To think the pandemic has left me totally numb?

[Footlooseandtethereddown]

Anyone else feeling like?
I am completely meh about everything, going through the motions. I was meant to be going to a concert last week which had been planned for ages and was an artist I like. At the last moment one of my dc was ill and I couldn’t go. My mum asked if I was disappointed and I realised I wasn’t. I was just totally not bothered either way.
Then I considered that some more and realised that is how I feel post pandemic. I will do what I’m supposed to do and socialise and appear ‘normal’ but actually I don’t enjoy any of it. I don’t not enjoy it either. It’s all one and the same.

It seems to now transcend to everything. Things I should be pleased about, no feeling about it. Things I should be worried / disappointed about. No feeling. It’s all very level and disconnected.

i wasn’t like this before the pandemic so I can only think it’s that?! But everyone else I know irl seems fine.

Anyone here feeling like this?
AIBU to blame the pandemic for my total indifference to almost every sphere of my life?!

I haven’t, but I’ve had depression since childhood and felt flat, unemotional, totally disinterested and unbothered by life way, way before covid. Being in a depressive phase is very much like being in lockdown except the lockdown is in your head. I wonder if this is why I’m unaffected (also because I could WFH which I love, didn’t lose my job and nobody died so I was in a very fortunate position) because I’d had years of practice? I lived alone throughout as well and didn’t find it challenging but I had to take my dogs out every day so I saw other dog walkers to talk to and had people to communicate with over zoom so I wasn’t isolated.

I normally love this time of year but I'm going through it like a fog. I think it's first proper year back to normal so um hoping I will feel normal next year. But it's the sence of loss I'm struggling with. Like my daughters first year in reception. Not going back into school like we used to. Not going out drinking anymore with my mates. Some of that we will never do again. I'm not being dramatic either. I will never get my eldest gcse year back. I will never get dd reception year back and my friends will never be the same people that they was. I can make new friends and I have to an extent. But what I was happy with, has gone.

Agreed, but I dont think its pandemic related, I think its more to do with the hopelessness of the current financial, political and social situation we're in.

There is no good news and no hope of an upturn anytime soon. Weve got the cost of living crisis, the energy crisis, the nhs crisis, the housing crisis and the war in Europe, not to mention the apparent decline of western democracy and the threat of China.

Its just a grim time to be alive.

I think we will all carry our own trauma in some way. I feel grateful and am happiest I've been for a while but can't even talk about or think about lockdown or covid restrictions. I heard a sound byte of the lockdown announcements the other day and sat and cried.
I coped well through it all, head down, carry on. Its just after I realised how much I need friends and things to look forward to.

Oh and don't do any zoom or teams calls unless it's for work.....

It's trauma. Tbh I was same before the pandemic, I can't give a shit about the minutae. My friend made makes me watch the vine stuff when I see them every other week and it honestly makes me seethe. I rant and rave about they are discussing utterly meaninglessness bollocks for what seem like aeons. Think I will stop going haha. Even things like question time and newsnight seem so slight, superficial and false. Is it because I have basically disengaged from the mainstream media, or is all crap?

Hardly anything seems to have meaning anymore, it's all just soundbites into the wind. Christmas aka materialist orgy can also fuck off.

I think this is it. If Putin said he was going to nuke us tomorrow I wouldn't be very surprised. It's a very alien feeling compared to 2019 which seemed very care free. I feel like I'm just waiting for another calamity. I don't feel depressed as much just numb to the chaos of the world.

One of my oldest friends killed themselves last year. Didn't see it coming. No idea if the pandemic was a part of what caused it.

I have felt like a shell ever since.

I think it's quite unhealthy the way that the government had moved on from the pandemic (since they took so much of the lead) without giving any kind of debrief or closure. It feels quite eerie - this massive thing happened and now it seems everyone has moved on, but psychologically and culturally it wasn't fully processed. I wonder if that's something to do with it..

I think of the queen's funeral - it was
weeks of commentary and ritual events giving closure. She feels well and truly committed to history by the time all of that was over, whereas we didn't 'do' anything to mark the end of the pandemic. Everyone sort of just drifted back, without much discussion or conversation about what just happened, what we're coming back to, how it has changed us.

I don't really see those conversations happening much in day to day life either. Maybe if you're religious you might have more of a community that offers that kind of space, but we are a very atheistic country so we're not very good at discussing meaning and personal meaning beyond eg therapy and friendship groups - there just aren't many spaces for it.

I also think the cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on people's mental health. I feel like I'm working harder than ever to stay in the same place without much hope that things are improving in my life or in society for the better. Feels like we are on a perpetual downward slide now - culturally, ethically, economically, politically..

I feel like we are in a national trauma from the pandemic and the socio political fallout of a government that really doesn’t care about our welfare or wellbeing. So whilst we should have had this moment of national unity for coming through the pandemic, they called a culture war. Whilst we should have had time to reflect and rebuild, there’s this awful war; and whilst we should have been able to come through significant change to our material lifestyle- wfh, massive changes for education - we are being hit with a cost of living crisis. We all clapped for our NHS heroes, and now theyre on strike because quite rightly they’re not being valued or supported. There is zero joy. And as a nation we need closure, trust in each other and hope but we’re just getting division and misery.

The Queen's funeral was a wonderful excuse to cry.

