To not be over what happened to me during covid/lockdowns

[ifyougochasingrabbits]

Just a few of the things I went through

Losing my cleaning business i had built up over years overnight due to everyone cancelling us

Being humiliated by the headteacher at DC school shouting at me in front of other parents because I refused to wear a mask outside . My little girl being made to start school late and finish late because I was unable to wear a mask to collect her (school run was all outside I may add and I had no problem wearing masks in shops etc but I drew the line at in the fresh air outside)

watching thousands of pounds of income disappear at an alarming rate. while wondering if we’d still have jobs and be able to keep the house we’d worked our arses off for for years to buy. Going through six months of trauma with H furloughed and depressed because his work could not guarantee he'd still have a job at the end of it. He was on half pay as furlough was only paid up to about 30k salary iirc and if you were on more it was employers discretion to pay the full salary which his work didn't. He was even applying for jobs at supermarkets and delivery driving etc and getting no where despite having a high level job at a major house builder.

Watching selfish morons stockpiling at the very beginning

“Friends” dumping me, one Cos I dared voice out loud that I wasn’t personally scared of covid and was struggling with restrictions and did not agree with them.

Having to deal with the fact that many of my (remaining) friends had views I completely don’t agree with and accepting they probably feel same about me.
And having to cope with the fact they supported restrictions that were destroying our lives and mental health

Having my business absolutely trashed all over social media and being called a dirty bitch and worse by local people. Fake bad reviews etc. The “reason” was they took exception to me saying on a local page post that I didn't believe in masks in school (this was due to my kids really struggling with them) My 14 year old said he agreed and some of them then found him on fb and messaged him insulted his looks and called him stupid and a fucking moron etc. This was actual grown adults.

a random person inboxed me on Facebook due to seeing my business ad and threatened to "smash my face in" because she thinks i was “endangering lives” by working

My neighbour reporting us to the police for having an illegal gathering. This "illegal gathering" was me, my H and our 3 dc having a bbq in the garden. Needless to say we all live together

Being put on medication for panic attacks and anxiety in fact I minimised it to the gp. I was actually suicidal and the only reason I am still here is because of my kids and the fact my husband and parents had the same views as me. But I would secretly hope to die in my sleep and almost every day I would wake up and cry because I was still here.

Watching my 3 Kids completely fall apart due to schools being closed. While not only having to deal with seeing posts all over fb about how well other kids were doing and coping doing all their work, managing great. And knowing some people I care about actually wanted schools shut. One of my kids is still very unwell mentally and it all started with lockdowns

Oh and to add final insult to injury, in November 2021 I had to pay £5700 (which was part credit card and part all of our savings) privately for an operation that should have been freely available on the nhs. But cos covid they could not give me a date and I was getting more and more poorly and could not wait.

I am still angry and maybe I should get over it. But I can't. And There's probably more but these are the stand out moments. I'm doing okay now and I have a new business and I'm doing well, H has a new job as he could not trust his old place after covid. but I've been very low again recently with the anniversary of it all

I've never worn a mask outside because I think it's pointless and I've never had any reason to. I'm asthmatic and autistic and wear glasses that fog up, and absolutely hate wearing masks. However, DP and I were both classified as CEV, him being even more vulnerable than me, so I not only followed the rules and wore them indoors throughout the height of the pandemic, but also still wear an FFP2 indoors even now, in healthcare settings or when the infection rate is up (mostly for DP's peace of mind).

But I don't see the point at all outdoors.

Having said that, even though you say you had no problem at all actually wearing a mask, you were willing to disrupt your daughter's education, disrupt her class, and impose extra work and hassle on staff, all for the principle of not wanting to follow the extra school mask rules for a few minutes a day because you (and I) believed they were pointless.

Why would you put that particular principle ahead of your daughter's education, and the goodwill of the staff you trust to educate and look after her? I'm sure most of the parents probably did an internal eyeroll at the over-cautious request, but prioritised their children's education over the principle that they shouldn't have to wear a mask outside for five minutes.

You talk like you were making a principled stand against authoritarian overreach, "This far and no farther" sort of thing, but we weren't in a YA dystopian novel, it was just real people muddling through a tricky situation while unsure of how the science would shake out, trying to be pragmatic and not make life unnecessarily harder on each other.

I think the outdoor mask thing might be representative of how you approached the situation, how others perceived you, and why you made it even worse for yourself than it had to be.

I quoted wrong this is the one I meant 👍

Well not sneezing over someone is not only common decency but also prevents illnesses being spread.

