To think there's a whole mental health aftermath to the pandemic which isn't really being addressed

[crackerscandycanes]

Just looking at people I know, people seem to be really struggling at the minute, and of course the cost of living is a big part and all the bad news etc, but I also think that some of it is the aftermath of the pandemic and everything we had to go through being locked indoors for all that time. It seems as if we're not supposed to mention it now or reflect, but I think there's a lot of mental health issues on the back of it.

The covid catch up funding. It's been inadequate.

Btw why do people touch their faces so much?

I was thought of as germ phobic pre covid but I think this stuff is just common sense, especially if, like me, you use public transport.

Yes, the arguments about lockdown and restrictions protecting those cohorts never acknowledge the way in which they also suffered because of restrictions.

Even within the context of us deciding to prioritise those vulnerable people rather than others, and choosing a restriction based approach, we could still have had a discussion about the specific detriment caused by restrictions and how we might best mitigate that. How we could've best kept some social network and normality going whilst being as covid safe as possible, how the most isolated and hard to reach people could've been included, how disabled and elderly people who didn't have their own outside space could still have been facilitated to access it. But we didn't, it was all don't kill grandma and stay the fuck at home instead. Well, plenty of grandmas paid the price for that one.

Have to be honest me and my family have been fine mentally. We never followed the rules and neither did my siblings so our kids had plenty of interaction including ourselves. There was no way I was going to fuck my kids mental health up or indeed mine for a pandemic that was inevitably going to kill people. I’m very glad I made that choice.

But also very lucky you had people in agreement. I'd have given anything for such people.

Yes. I felt very fortunate to have access to a trusted social network who also wanted to meet up and also to live in a place where the neighbours didn't give a fuck. That was a real privilege, and reading some posts on here I can see that it's one many people didn't have.

This is my view exactly. The first lockdown was needed to give scientists, doctors, epidemiologists etc time to get to grips with what they were dealing with. Once this was clear the policy and messaging (ideally around May 2020) should have changed to emphasising the need for the vulnerable to shield, and others to live normally, but with precautions.

It really didn’t need a crystal ball to see what the mental health and other outcomes would be. I was looking back on a WhatsApp conversation I had with a good friend in March 2020 a few days ahead of the first lockdown being announced. We discussed children and young people, and in particular the risk to mental health of lockdown, the fact poorer kids would miss out on free school meals, safeguarding and vulnerable kids, the inability to homeschool at the same time as trying to wfh etc.

And neither of us are experts in any of this. It was simply common sense. Which you couldn’t express to a lot of people at the time as they’d get hysterical about you wanting to kill their granny.

After the first lock down I didn't follow the rules. I regularly saw a friend at her house. That really helped my mental health. Amazing we can just admit now last year you would have been called selfish evil all sorts.

@EmmaAgain22

True. I guess breaking rules with adult siblings/parents and letting our younger and older kids mix was because we felt safe in doing so. After a few weeks it also included our cousins and their kids. I also never did an ounce of home schooling. I mean seriously nothing.

I actually work in education so I knew the home learning was going to be completely ineffective and lip service at best. Academically my kids are where they need to be so again another choice I am happy with on reflection. I remember posting this mid lockdown and OMG I got FLAMED for doing no home schooling. I was seriously in the minority but I was happy with my decision. We had a lot of outdoor exercise (like seriously tons).

After lockdown both my son and daughter joined running clubs as we had all managed to get ourselves really fit. I prioritised outdoor exercise massively for us all and I think it’s been quite transformative for us all as we have all maintained our fitness.

It really didn’t need a crystal ball to see what the mental health and other outcomes would be.

Indeed it did not.

@Peedoffo

To be fair I did admit it on here and to people in RL. It’s up to them what they thought of me of course.

I’m so sorry to read this. 💐💐💐

It's not as if we "suffered in silence" during the pandemic. Most of us communicated with other people, we often still talk about it. If it was all hush hush at the time, then maybe I'd see your point, but most people talked about lockdown a lot. One of the biggest reasons people are greatly affected by huge events is that they don't talk about it. That is simply not the case here.

"But also very lucky you had people in agreement. I'd have given anything for such people."