In my case it opened the floodgates on a family bereavement that occured the previous month. We'd had to cut our holiday short, fly to the funeral, my arrangements were already shortened as I had to rush back for child A having transition sessions at secondary school, and I couldn't immerse myself into what was there because child B went into a series of asthma attacks, and spent half the ceremony with him wheezing in the car.
Because of travel, social/ health care restrictions and this relative's incredibly frail health we hadn't been able to see her since late 2019.

A day of crying was wonderfully theraputic.

I know what you mean by closure. We had a brief lifting of restrictions late summer 2020 (but many chose not to respond to that) then Sept-Dec 2020 the tiers plunged the country in to varying states of lockdown-lite. (It was this phase of instability that did me a lot of damage) then a hard lockdown Jan- March 2021, then such a slow easing off through the spring, the one month extension into July.
But we weren't truely out of it. Masks came back this time last year and there was a realistic threat of lockdown lurking this time last year. There weren't many legal restrictions but the reality is that a lot of usual social habit was not restored.

For me, the shadow feels like it lifted at the end of February when masks went on things like public transport and meant pretty much anything non-NHS was back at normal function. It's the lingering psychology of two years and the slow change of peoples' behaviour that's taking a long time to settle to normal. (Aside from the cost of living pressures that have now been loaded on)

I think some of it is that in the face of instability, people are clinging to routines and struggling with changes to routine, even if it's for nice things. So many people are depleted whether it's from the Covid phase, personal or the state of the world that there's little spare emotional energy to go round and share a boost. People aren't normally down and depleted at the same time and that makes it harder to get through difficult phases whatever the trigger.

I started suffering with PND in late 2019 and I feel like this. I think Covid has also been a massive factor.

I feel like I'm just existing. I dont look forward to anything. And the weeks and months are going so fast.

Me !
Same as what you are all saying, although I think it’s peri driving mine.

Do you have children?

I think we've all been plodding on for a long while without much good news to buoy us up - people need that lift. Without it we start to feel flat.

I’m reading an interesting book at the moment. Some of it now seems a bit out of date, but it’s a close look at how the government got us all to comply with the lockdowns, how the psychology of their messages affected us, and how nobody thought about how we were all going to feel when the country returned to normal.
www.waterstones.com/book/a-state-of-fear/laura-dodsworth/9781780667201

I feel like this.

I was an introvert before the pandemic, but could motivate myself to go out for things I loved: museums, theatre, anything arty. Plus I loved travel.

Now, I can’t be bothered. My husband feels the same. Luckily, we have a young daughter so I can muster up enthusiasm for her. We are going to a Christmas lights event tonight and pantomime next week. But without her, I would be almost a recluse. I said to DH that I wouldn’t leave the house if it wasn’t for DD. We both work from home, everything we want or need can be delivered.

It’s sad. I’m probably depressed. But I feel like I have lost faith in life and freedom as I realise it can be taken away at a moment’s notice. I’m choosing not to get too attached to joy as it might be wrenched away again.

Jesus this year has been a shit show on top of two hard years of pandemic. We've all been stressed out about energy costs uncertainty, food costs uncertainty, whether we'd end up getting the lettuce for Prime Minister. The whole of the UK are gibbering wrecks apart from those with so much money that they are buffered from it.

I also feel like this but don't think it's the pandemic. There is such a gloomy outlook in this country.

The major public services are so very broken. It's been awful to work in the public sector for quite a long time. But for a while 'good will' from staff and a bit of historic resilience built in better years sustained it for the public. That's all gone now.

Health and policing are no longer doing what we need and expect, so we don't feel safe.

Schools can no longer guarantee a 'good enough' education for your average child, let alone one with SEND.

A mismanaged Brexit, economic fuck up of epic proportions, chaos and inhumanity on our borders and series of sleazy scandals have trashed our international reputation.

All this against the ever growing shadow of climate change and the grind of declining living standards.

It's no wonder people are feeling low and numb.

Honestly, no.
Covid half killed me. Then two years of long còvid. Now what's left of me is up for anything.

I don't think you're alone though.

I feel exactly the same. I used to be out all the time.

I just cba now. And money is an issue whereas it didn't really used to be.

I also feel fundamentally unsafe. I can't count on an ambulance arriving on time if anything were to happen to me or my kids. There's not much of a police force. Etc etc.

I differentiate between the external (bit of a shit show)

and the internal (my family, children, work and health)… all I’m happy, healthy, settled and, most importantly of all… my children are.

It is the latter that determines my happiness to the greatest extent.

Hence I don’t feel as you do Op

Feef you keep popping up on threads bombarding the OP with irrelevant questions. This comment isn't helpful to OP.

Well I live in NZ where things around us aren't so bad at all (in my neighbourhood) but a lot of us still feel like we have flat-lined! Its a combination of factors, life still hasn't got back to normal, things still get cancelled, tourist were only allowed to start entering the country properly a few months ago, so now we meet excited Americans/Canadians/French arriving here ready to explore and its nice to feel their new energy that they bring with them, basically everyone is fed up with where they spent the last 3 years and they want a change of scenery!

As I have been feeling flat I have been trying to think about what to do to start feeling those flashes of happiness, someone described gratitude as a cup, say its 100 mls and you have to find 1ml at a time... so it might be having a coffee outside in the sunshine, going to a watercolour class..... and bit by bit you start to feel more.......thats what I am hoping anyway.

My list of stuff
Keep going to the gym 3 times a week
drink a lot less alcohol
get good sleep
go to new events - did watercolour xmas cards class
ask friends out to improv shows
practice intermittent fasting to loose some weight