Advice greatly appreciated too.

Totally agree. Not sure how much longer I can go on like this. Feeling so low and miserable. There is no point to life anymore is there? The goalposts keep changing so it feels never ending. I feel suicidal and it is only my small children keeping me here frankly.

[quote StarsAndsunbeams]@SuperHansBag I'm so sorry for all the trauma you have been through. I too have been through various traumas: raped, mugged, DA, direct discrimination in the workplace and so on. I'm not trying to compare by mentioning this. It's that I cant believe how mentally fragile I am feeling right now, especially as in the past when trauma reared its ugly head, I was always able to heave myself up and out of it. [/quote]
I know you're not trying to compare

I get you totally. I look back on all the shite that's happened to me and I'm flawed that it's this - just being asked to say at home for a bit basically - that is pushing me over the edge.

I also get your point about heaving yourself. When terrible things have happened in the past, I've always had a moment where I think "Okay, this is bad but how can I change it?" and there's always a way out. There isn't a way out of the current situation. Just sit tight until someone tells me I can start living a normal, functional human adult life again.

I was talking to my sons psychologist (my son has SN) about how he was finding covid restrictions hard and explaining that we didn't live an exciting life before but he is really missing those small things that he used to plan and look forward to like a trip to the pub with his Dad, a trip to see a film..like him it is all the smaller things I really miss.

I also am normally so laid back I am horizontal but I am gradually feeling more and more fed up. Life is like Groundhog Day but I do believe it will get better.
We just have to keep going forward there is no other choice. I have noticed I feel less inclined to go anywhere not because of fear of the virus but just lost incentive.
Hopefully better weather and longer days will help.

I am trapped in a horrible domestic situation , living with a cheating husband and elderly relative. Not being able to have my usual respite and sanity savIng escapes is really affecting my mental health. It is like being under house arrest . The weather does not help . I too have overcome other traumas but maybe because there is no definite end to this makes it worse. And usually I can rationalise, be grateful for what I have , be aware other people have it hard or harder than me but it doe not seem to be working this time.

I keep trying to think things will get better, then read something which knocks me back down again. Today, I’ve seen that the Sage advisers are saying masks forever, and the rule of six for months or years, and that we need to get down to below 10k infections (currently at 75k) before we should even look at getting normality back. I just feel absolute despair. If we were told now that this is how life would be for the next few years, I just don’t know if I could cope. I keep thinking I will never take things for granted again if we ever do get back to normal life.

I also find that lately I've pulled back a lot on reaching out to friends and family for a chat, which is completely out of character for me. It's not an anxiety thing, I just feel like I have nothing left to say and neither does anybody else. I've just given up.

Anybody else feeling more insular?

You are not being unreasonable! I worry that for many lives will never go back to the way they were pre-lockdown.

My grandma (very much the matriarch of our family) died of Covid last year. I couldn’t say goodbye or attend her funeral and now her house has been sold. It’s so strange to think that even when lockdown is lifted we will never gather there together as a family again.

My grandfather on the other side is very unwell and in hospital. He hasn’t seen his wife, my nan, for months due to Covid and I’m concerned they won’t see one another again.

For younger people like us it might be just be a year apart from those we love but for the unwell or old it could be the rest of their lives. I’m not blaming anyone or saying there’s a better option but it’s just so sad!

Yes. I'm always grateful for all the things I have, I'm very very lucky and I know it.

But every once in a while my phone pipes up with "This time last year" and it just catches me, that sense of loss over something I'd like to be able to take for granted - my toddler having a playdate, a nice dinner out with DH.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this.

At the beginning of first lockdown I was nursing my Mum through her last month of life at my home (I know I was lucky - it was cancer) I just muscled through, and outside world just seemed surreal.

Twice I have had to re-open my non-essential shop, staggered through the financial fallout etc, and we're holding on by the skin of our teeth, and each little green shoot of hope has been pulled out by the roots.

So like many others here I am familiar with personal grief, and can see the parallels with the bigger picture.

We are conditioned to constantly progress but every route is blocked or comes with a qualifier, sometimes without apparent rhyme or reason.

With anger comes guilt and shame. The idea that it is "not in the spirit" to have perfectly valid feelings. Is it any wonder we've turned into rabbits in the headlights?

@Stillfunny I'm not sure it's true that many others have it worse than you, your situation sounds hideous no wonder you're struggling.

@PracticallyFloored it is weirdly nice to know that someone else is suffering from the same things I do wonder whether the PTSD and the horrible flat detachment are linked, I think the only time I've felt vaguely similar was probably early on in the PTSD, before it was diagnosed and I learned how to manage it.

DS2 came in just now and startly lightly teasing DS1 while he was trying to do an online lesson, it's absolutely normal low-level sibling nonsense, but I wanted to to cry/scream/smash all the windows, for a few moments there. It's not a normal reaction.

