Anyone else still feeling flat?

[Summercocktailsinthesnow]

I will say I am grateful to still be here, and I have not lost anyone very close to me to covid. Believe me I am grateful for those things. I am not depressed in the slightest either, however I am finding it increasingly hard to listen to all the conversations about hugging and enjoying life again on the radio and every news channel, and I am just not feeling it. At all. Things don't feel very different to me.

I have shivered through meals and drinks with friends, braved the weather for BBQs, I have even had my hair done! I imagined by now to be feeling much better than I am. But I don't feel better. I am so flat, and find things are not much better than before. The things I most want to do seem still a million miles away.

I am desperate for a holiday, we have worked all the way through, but how easy it that going to be this summer? Chances look exceptionally low. I want to dance at a festival, no chance. Or go to something with live music, anything.
I want to enjoy shopping without feeling muzzled, and I really feel what we have now is not really a whole life at all, it is like a half life. It is nothing like the life I left behind. I have no sense of when it will end. The scientist on the BBC today said she wasn't sure the next reopening will even happen....the moment when some kind of normal happens on the 21st of June.

I can't summon the energy to look forward to anything, because we have no idea if it will happen. I feel like I am being lied to, look at all you can do is the strap line, the reality is freezing cold, wind swept evenings eating cold over priced food, and everything is so limited in experience and in interaction, like trying to enjoy a facial with someone covered in PPE none of this is actually fun anymore!

I am optimist, by nature, and of course I have already counted my blessings for the things we can do, but really I just want my old life back so so so badly. Does anyone else feel like this?

Sorry OP I had to laugh at the way you described the whole massage experience. It sounds utterly ridiculous! I hope you can find something nice to help you relax too. I too have given up on doing anything because it turns into a chore and you feel like a criminal just walking into a shop and being given the once over by the store attendant (which I now call the covid nazis!). The only thing I find solace in is comparing this period to my days of studying- when we had to miss out on all the fun to get through exams but we knew it would be over soon. I try and draw from the resilience of that experience.

What you said about languishes being the one to not be sucked into the half life pretence really resonated with me --- I went to browse the click and collect library and in the middle of the room they had piled up the chairs and covered them with hazard tape and it looked like some kind of ww2 bomb shelter. I asked the librarian if they had a date for when things were going to get back to normal and she asked me "what do you mean by normal?", no way am I accepting this as my normal- this is an awful blip!

OP That massage sounded more like one of those alien abduction stories without the probing.

When I think about the effect of all this on my children I get so angry. I've not felt anger like this since my teenage years. No one has looked out for the needs of children and young people during this.

After a traumatic birth with my first I benefitted hugely from going to groups. It took some motivation but was such a positive and I'm still grieving the loss of these. Every week I still think this is the afternoon we'd go to St John's, this is the morning we'd to to music time etc. I still miss it. My oldest is in nursery now to get some peer interaction and I'm making the most of the mat based baby classes with my youngest before they start crawling and we have to reconsider.

In the next weeks I think I'll brace myself to try some new things and stick with anything that works.

@MoreAloneTime I've had that extreme anger on behalf of my DD too and the way the kids' needs have just been forgotten. I thought I was the only one who felt it and maybe I was overreacting but from seeing your post I guess it's a normal healthy reaction to something really really crap.

I also feel that anger. This is so refreshing.

I'm with you OP. I feel completely flat. Like you say cold rushed meals with overpriced food. Still no theatre, film, gigs. Absolutely had it with mask and mask zealots. Sick of bullshit like wiping marker pens down after one use at work and being given daggers if I forget. My kids don't wear masks anymore, they can't breathe properly in them and it's affecting their energy and concentration.

Good God, I'm glad I found this thread. There's so much on here that covers exactly how I feel, but thankfully without the sanctimonious "Be glad you're alive/not a front line worker/it was worse in the War/insert other triteness here".

I'm tired. Not physically tired, but mentally tired. Tired of never knowing where we'll be and what we're allowed to do and never getting up your hopes because they'll get dashed.

