To ask what the last 5 years has done to your mental health?

[Wouldloveanother]

Mines ruined to be honest.

I feel like a lot of my naivety about life has been stripped away and I’ve been left with a feeling of exhaustion and dread. My life is basically unrecognisable since March 2020.

I thought I would be ‘over it now’ but I’m not.

not looking for anything in particular, just a solidarity moan.

Horrific.

Until 2019 had spent 20 years trying to have children, was told no hope. Pregnancy 2020 left me a wreck. 2021 pushed me over the edge.

I was a partner in a law firm working 80 hours a week.

Now I am scared to leave the house. But I do, for the children's sake.

I will never go back to it. I lie in bed some nights thinking about proofs and trials, I was family law, complex child matters, and complex criminal child matters. It's like watching a different person.

I have no idea what's coming next. But no, I am not the same person.

I feel the same as ever - pretty sanguine. Bad things have happened (not seeing family abroad for 18 months, death of older generation) but good things have happened too (weddings, DS doing really well). Wars and prices and politics don't affect my mood because I'm old enough to have lived through all these cycles a few times now. Anyone who thinks things are shit now didn't grow up in Dublin in the 1980s (and I still have the happiest memories).

I will say I have less faith in the voting public and I now accept that many of them are fuckwits.

What happened in Dublin?

Nothing, other than a bit of frustration that the Government fell for media nonsense about Covid and made it out to be a much bigger deal than it was, damaging the economy in the process. Covid was never something to be scared of because even if - pre vaccination - it had "done for me", then once I'd died there would have been nothing to worry about! The only worrying thing it revealed was people's lack of resilience and susceptibility to sentimentality.

Unemployment, heroin, 60% tax rate, 20 something % interest rates, power cuts, mass emigration...it was all a bit grey. This looks like Las Vegas by comparison!

But life went on and things got better. And better. And then we had the Celtic tiger years! And then it all went to shit and we were PIIGS. And then things got better. And now there is a housing shortage. And so on.

It's still better than the 80s!

You poor thing.

Lockdown was hard, ended up on antidepressants. Anxiety got really bad. Panic attacks. I feel sympathy for anyone feeling as bad as I did, it was the hardest thing I've lived through.

Oddly enough I think I'm on the uptick. I actually reached my "fuck this" moment with an awful job, and my outlook has changed on life. I expect less to be perfect, I care less because look where that got me, I do enough work for my salary but I'm not doing unpaid overtime anymore. I'm not taking responsibility for making other people happy so much anymore. I am a little bit harder nosed. I sound a bit bitter but I had to drag myself through it, because of circumstances I didn't get a lot of support.

I definitely agree about the loss of naivety. I think many of us were unprepared mentally for something like covid. I personally still feel like part of me is stuck in March 2020, waiting and hoping for things to turn out ok. It’s really hard to describe. I suppose it’s some kind of trauma response? I’m doing okay generally at the moment though, but it just feels so odd that the first lockdown was 2.5 years ago! I still feel like I’m there.

I’m sure it wasn’t great but COVID has been much worse.

Hugely improved.

I left a dead long-term relationship in 2016. Being single for a while gave me a totally new lease of life and I realised that a lot of the things I was struggling with had their root cause in being totally miserable at home thanks to my relationship.

I moved home, live alone, am far, far happier than I've been in years, and I met a new partner that is far more suited to me than my Ex.

Lockdown was a blow due to being unable to socialise, but I enjoyed the paucity of people in public spaces when I did venture out. Social distancing was nice too since people were far less inclined to invade my personal space, and I wish that had become the norm rather than just resuming the status quo once SD ended.

The state of the UK, the lunatics in government, a wrecked economy, and global turmoil are all causes for concern, but in the whole I'm in a far better place mentally than 5 years ago.

I'm exactly the same. Keep trying to 'snap out of it' but it never really sticks.

Both me and DH have had bouts of severe anxiety to the point where we were signed off at different times.
I'm OK now but DH is still highly anxious and depressed.
Lockdown #2 nearly finished me off.

Looking specifically from 2020 lockdown

That broke me so much, I don't know how to articulate it. I don't know what was worse - the dictatorship, the people wanting dictatorship, the speeding up of digital hell, which I knew was coming but I hoped to be dead before it...the speeding up of the green crap once they saw what they could achieve through control.

The Speaker of the House of Commons suggesting lockdowns for green issues.

Loss of friends.

I have recovered from loss of friends, but the fear and dread of lockdown has had an effect on my physical health too. It's like living parallel lives - one where I want to be normal and one where I just want someone to push the button and it all be over.

On a personal level, I was absolutely thriving before lockdown. From turning 40 in 2016, absolutely thriving, except for my dad being ill and dying in 2018 and having to care for mum.

But me as a separate unit - everything was so lovely. I'm not an idiot, I know we don't get more than a few years before something ruins it. But the lockdown was a blast like I've never experienced and I cannot even start to look at the rubble.

