Does anyone else feel like they’ve lost a whole way of life since covid

[Barewithmenow]

It feels like my kids have grown so much under my nose and have missed out on so many rites of passage. So many people I have lost touch with because my life has changed. So many things I just can’t be bothered with any more which I used to do pre covid (granted this is within my control but so much of it seems utterly pointless). So much else but does anyone else feel like they’ve lost so much since the pandemic that frankly won’t return. It feels like 2019 was a way of life we totally took for granted, it feels like covid has fundamentally changed the way most people live their lives. Does anyone else feel like this?

I’ve saved this, thank you for your insight, sums it up well for me.

As others have said it wasn’t Covid more lockdowns that have had the lasting impact.

The way the government could so easily take away our freedoms. Neighbours spying on each other and reporting if someone took their dog for more than one walk. All that bullshit about only going out for exercise therefore you couldn’t possibly sit down for a rest on a bench. Taping off children’s playgrounds - when there was no scientific reason to do this.

The fact that there are far more nasty bugs and illnesses around this year due to lack of immunity is going to be very disruptive. More children than ever are in hospital with RSV.
Flu was worse this year in Australia and therefore likely to be here.

I've come through OK but I feel desperately sad for my 18 year old daughter. 16 at the time covid hit and about to sit her GCSE exams. Left school with zero notice, zero goodbyes. Missed out on prom, struggled through 6th form, now suffering badly with depression and anxiety unable to get any help very quickly. Now at home doing nothing, can't leave the house, gave up on the thought of continuing in education, can't get a job, just struggling to get up each day. Trying to learn to drive, failed first driving test and since covid there is a 6 month wait for another test. I'm so sad 😔

Also, I feel that the media is peddling doom and gloom for their own fun.

I thought it was all awful at the time, I must admit. Lockdowns, home schooling, and I have a job that can’t be furloughed (but wasn’t “key” in first lockdown) plus an a single parent to a then 6 yo and 11 yo.

But wfh still in 2021 allowed me to do a really important secondment that I wouldn’t have been able to do plus commute due to the hours, which has allowed me to move into a better permanent job. So have to be grateful for that.

I feel distant to people. I've become a complete recluse.

Yes. Long Covid in my family.

Yes, I spent too much time on my own, my family are all key workers. I found it difficult to go out when lockdown finished, the noise was just too much, everything seemed busy when it wasn't.im obsessed with having enough food in the cupboard and that level of worry won't leave-it threw me back to my childhood

No. My life is infinitely better than it was pre-COVID. I've never been happier.

This.

I feel like life has certainly changed but there’s good and bad in that.

For example, working from home has been utterly life changing for the best for me.

I feel I’m still trapped in lockdown.

Family member with major health issues kept us in a personal lockdown a month before it all started and pretty much still now. A few months ago we agreed we had to get on with life after 2+ years, they got Covid first time out and ended up in hospital and we are teetering on not going out again.

I’m sure I have depression now. I yearn my old life. I feel Covid is stealing my life and I don’t have any answers.

Wfh has 100% improved my work life balance.

but I feel I missed my kids growing up 2 years from teens to young men. We missed two holidays that would have been “last” holidays with mum and dad. It’s different now they are not interested.

I know what you mean .occasionally we go out in the evening to the theatre.Always enjoy it ,but feel slightly anxious always fine beforehand. Tend to go out in the day more now .friends seem less happy to go out too

My life itself hasn't drastically changed but my outlook on life has. I am (was) no longer willing to put up with a shit wage in a life or death decisions job (my neighbours banging fucking pots on their doorstep as I walked by clutching school meal vouchers to feed my kids put a few nails in that coffin for me). As a result I am much more ambitious because I will never go back to a life where I can only just about feed my kids.

I am also more aware of how my actions can have a big impact on others and how I can do things that mean that my choices don't impact on other people and their health so heavily.

The only negative change is my own health. I don't know if it was Covid or having a baby (or the Csection while VERY symptomatic with covid) which completely annihilated my immunity, but since January I have had Covid x2 (Not including at c-section, viral meningitis, norovirus, the flu (I think), 2x colds and a separate incidence of sore throat. I caught something again about a month ago, started recovering, then last week caught another something and am still recovering now, due to go on holiday in 9 days.

I am so fucking SICK of being unwell.

And profit. I don’t think they want to give up that Covid doom control where a headline sent us all spinning. To our detriment though.

I am pleasantly surprised about how back to normal some things have got - e.g theatres, cinema, lack of masks out and about. At one point, I thought that those things as we knew them were gone forever.

DH and I are both key workers whose workloads increased due to Covid but we were able to work from home. However, that meant that our primary school wouldn’t let our children go in and so we had to juggle full-time jobs and helping them with schoolwork, whilst getting reprimanded by the school for them not handing assignments in by a certain point in the day. I was also shopping and running errands for my shielding parents. So it was a stressful time for us.

I feel like my DC’s lives fast forwarded and we missed a lot of “lasts” with them, particularly having a year 6 DC who missed out on the standard leaving primary plus starting secondary events. My local friendships have drifted, as they were furloughed or stay at home mums, and once the schools went back, would meet up in small groups during the day but I was working and the numbers were too large with children in tow at the weekends/places were considered too crowded.

Overall, yes we and our wider families survived it intact, which I’m very grateful for, but it makes me feel quite sad when I look back.

I feel different but not in a bad way neccessarily. Working through the pandemic wasn't the worst thing for me, had a couple of close shaves with family members, a couple of non related one's with others in the family.
What I am finding more difficult is the constant, ongoing doom, what with war and the cost of everything we need, spiralling ever upwards and with no obvious end in sight to either. Add in the dark, damp and wet and I am finding it difficult to keep my glass half full attitude !

What I am finding more difficult is the constant, ongoing doom, what with war and the cost of everything we need, spiralling ever upwards and with no obvious end in sight to either.

Yes it feels like there's been little respite since 2016, it's been one thing after another. Often joke with my DH that I miss the days where Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich was headline news...

It has fundamentally changed every single person on the planet

No, it really has not, in the slightest.

It hasn’t changed me in any way whatsoever….I have carried on exactly as before.

If it hasn’t changed you, or had a lasting impact, I think you’re very fortunate. It changed our income significantly and that won’t return now, so I’ve had to give up activities I did daily. Can’t afford them now.

Now the cost of living situation has compounded our financial situation and I’m sad that we won’t be able to do things we enjoyed. Hopefully, there will be other things we can do, but things do seem a bit meh just now. Winter doesn’t help. I don’t understand how anyone can enjoy the cold and dark.

Me. A therapeutic activity I loved ended for good. But worse is wfh. It’s lonely, it’s hell.

If it hasn’t changed you, or had a lasting impact, I think you’re very fortunate. It changed our income significantly and that won’t return now, so I’ve had to give up activities I did daily. Can’t afford them now.

Disagree. I know very few people who suffered financially due to Covid, most saved money. I feel bad for those who did, but it was very far from being the norm.

@Bluevelvetsofa that's been the hardest part, the fact our income has reduced by two thirds ( and that is due to health reasons that are not going to improve ) at the same time everything has gone up.