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.

@StarsAndsunbeams what are the goals? Maybe some of us could come up with things that you can do during the current circumstances?

@wanderings coronavirus has not permanently killed people’s desire to watch performances. Once it’s safe audiences will return and the industry will spring back.

A pre-covid life will return.

A pre-Brexit life will not, and that's the bigger issue in my view.

If other countries' economies rebound faster than the UK's does, our kids will no longer be able to go where the work is unless they have especially required skills and can get a visa.

Flat is how I feel too. I've suffered with my MH for years and covid came along just as I started to sort my life out a little. Now I'm turning 30 soon and spent the last year staring at the same four walls (literally, tiny studio flat) almost constantly. Any chance of finding a job so we can move soon is gone, there is nothing here now and I'd have struggled anyway.

I can't force myself to go for another of the same cold, lonely walk. I feel trapped in a tiny cage and the thought of months more in here is unbearable, but there is no way to change it.

Well the live entertainment industry is unlikely to spring back if all those who work in it have retrained at the government's behest to simply survive and can't just snap back into their previous life. That's not pessimism it's reality.

I am enjoying this simplified version of life

I actually used to enjoy feeling that my life had been simplified, but I don't feel it has been anymore. It feels like the difficulties remained (work, meal planning, cleaning, fitting everything in) except the joy in between the difficulties, which made life interesting and varied and manageable, has drained away. It's only been quite recently, since the new year, that I have been feeling this way.

@PattyPan Thanks for the offer. It would be far too outing to reveal.

I still have gratitude, so I don't think I'm wallowing.

I find it flabbergasting how black and white, one size fits all some responses have been, lacking in empathy. Particularly HitchFlix.

You are not being unreasonable at all, but this is still very sad to read. I think all we can do is just focus on the here and now, I know that’s a total cliche, as well as much easier said than done, but anything else will just drag you down

Watchingbehindmyhands.
Ditto. I haven't spoken to my mum for months as it's like she's allergic to "heavy stuff" aka any problems or struggles. We also have very different views on the government management of this. So can't talk. Non platformed by my Mum. Great

This thread is balm to my soul, I’m so glad I’ve found (most of) you. On paper we’re having one of the easiest lockdowns possible and I feel really guilty for feeling so blah, which is the only way I can describe it. I just miss all the little things that give life colour and sparkle.

I miss my son, my friends, a coffee or lunch out, a wander round the shops, a day trip to the coast or the nearest city, just the little things. Reading has always been my escape and I can’t even concentrate on a book right now.

Funny how some resilient and positive people are so sure that those struggling with solutions to their problems just aren't being positive enough to figure out solutions.

Sometimes there is no solution.

Smacks of the fecking Law of Attraction.

It's not beyond the capabilities of people to solve their issues, it's that every potential solution is being blocked at every turn.

@starray

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

My OH died very suddenly right at the start of the first lockdown, almost a year now. We couldn't have a 'proper' funeral, just immediate family, I saw a couple of our friends during the mid-summer hiatus and managed to get to the pub quiz a few times but I don't know yet if how I feel is due to the pandemic or is due to the loss of OH. Once we start to come out of it, and we will, it'll be strange seeing people I've not seen since he died, there's an incomfortable feeling for them too, do they react as though he's just died or is that dragging things out for me? I totally understand people's feelings at this stage, I've just been for my first jab, it was exciting getting into the car and driving though the lanes, similar to during the first lockdown when I stumbled and fractured my wrist, the drive to hospital was exhilerating! (Yes, I know I shouldn't have driven myself there but needs must.)

Yes to the same feelings here. I was doing fine until recently and that was working in frontline NHS, almost thrived on the stress and doing something useful and I got to talk to adults who I also co sider my friends

The relentlessness of it all is getting me down now plus my dc are shadows of themselves stuck in all the time, they're getting fed up of homeschool and they have been quite good and enthusiastic about it early on.

We are half way through house renovations, so the house is cold, dusty and disorganised, fed up with cold weather and our beautiful cat has just died 😥

I have no motivation or energy to do anything useful or pleasurable and have many indoor hobbies I like like sewing but cant get motivated to do it. It just goes to show that having some thing forced on you is no fun at all. I've had to use up my holiday in dribs and drabs before April and normally I'd love to have time at home to do little bits like sewing or reading but we've had too much of it recently. I'm no party animal or even particularly into being out all the time but I just want to do something spontaneous.

I dont like shopping much or drinking in pubs. But the thought of wandering a massive shopping centre or sitting in a pub drinking all afternoon sounds wonderful at the moment.

@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 to all of this, which means that my world is ever smaller, and today I broke. I've been crying on and off all day.