I don't use that metaphor lightly, having lost in friends in a terror attack when I was young. But again, I recovered from that eventually. Lockdown is not recoverable.

Oh and another weird thing - I am bonded to a couple of people I don't like now, because they were the only ones who felt the same way about lockdown.

I have been on meds for 25 years, when anxiety and depression were things to be ashamed of, so I don't think much about that. I'm used to having that in my life.

lockdown was just...so much damage. I kind of hate a lot of people now.

My MH is shot but not due to covid exactly. Since March 2020, I have had ten pregnancy losses, done 3 rounds of IVF and face a life without children (aged 40) and that ON TOP of covid/climate change/economic and political turmoil has been what’s done it….

I'm a shell of the person I was 5 years ago.

My mental health is fine. Covid brought changes as my DDad passed away, my DMum had to go into a home. Also both DS went to Uni in the last couple of years. But I don't feel anything g has had a bad impact. I WFH now most of the time but it saves the commute and I sont needs lost of company.

I was discharged from CMHT in late 2019, and I was making effort to make my own life better.
I had a blip, and was told to get out and see people, do things and absolutely do not isolate. Then Covid happened and I had to do the opposite to what would make me well. I got shouted out in public for walking my dog, shitty comments from security in shops about what I was buying... and then all the comments and judgement on social media.
Lockdown left me alone and desperate....I made an attempt on my life. Then I got shit for not being able to wear a mask, not being vaccinated (severe needle phobia).
Even now, I am just so angry about how we were all made to look at our fellow person with such a suspicious eye. It ruined relationships between neighbours, friend, and family

I suffer from health anxiety since covid. I constantly think I'm ill (I'm not) I Google every twinge and pain. I wasn't like this before covid. I have lost my friends too. I obviously didn't see them during lockdown and when I did meet them it just felt different, I can't really explain it but I just don't have friends now.

My mental health is generally pretty robust but I was pretty anxious during brexit (EU citizen) - the referendum happened when I was on mat leave with DS1 and he wasn't a great sleeper (still isn't) so I was a bit angsty anyway, I felt on edge about the whole thing until I got my settled status sorted.

Covid was easier for us I think - I was on mat leave with DS2, and DS1 was in preschool so no homelearning to do. DH worked from home.

I am a bit worried about inflation/cost of living but luckily DS2 gets his 30 free hours next April so it feels like a "temporary" problem.

OP
are you talking about covid or lockdown?

Just this really. Tired, not sleep deprived but just bone weary. Can't be bothered. I do, for the kids, but it's a huge effort. And I have no patience for even minor things going wrong, tiny things feel like a disaster

Definitely changed. I was plodding along before Covid but since it I'm finding being happy a chore and not something that's coming naturally.

I'm single, no kids and live alone and in the last few years I've really seen who my true friends are (not many it turns out, even the really long term ones). The rest have bashed on with having kids so it's like any social life has been obliterated. Also put on weight due to lockdown and ridiculous wine drinking which I haven't got off yet which is adding to it.

That along with the state of the country and world it's hard to see how life is going to get better, though I'm really trying to help myself. It's draining.

I feel like I’m hanging by a thread most days. We are dangerously in debt, my dad is very poorly, my daughter has had mental health issues for the past five years and I feel like I can’t cope anymore. Can’t imagine feeling happy again to be honest.

I was incredibly lucky in that I didn’t lose work or money in lockdown (worked from home all the way through) and nobody close to me died. I didn’t find lockdown remotely traumatic, in fact I liked that lots of social pressure had been removed and I found working from home so much better for my mental and physical well-being. Having had very dark depressive periods where I couldn’t leave the house, lockdown was nothing compared to that. I was lucky to have good friends to talk to every day and a dog that got me out of the house for a daily walk - I’d see lots of other dog walkers as well so still got some social interaction.

I had therapy from 2019-2022 and that was transformative, I’ve reduced my antidepressant dosage, been diagnosed with chronic fatigue (this is a good thing as I now am getting help and have a legitimate reason to never have to go into an office 5 days a week again). I’m the best version of myself I’ve ever been, frankly.

I of course recognise this is a lot to do with my privileged position through covid and really feel for frontline workers and those who had to continue going to work in service industries throughout, they are real heroes. But for people like me who kept their jobs and homes, didn’t get seriously ill or have anyone die, I struggle to find much sympathy for being “traumatised” by lockdown. So what, we had to sit in the house for a few months. It was boring, but pretty cushy for a lot of people.

On a societal/worldwide level everything is terrible re war, climate change, governmental corruption, cost of living etc, but I’ve always been a pessimist so none of it is particularly surprising to me. We have to just be grateful for our relative privilege and make the best of what we have got. My motto has always been to expect the worst then you can’t be disappointed, it’s working out pretty well for me at the moment.