I think the one year anniversary of everything coming to an end will be hard. The one thing I'm personally glad about is that I did take time to appreciate how good DD and I had it during that period after the worst of the newborn stage when we spent lots of time and groups and with our friends.

And yes to feeling more insular. I spoke to my brother on the phone for the first time in ages last week, we spoke for about 10 minutes and then we both kind of ran out of steam. It was awkward. Short of reading him the shopping list off the fridge, I really couldn't think of anything to say.

YANBU. This time last year DH was away and my mum came to stay for a week. We went to Bath for the day. Had a few café trips. I went to the cinema while she looked after DS. A year on, we're 200 miles away from family and all of the above is either illegal or against guidelines. I sometimes can't wrap my head around it.

The best way of describing myself at the moment is "weepy"!

@starray

I’m just glad I’m not actually grieving for someone I love who has died.

I have grieved several times in my life for someone who has died. Not of Covid though.

Death is not a new thing. Death is part of life. How have people forgotten this?

I feel the same as a pp who said she's grieving for opportunity and spontaneity. I was not a mad party animal before - but if I felt like popping to the gym I could. I could ring up a friend and meet for coffee and cake in a cafe. I could nip into someone's house if they wanted to show me something new they had bought. I could wander round the shops if I wanted. I could comfort a friend with a big hug if they needed it. And don't get me started on the things that children and young people have given up, all for a virus which largely doesn't affect them.

These are not small insignificant things as some people are so keen on telling us on MN. Grief is an appropriate word.

YANBU.

My main emotion is real anger, and like another person said it's fairly illogical in a way because I'm not even sure who it should be directed at.

I'm pissed off because I feel like I'm wasting some of what should be the best years of my life (I'm in my mid twenties) and everyone has missed out on my little one's first year. It's been rough having a very young child during this. I'm pissed off my maternity felt like it was wasted.

Rage with touches of panic because I don't know how long this will go on for, how the world will be afterwards and if it happens again. I can't allow myself to go down the rabbit hole of what if it happens again.

What makes me irrationally angry - and probably why I should spend less time on MN! - are the people who embrace the lockdown and the restrictions. The people who join every thread to remind us that we're in a pandemic. And emphasise it by prefixing it with the redundant "global". And sometimes write it in capitals.

The ones who have no ability to apply common sense but want us all to slavishly follow the rules - but secretly love it when we don't because they can then hoist themselves on to their extremely high horse and scold us for not caring, for being stupid, for wanting to kill our grandparents.

I am equally enraged by anyone who comes on to a thread to draw some sanctimonious comparison to the war. They seem so pleased with themselves, as if they've just done something incisively profound and clever. Not something tediously lame and predictable, which demonstrates how hard of thinking they are.

Meanwhile the rest of us are mourning the life we used to have and waking up to the slowly dawning realisation that having managed to strip us of our freedom so effectively, the government might not be so keen to return it as they were to remove it.

Does anyone else get the urge to do something utterly shocking to just see a change? I used to joke about running naked and screaming into the street when I felt particularly frustrated.....obviously I never would. But the fantasy is there.

I hope the government realises just how angry and confused people are: they are minimising this. The constant refusal of information is almost worse than lockdown itself. If they keep us in the dark for much longer, with no information, they will have riots on their hands. Is this “roadmap” due soon actually going to tell us something, or will it be the usual drivel and waffle and mixed messages?

Yes to the pp who mentioned not being bothered to reach out to family and friends on the phone. I am usually such a sociable being and I am ignoring everyone who texts me or gets in touch. What is the point? I've got nothing to say and no one can say anything that is going to make me feel better. I honestly wouldnt leave bed if I didnt have kids.

If you meant something different to how I perceived it @starray, I apologise in advance.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

Does anyone else get the urge to do something utterly shocking to just see a change? I used to joke about running naked and screaming into the street when I felt particularly frustrated.....obviously I never would. But the fantasy is there.

I have been taking risks just for the hell of it. Just to try and feel something.

Have a cry away from the children, wash your face, pour a glass of wine, cuddle your kids. It WILL get better. Eventually. Even if the weather warms up and we can see more people outside, that would be a massive improvement.

@PracticallyFloored

I also find that lately I've pulled back a lot on reaching out to friends and family for a chat, which is completely out of character for me. It's not an anxiety thing, I just feel like I have nothing left to say and neither does anybody else. I've just given up.

Anybody else feeling more insular?

Yes, I can't be bothered with zoom or phone chats etc. as I don't have anything new to say. Also I find it hard to focus on anything at the moment.

@starray

I’m just glad I’m not actually grieving for someone I love who has died.

And there we have it.

Death is part of life. Everybody dies.

Why did this not matter before? Why is it only when people die from Covid that it matters?