Everyone is stressed and miserable.

[liloandtitch]

Rewind five years and I would say that my friends and family were a happy group. We had our problems of course, but a good chat putting the world to rights over a bottle of red usually seemed to help.

Right now though my best friend is pregnant, has huge health anxiety and rarely leaves the house.

Another good friend is stressed and burnt out at work, thinking of leaving her partner but has no energy to do anything.

A third I barely hear from, never reads her messages or picks up the phone, she lives the other end of the country so we can’t just pop in to see how she is. I know money was tight for her before cost of living crisis, so I’m guessing she is stressed out.

My sister is off work with stress, she is also gutted house purchase fell through as can no longer afford a mortgage and feels really bleak right now.

My 80year old aunt who used to be such a great giggle went downhill massively during covid and now I think she is probably depressed.

My boss’s son has developed OCD and all sorts of emotional problems so we hear all about that at work.

Nobody is in the mood for celebrating and the Christmas parties, coffees and catch ups that used to happen just aren’t on the cards this year because nobody seems to have the energy, the money or frankly the cheer. I confess, I can’t be bothered either a lot of the time.

Just looking at my own circle, seems like almost everyone is just feeling really down right now. Are others seeing the same?

I'm generally a very optimistic person and sailed through covid in the NHS but the financial crisis has really pissed me off. I was doing really well for the first time in my life with money for savings and holidays, no more financial struggling and then Liz Truss and Putin happened along with a recession and I'm suddenly living like a student again and can't afford to heat my house.
I'm working 6 days a week to make ends meet in my 60's and I am unbelievably pissed off.

I've been much happier since I stopped reading the news.

The constant hysteria and doom-mongering won't be helping anyone.

Financially and emotionally everything is draining, waking up to the same stress each and every day is pushing me to my limit, and I think its the same for most people although I hope not. Just affording to live at the moment is a struggle for so many and mental health decline, alongside suicide rates are on the rise. I'm ignoring Christmas entirely at the moment, the bigger picture of life is overcasting it and I just can't be joyous on demand right now. We have to put our happy faces on for the kids but underneath I feel like I'm drowning under the stress.

I've had a very testing decade of abuse, family issues, horrible financial stress, divorce, rape, early peri menopause and was just getting back on my feet when Covid hit

Turns out I have a learning disability I didn't know I had and whilst I'm sad at the loss of opportunity and the shame of feeling judged over the years, it's probably the best news I've had in a long time.
Finally I can breathe, ask for what I need and say No a bit more often. Receive the support I've deserved but not been given.

Turns out I'm not broken, just different.

Long way of saying that I've always felt troubled and now I'm feeling brighter. It's been a hard slog and the downtime from Covid was the 'rest' I desperately needed

My job is ruining my life. I have a permanent knot of anxiety in my stomach and even when not working I'll get random little flutters of panic thinking about what I have outstanding. I've been there 10 years and handed in my notice on Friday, I can't do it anymore. I have a found a job in a totally new field and I've taken a pay cut to start learning something else. I'm determined to set firm boundaries this time. In my current place I've consistently been given a full time workload when on part time hours. Every promise to reduce it has come to nothing and it's worn me into the ground.

I spent so long being CEV and therefore shielded because I had blood cancer...then they found kidney cancer at my check up scan....I was just about coping and looking forward to uk coming out of covid and i had a brain bleed/ stroke......now i just stay home and give up on a future....I can't walk or talk properly and can no longer craft....everything feels horrid and I dread needing an ambulance or needing to go to a hospital......life, or life as I knew it has gone.....I just wish i had the courage to end my existence now...and it took me more than an hour to write this!

Oh @EllisActon I’m so sorry. I hope you have some family and friends that can support you. If not are there support groups via the hospital? I wish you all the best and hope your condition improves. 💐

Agree. These are difficult times, no doubt about that, but I think sometimes we talk ourselves into feeling hopeless. It becomes hard to find enjoyment in anything.

Agree.

I used to love my job (teacher) but every day is so hard. Colleagues are miserable. We are no longer teaching, we are dealing with some very unhappy teenagers (many of whom have real mental health issues) and it’s hard to be a tower of strength and a positive role mode when we too have struggles in our home life which we have to leave outside the door.

Am hoping the Christmas break will give me a much needed mental rest.

I blame the media and the constant obsession with money. Every bloody news bulletin, breakfast/morning tv, constant 'how to beat the crisis' and tips and help ad nauseum.

Just give it a bloody break, nobody needs reminding every 20 minutes. It's dragging me down and I'm lucky enough not to need to worry about it.

Personally I'm superficially fine and generally enjoying life but the climate crisis weighs heavily. I just can't see how my DC will have anything like the same quality of life as I have enjoyed as the impacts (scarcity of food and resources, resulting poverty and wars etc) exacerbate. I don't worry about it as such because what's the point? But the underlying anxiety is there.

Sorry haven’t read everything but agree with sentiment the Covid years have left me with a terrible case of whatsthepointitis

2020 I started my late 40s and my peri menopause symptoms worsened ie anxiety and insomnia

those feelings have continued but I’ve also now survived the Covid years of being confined to the house

Now im at a point where the meno symptoms are just as bad but compounded by an almost self imposed lockdown of what’s the point yes I could have a walk around the shops today, take myself to the cinema etc etc but what’s the point I could just sit in my pjs and play with my phone all day with the extra bonus of not wasting money and I’ll survive as I was forced to do that for months and months on end and I survived it then

but between you and me I know it’s becoming a problem and actually going out the house apart from work, dog walking and supermarket is progressively feeling difficult and that’s not good I know it’s not

Absolutely this. It should be called unsocial media

I agree overall there seems to be a general sort of malaise.