I'm tired of the lack of spontaneity and carefree-ness. Going to the pub involved a "Fancy a pint?" text and finding my shoes. Now it's masks, checking in, sanitising, sitting at your designated table with your designated group (no popping over to see someone else) and that's always assuming you can get a table. No more squishing onto the end of someone else's. I'm tired of going out dressed for all eventualities and sitting in the drizzle keeping the raindrops out of my pint while avoiding hypothermia and trying to convince myself that this is just as much fun as it used to me.

I'm tired of the tracking. I'm no tin-foil-hat wearing 5G-will-kill-us-all nutjob but I am deeply uncomfortable with having to register when I go somewhere. I don't want a fucking NHS app, I don't want a fucking vaccine passport to prove I can go somewhere and register when I do.

I'm tired of kiboshed friendships - I've been horrified to see what sort of people friends turned into, with their shouting and lecturing at anyone who did something of which they didn't approve, or who seemed to find some comfort in scaring the daylights out of everyone else, especially in the early days. I've had to step back from those. Others, I think, have stepped back from me because they didn't agree with how I tried to carry on as normal as possible (although obviously within the rules). I'm a fairly solitary soul but I'm tired of the loneliness and the sheer amount of effort that goes into the few social interactions I have.

I'm tired of masks. The first time I saw a shop full of people wearing them, combined with having to wear one myself, I had a full-on panic attack. It was awful. And from certain quarters I got no sympathy beyond "Suck it up, it's for your own and others' good". I want to smile, I want to wear lipstick, I want to see other people's faces.

I'm tired of scientists who seem to think we should live in their version of a potential ideal world. Suggestions that we should continue to social distance/wear masks/be tracked forever more because "it will help with general disease control" as if this is more important than living our lives freely. Like this is all one big experiment and nothing else matters - not non-Covid health, not mental health, nothing.

I'm tired of knowing I could do something but all the fun will be sucked out of it by The Regulations. Tired of how our lives have diminished and we're just supposed to accept it. Tired of how things seem to range from bad to dull, and the other half of the spectrum has disappeared. I'm just...tired.

I am not sure my house will ever be fit for public viewing ever again as it is very very erm, eclectic

That sounds amazing hamster I am sure your friends will love your new look house and individuality sprouting from every (purple) corner!

I decluttered, there is decluttering and then my decluttering. My stuff is in charity shops and tips up and down the land. There is barely anything left, I have razed the place to the ground. We can at least find the car keys these days, even if it is profoundly sterile.

Me too, no motivation. I was so looking forward to being able to do things again, but now I feel no desire to do much at all. I hate my job which has changed from a nice social one to nothing but risk assessments and most of my colleagues working from home. I'd retire if it was just work I felt like this about but it is life in general.

And as for the Guardian article, and quite aside from the Guardian having morphed into The Dementor Daily over the last year, I have rapidly learned to take anything 'the experts' say with a pinch of salt. I don't mean that in a Govian sense (perish the thought ) but experts in their field are just that: experts in their field and they're pretty damn small fields at that. Which is not unacceptable in itself; it's normal in academia to have a very small area of incredible expertise.

It's not often I say this, but thank goodness decisions are being made by the electorally-held-to-account Government and not SAGES.

But that narrow remit means they don't think about anything else: not the economy, not non-Covid health, not mental health, not the effect on people. And the media picks up on it because Ask An Expert and Get a Potentially Dramatic Quote makes for good clickbait.

I am so glad I found my people.

I can feel some anger surfacing now, because why are we still doing this when all of the vulnerable are now vaccinated. Barely anyone is dying of anything, the numbers in hospitals have plummeted. Why is it still okay to inflict all of this on us now? I really really want to know what the plan is, because I don't know how much longer I am prepared to go along with this.

I have been never (knowingly) broken the rules, but at what point do we say that is it, we have to get back to normal. As it stands this is madness. 'The rules' are ridiculous and pointless. The masks are doing nothing apart from giving us rashes and creating stress. The stupidity of so many things that are almost counter productive.