I am angry at myself for being so bloody lonely. How have I reached 40, living alone with only a cat for company. I never really noticed before, I was never home.

I am also worried that I have become a bit odd. I avoid people now, I should be communicating a lot more in my job, but I just react. I am exhausted (worked to midnight last night and started at 6am today - this is just a break, still loads to do).

I want life to go back to normal, but I am scared I won’t adjust

Christ, in the grand scheme of things it's not going to last that long. There's an awful lot of histrionics.
There's a chance things will never return to how they were pre covid.
But you know we've had it good for a long time compared to previous generations.
There are people living in horrendous conditions in other parts of the world- permanently- in war torn areas.
Time to get some perspective.

@BigButtons

Christ, in the grand scheme of things it's not going to last that long. There's an awful lot of histrionics. There's a chance things will never return to how they were pre covid. But you know we've had it good for a long time compared to previous generations. There are people living in horrendous conditions in other parts of the world- permanently- in war torn areas. Time to get some perspective.

It’s okay to find this hard, not okay to dismiss others feelings.

There is always someone worse off, but it doesn’t mean we can’t experience emotions.

This may sound very shallow, but I think I'm grieving for all the fun we didn't have - all the birthday parties that didn't happen, all the family events (weddings, funerals, Christmas or just a big family gathering) that got cancelled, all the relationships that never started, all the babies never conceived...

We can't plan anything at all, because who knows what will happen? And it's been a year of this, and 114,000 people have died, and it is all shit, frankly. Everything is just so... flat, right now.

And I've been very lucky in this pandemic, with no elderly parents or young kids, a secure job, blah blah. I can only imagine just how rubbish it is for people who aren't in this situation. From chats with friends, I think so many people right now are feeling like this. No solution but just to keep on, waiting for Spring and better days.

Anyone playing Minimisation and Discounting Bingo right now? I think I've got two lines.....

Grief is the perfect word. I have nothing really to moan about - great DH, lots of room to spread out, work is fine, no young kids at home, no money worries.

The problem is that there seems so little point at the moment. I find myself looking at my pension pots thinking "they'll be fine when I'm gone' for the first time. Seriously, watching a death on a crappy tv show - in the past I'd have said over egging the pudding! - I thought more about how it would be okay as long as I wasn't aware of the pain, or in pain for too long before I went. I've never done that before.

Lots of my normal social circle continue to see each other, and then posting pictures of those gatherings and I feel rage and jealousy and just want to scream. I see them hugging or holding their DC or GDC and I question myself as to why I've not done that. I know the answers, I know what I am doing is the right thing, but do I really want to protect this life? There are so many times when I don't know the answer to that.

I have not been 'home' since the visit to bury my DM. I feel so disconnected, and need to go see that there is family after her. I dream of being on that plane two or three times a week, but know that it wont' come true anytime soon. I'm also terrified - if you said I could fly tomorrow I wouldn't take you up on it. Such a conundrum.

Sorry. That was doom and gloom and I'm normally known as Ms. Optimist. Not right now I'm not.

Bigbuttons, putting things into perspective would include acknowledging that everything is relative. Strangers (very sadly) living in wartorn, faraway parts of the world are in no way relatable to most on this thread (thankfully). Same goes for your historical comment. It's almost impossible to put it into context, because it's not relevant to the lives we are or had been used to.

I remember in March last year being so depressed that this "was going to last for 12 weeks" and here we are, a whole bloody year later, not much further on. The heralding of the vaccine in November was meant to be the great new hope, but no, we're in another bloody lockdown.

OH and I had planned either a lovely holiday abroad in the summer (or a UK break if that wasn't possible). Then on comes Matt Hancock last night saying that even a UK holiday may not be possible.

I'm not getting any yo, no hunger. I'm stuck in the house all day every day with a weekly trip to Tesco to look forward to. There is nothing to look forward to. no end in sight and the goalposts keep getting moved further and further away.

^There are people living in horrendous conditions in other parts of the world- permanently- in war torn areas.
Time to get some perspective.^

@BigButtons Wow, just wow. Have you RTFT? Do you know the personal backgrounds and unique circumstances of each and every individual on here? No.

As @MistressoftheDarkSide puts it, minimisation and discounting.

Watching old episode gp behind closed doors
People talking to each other normally, no masks, distancing, able see their gp
Just lovely, normal
Devastating what this society has become

I don't feel we've lost our future. It won't be quite the same as the past, but it won't bo that radically different.

I'm more worried about the effects of Brexit on the UK's foreseeable future.

It’s the little things that make such a difference. The highlight of my week was getting a coffee from a take away with a colleague (from a station on the way back from somewhere essential) and feeling kind of normal. It’s the first takeaway coffee I’ve had in many months. I feel really flat and like a shit parent because of it.