On a personal level I have had two friends die in the last two years only in their early fifties and not being able to see family who live overseas and just generally worrying sort of aged me both physically and mentally. I also have a congenital spine defect, I’m careful with what I eat and exercise as much as possible but it’s definitely getting worse as expected with age.

We think MIL may be in the early stages of dementia, she lives at a distance and we need a difficult conversation with her when she comes for Christmas.

DH had a promotion recently which is good but I literally don’t see him as he adjusts to his new role. We are on a personal level fine financially but I have found myself really feeling distressed about poverty, I grew up in poverty and though I thank my lucky stars I haven’t lived like that for decades I find myself dwelling on it. I have given stuff to the homeless shelter in my town and do voluntary work but it’s not enough. I got extremely upset when it became apparent just how little DH understands about poverty and feel as if I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did after all our 27 years together, thought a lot less of him.

I am so sorry that you're feeling like this, @NightTerrors . You are the best mum your children could possibly have, and noone could replace you for them. I know its hard to see the truth of that while you are ill, but please believe me. Is anyone supporting you right now?

I agree, I'm not feeling down as such, but very 'meh' about everything - I just cba.

Sorry about your loss @Bog

For me it's the cost of everything (on top of a ridiculous amount of trauma). Can't afford childcare every day so try to look after my DD whilst working from home, Can't afford holidays that used to break up the year, Can't afford the little day trips or the little treats at home. Sick of the same shitty walks but costs too much in petrol to go further. DS much harder work as bored of the same shit. It is shit.

My friends are all fine. I'm not in the Uk though and we are largely protected from the cost of living crisis.

to everyone who is struggling.

I'm usually a solutions focussed, upbeat kind of person, but am having a hard time finding any kind of 'bright side' to look at just now. And in my heart I know that what is needed, really, for any kind of change to be effected, is for sadness, grief and rage to be given a voice. Collectively and personally.

For me, it is the absolute e x t r a of the shitshow of UK politics since Brexit; any pretence of accountability or semblance of actually giving a fuck is gone. So many politicians aren't even trying to hold themselves to any kind of standards or ethics. The cynicism and greed is played out in plain sight, with cheery impunity.

The realisation that the current state of affairs in the economy is not temporary but a natural consequence of an unsustainable growth economy; the beginning of end game capitalism. It's eating itself. This isn't some temporary bump in the road which, if we just buckle up and bravely pull through, will resolve, and business as usual can resume. This is the new normal.

Climate tipping points are fast approaching, and despite everything that is now known, nothing -bar, ironically, the cost of living crisis- seems to be curbing society's voracious appetite for more.

On so many planes, we're living through a time of no return.

Yanbu. There’s been a huge collective trauma over the last few years. We “got through” the pandemic, but instead of having time to adjust and get back to some sort or normality, with time to deal with all of that, things just keep piling on. The energy crisis, war in Ukraine, climate crisis… it’s just hard on top of hard for everyone. There doesn’t seem to be much light or hope in the world most of the time at the moment.

Totally agree 💯

I hear that.
I opened a foodbank where I live. I also volunteer in schools.
Dh does not get it. At all.

I said this to my DH yesterday. We were in town and the general feel was just off. Forced fun.

I don’t know what it is. Something hasn’t clicked back into place since Covid. Today it’s snowing and all plans are off and it’s bloody lovely. Like everything has paused for a moment. Maybe I enjoyed the the pace of life then.

I don’t know but I wish things were simpler.

Yes I agree. Just my workplace is a good example - so many people are currently signed off sick with poor mental health. I work in a school and they're struggling so much with staffing recently that classes have had to close like during covid. Pre 2020 we had hardly any absences, and could get new staff easily. Now we're struggling.

My mental health is poor too, but in the past year I have suffered vision loss which is completely unrelated to the state of the world, so it's just bad luck it's happened now. But it is really affecting me.

I worry a lot about the NHS and the ambulance/A&E problems. My grandma is very old, and my parents are getting to the age where they're more likely to need emergency healthcare. I worry about the reports of people dying before ambulances get to them. It's frightening.

And never in my life before have I worried about putting the heating on. Everything just seems to have a bit of extra worry attached to it these days.

This was always where 2010 and 2016 were going to end up in terms of the effects on ordinary people. Throw in a pandemic and the Russian/Ukrainian conflict as well as some of the most selfish and materialistic politicians we have ever known in England ( which is saying something as there's definitely a "type" that goes into politics and it's even more of a funfest. Globally there's climate change and overpopulation as well and in the northern hemisphere we've also got the long dark nights and pitch black mornings to get through. The Halloween and Christmas time celebrations that usually help stave off that dip have been subdued this year as times are so tough now for so many including tue previously relatively untouched middle classes.

When I'm not boiling with rage at the stupidity of most of our current world and organisational leaders and the idiots/creeps/over indulgent parents who put them there, I'm taking refuge in enjoying small family enjoyments, end of term plays and kids doing well in sport, nature and photography, and having to remind myself that eventually everything ends.