Hardly any other countries (with numbers similar to ours) are living under these conditions. Many have no restrictions at all, and have not had the population vaccinated to the degree we have.
My thread was not really about changing things, just about flat lining but the more posts I see on here with people feeling the same or worse than me (and we are probably the tip of the iceberg, and at the bottom end of those really suffering) the more I am thinking this is not good enough, why the hell are we accepting this?

On the off chance of a stray variant? Or what?

I am no longer comfortable with any of this. In January it had my full support. Now, not so much, because we can't carry on shuffling around like criminals in our own country. Our poor children. I want someone somewhere to start listening, this is NOT okay. I am like a zombie, my best friends are a shell of themselves, I haven't seen anyone laugh for so long. FFS let us live properly again.

We kept to the rules for a solid year. Once we were both vaccinated, and a year had passed, that was the hard limit for me. We started to see a select few people indoors at ours, people who had been vaccinated but understood and were happy with the risks.

I don't feel guilty. I don't know many who rigidly stuck to the guidance for the entire year like we did (and I fully recognise I was privileged to be in a position to have done so). I feel pretty impressed we managed to do it for a year, but once we'd been fully vaccinated then I was absolutely done tbh. The consequences are too great.

I agree with a lot of what's been said. I completely supported the restrictions and stuck to them 98% of the time.

I also agree we have to open up properly some time ( as in no masks etc) and see what happens. Having said that, I can also see why masks and social distancing in pubs, shops etc. will be the last things to go, because once they are gone, the Government would have a hell of a job reimposing them if needed.

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin

Good God, I'm glad I found this thread. There's so much on here that covers exactly how I feel, but thankfully without the sanctimonious "Be glad you're alive/not a front line worker/it was worse in the War/insert other triteness here".

I'm tired. Not physically tired, but mentally tired. Tired of never knowing where we'll be and what we're allowed to do and never getting up your hopes because they'll get dashed.

I'm tired of the lack of spontaneity and carefree-ness. Going to the pub involved a "Fancy a pint?" text and finding my shoes. Now it's masks, checking in, sanitising, sitting at your designated table with your designated group (no popping over to see someone else) and that's always assuming you can get a table. No more squishing onto the end of someone else's. I'm tired of going out dressed for all eventualities and sitting in the drizzle keeping the raindrops out of my pint while avoiding hypothermia and trying to convince myself that this is just as much fun as it used to me.

I'm tired of the tracking. I'm no tin-foil-hat wearing 5G-will-kill-us-all nutjob but I am deeply uncomfortable with having to register when I go somewhere. I don't want a fucking NHS app, I don't want a fucking vaccine passport to prove I can go somewhere and register when I do.

I'm tired of kiboshed friendships - I've been horrified to see what sort of people friends turned into, with their shouting and lecturing at anyone who did something of which they didn't approve, or who seemed to find some comfort in scaring the daylights out of everyone else, especially in the early days. I've had to step back from those. Others, I think, have stepped back from me because they didn't agree with how I tried to carry on as normal as possible (although obviously within the rules). I'm a fairly solitary soul but I'm tired of the loneliness and the sheer amount of effort that goes into the few social interactions I have.

I'm tired of masks. The first time I saw a shop full of people wearing them, combined with having to wear one myself, I had a full-on panic attack. It was awful. And from certain quarters I got no sympathy beyond "Suck it up, it's for your own and others' good". I want to smile, I want to wear lipstick, I want to see other people's faces.

I'm tired of scientists who seem to think we should live in their version of a potential ideal world. Suggestions that we should continue to social distance/wear masks/be tracked forever more because "it will help with general disease control" as if this is more important than living our lives freely. Like this is all one big experiment and nothing else matters - not non-Covid health, not mental health, nothing.

I'm tired of knowing I could do something but all the fun will be sucked out of it by The Regulations. Tired of how our lives have diminished and we're just supposed to accept it. Tired of how things seem to range from bad to dull, and the other half of the spectrum has disappeared. I'm just...tired.

I hear you.