I hope more people see through the fear tactics. It's well known now that the government used psychologists to ramp up the fear to make people comply.
They escalated the fear very effectively but haven't de-escalated it. This is why so many are still suffering with anxiety.

I also found it interesting that we were encouraged to deny our lives experience. The way we were encouraged to think, live and behave actually denied our lived experience.
Sadly, yes there were casualties, but not on the scale that we were meant to believe. We would have seen and heard about deaths personally and constantly if that was the scale of the pandemic.

Absolutely shocking that in a thread about severe mental health implications from govt lockdowns that you might not agree with opinions on lockdowns. Didn't you have enough threads berating people during 2020 and 2021 to post on?

Aren't the exhausted, burnt out and unwell allowed to complain now we are moving forwards?

Didn't you have enough threads berating people during 2020 and 2021 to post on?

It’s astounding people keep going even now. Anyway they’re an aggressive minority tg

I'm so sorry to hear this.

I lived in isolation though covid, it was really tough.

This is true. I work in a secondary school and the level of MH need has gone up significantly since covid but many of our parents are told by GP's that there is no point referring them to CAMHS as the waiting lists are so long, so they should "ask the school for help". Then parents are disappointed and in some cases angry to discover that our school counselling service also has a waiting list! We can barely afford to pay our utility bills or fix bits of the building that are crumbling but we're expected to provide a specialist mental health service with no waiting. The children who are referred to CAMHS are assessed fairly quickly but then wait up to a year for therapy and when parents ring up to complain CAMHS tell them to "ask the school what they can do to help". We have children who are living in intolerable conditions with parents who are physically and emotionally abusive, despite meeting the threshold for removal because there are no Foster placements in our local area, and the response we get from their Social Workers is to ask what we as a school are doing about their Mental Health!

Our staff are exhausted, overstretched and every member of the pastoral team is doing the job of at least three people. Parents are also stressed and burnt out so taking it out on our staff, verbal abuse and intimidation of staff has gone up massively since the pandemic. I know several of my colleagues have started antidepressants themselves in the last year. Staff are leaving in droves and it's getting harder to recruit because the pay is abysmal for the level of responsibility, yet those of us who remain are expected to do more and more to plug the gaps in specialist services.

Sadly, yes there were casualties, but not on the scale that we were meant to believe.

If you're trying to make a case against lockdown this is definitely an odd line of reasoning to use.

@SleeplessInEngland no not against lockdowns, well at least the first one.
I'm referring to the level of fear we were subjected to.

Our societal immersion in the 24 hour news cycle has us all swimming, mentally speaking, in a constant state of crisis. This isn’t helped by the fact that there are actual genuine crises being reported in the news, not just a few smaller things being blown out of proportion. The Ukraine war, the cost of living crisis, and the climate emergency are genuinely huge issues, and the fact we can’t (or perhaps don’t) really mentally get away from the reporting means that we are more on edge.

I agree with this and the posters who have said it isn't just about covid. I think covid plus Ukraine war (and subsequent energy crisis) plus cost of living crisis plus global warming plus a million and one other things in the world (Like Taiwan, Iran and all the other conflicts and world disasters) have made us realise how little control we actually have over our lives. I am consciously trying to avoid watching the news all the time. The headlines once a day is enough.

@neverbeenskiing

Why I left my Pastoral Manager post.

It was just last week I was reading parents absolutely flaming my own kids secondary school for not providing MH “help” and then complaining of their own MH. I could totally see the school was just getting ALL of the blame. Honestly it’s why I had to leave. When the shit hits the fan it’s schools who get it in the neck whilst all the other services play a game of fob off ping pong.

@DarkKarmaIlama I totally disagree with you that home schooling is pointless. I achieved great things with my dc teaching them from home.

Completely agree, OP.

It's hard, I think, because the nature of collective trauma means everyone is affected, to varying degrees. So we have a lot of traumatised people looking to other traumatised people to help them.

We need to acknowledge that everyone's experience was different, there was no 'right way' to have reacted to a strange, unknown and often frightening series of events.

And it won't all happen overnight, we have other issues that are also weighing on us. I think the only way through is to do what we can, little at a time. Try to give each other a break when we can.