I feel so much better reading that so many other people feel the same.
I just feel like what's the point? It's so hard to get the motivation to do housework, admin, even fun things as it all seems a massive effort for no reward.

Going through a divorce hasn't helped I feel like I'm so stretched making sure my dc's feel ok that there's not been much left for me and I'm steadily failing. I've tried to do all the right things like take multivitamins, daily walks, read, sleep and watch comforting tv but everything feels very hopeless.

Shopping isn't fun to do at the moment, I don't want to join a queue just to have a quick look round, follow a complicated one way system and take my mask on and off a million times. I bought some glasses I wasn't even keen on the other day just because every pair I tried on had to be cleaned and sanitised and I just gave up.

I hate how much my dc's have missed out on but booking anything is just grim. Expensive, strict time slots, not knowing what facilities are open, lots of rules. I just want a fun afternoon out without military planning for what could end up being a damp squib in every sense of the word!

I'm sick of it all and alcohol is the only thing that seems to jolt me back in to feeling 'fun' but I have to limit that so alcohol dependency doesn't end up being another thing to battle on my to do list.

I've been furloughed for so long now that I'm back on flexi furlough I feel like a new starter and keep making daft mistakes and worry I'll end up being made redundant while they look to cut costs. They're working on a 2 week rota until they know more from the government so childcare has been a nightmare I don't even know what I'm working past Sunday for gods sake and haven't got the childcare options of pre-covid.

I'm hoping eventually things will feel better in the future and the cold weather this year has made everything feel so much worse.
Feels quite cathartic to get it all out.

@Summercocktailsinthesnow

I agree on the ridiculous rules situation.

Either the vaccines work or they don't.

If they don't work, then I can understand the rules, but then what is the point of the vaccine passports?

If they do work, then what is the point of the rules at all now we have herd immunity and the vulnerable are protected?

It's mass gaslighting.

me to - hit a real low point this weekend , there is just nothing positive or fun in life and little to look forward to.

I have 2 uni DCs who have stuck to the rules who have massively suffered this year and I have had to support mentally to keep them going.

The divisions in society , how anyone with a different view is attacked, the racism, the intolerance , the willingness by which we are collectively giving up rights for the benefit of the wealthy are all weighing on me as well.

I'm not sure how to pick myself up.

I meet up with people and don't really feel relaxed enough to enjoy it.

I'm thinking it will take a bit of time to wind back from the last year.

I want to give you all a big hug, and offer a glass of wine, because you have put in to words exactly how I feel too.

I can really relate to the apathy, and feeling of anger on behalf of my children who have missed out on so much. Please don't judge me but I have stopped wearing face masks at all. My conscience couldn't let me, I began to feel that morally I couldn't wear them any more, it was as if they became a symbol of oppression and control, empty virtue signalling when they serve little to no purpose now (if they ever did). I just refuse to take part in the charade now.

But we don't have herd immunity hamster. Not yet.

It is mass gaslighting.

It’s a load of shite.

I want it to fuck off now.

It is mass gaslighting.

It’s a load of shite.

I want it to fuck off now.

It is mass gaslighting.

It’s a load of shite.

I want it to fuck off now.

It is mass gaslighting.

It’s a load of shite.

I want it to fuck off now.

It is my understanding we reached herd immunity in April. We are surely extremely close. Given the huge numbers now vaccinated, we must be close enough.

Scrapping the masks would go a long way. Even if we kept an element of social distancing. At least you could smile, wave and interact properly with others. I don't want to do 'most' things because of masks. I hate them so much that anything I do that involved wearing one feels like an endurance. As all over 65s have now had second doses, why am I still needing to wear one at all?

It is my understanding we reached herd immunity in April. We are surely extremely close. Given the huge numbers now vaccinated, we must be close enough.

Scrapping the masks would go a long way. Even if we kept an element of social distancing. At least you could smile, wave and interact properly with others. I don't want to do 'most' things because of masks. I hate them so much that anything I do that involved wearing one feels like an endurance. As all over 65s have now had second doses, why am I still needing to wear one at all?