If someone thinks masks outside are useless but still do it because they've been told to them yes they're sheep.

While I’m sorry you lost your business half of all your other issues I can’t even summon up a tiny violin for, they’re of your own making.

While wearing a mask outside in a park is ridiculous wearing one in a playground when you’re often surrounded by several hundred people in a small (and very often) enclosed space is not.

There was just no way in hell I would’ve stepped onto my sons playground without a mask on. It’s always packed and being close to people is unavoidable.

The fact you chose not to wear one and messed up your child’s pick up and drop off times is completely on you. Should the teacher have yelled? No. Did you deserve a talking to? Yes. Masks are to protect others, not just yourself.

A point everyone needs to remember.

This.

Covid was a novel virus, we had no idea what we were dealing with. At the time, the response was completely appropriate. It’s only with the benefit of hindsight and better knowledge of covid we can say otherwise.

But I’m not surprised your daughter suffered because of your actions and that you lost friends.

Oh get a grip.
Bagging dead bodies every day! Even the funeral directors have come out and said there were no more extra deaths than normal.
Then add the fact that more or less every death was labelled as covid when it wasn’t.
People Are dropping dead now because of the vaccines.
Its people like you who keep this whole farce going.

I totally agree with you OP. It was all ridiculous. I hope you and your family can have a future, despite what the useless government wanted to take from you/us.

Well said.

Typical AIBU - only engage with those who agree with you.

What a nasty post. Do you really consider yourself to have the moral high ground here?

Interesting that OP has completely ignored the post from @Woeismeitappears ...

Wearing a mask outside was pointless but you should have done it as everyone was hysterical at that time. It reminded me of villagers with pitchforks the lesson is to comply but then privately disagree. I think most of us disagreed with the rules but did them to stop the morality police with pitchforks. How quickly people stopped following them in the second lockdown points to that it was a herd mentality approach.

You shouldn't have posted your disbelief on social media and expected no comeback especially around that hysterical time. If you wrote the same thing now most people would agree with you.

If you had a genuine issue that prevented you from wearing a mask then sure I can see how late drop offs and pick offs were unfair, but you say you wore one indoors so you actively chose to not wear one (presumably to prove a point that no one else really cared about your opinion on)- you chose that and ultimately your child suffered because of it; that's on you. Sorry about your business, did you not apply for any of the financial support and maintain a social media presence for when you reopened? My neighbour has a cleaning business and did just that and her business was fine- if you just spent the time arguing on Facebook instead then again- your choice.

Lockdown was shit, covid is shit, so were many of your decisions by the sound of it.

I hear you @ifyougochasingrabbits . It was an awful time and the worst of it was how readily people called the police on neighbours having barbecues, posted pictures of children playing in the park, wrote ranty posts about "covidiots" who weren't breaking the law but some imagined rule.

And what doesn't help is that now we have people like Scotland's chief medical officer coming out saying "Yeah, we probably got it wrong on schools and kept them closed too long, oh well, too bad so sad."

It's OK to be angry about everything we lost during that prolonged period of isolation. Some people were fine, others struggled enormously. Life would be so much nicer if people could just stop posting things about how THEY were fine and if you weren't fine then it's clearly something wrong with you. Bit of empathy.

Hope you're doing OK now, Rabbits. You are definitely not alone in struggling to deal with it all. 3

This comment has annoyed me. I’m a self employed cleaner and sick of inferences that I’m a tax evader.

The first lockdown was March 2020. The government put a furlough scheme for employed in place very quickly.

Self employed help was extremely slow in coming, nothing was even announced for Self employed until May 2020.

Even then, it was only available to those who had been earning from self employment for 3 years or more previously.

Dh and I are both sole traders. We could not access funds from the SEIS scheme until June 2020.

So yes it was extremely difficult and worrying to drop to zero income for months.

And still people fixate on masks, as though the proof is incontrovertible that they save people from death from Covid. It isn't, and certainly not in the way that almost all the "Oh you might as well wear them, it does no harm" wearers wore them. A loose papery plasticy mask that might not even cover your nose? Come on!

With kindness. A lot of those issues you brought upon yourself. You could have just worn the mask for five flipping mins while doing the school run, whether you agree or not.

Opinions, you could have kept to yourself. I did not once voice mine and voila, I lost no friendships. I disagreed with a lot of what my friends believed but listened, nodded and moved on.

Pretty much half of the world lost their jobs and were off school. Yes it was hard, but you weren’t alone in that. I’m sorry to read you struggled but everyone did. Across the world. Some more than others. Some lost houses and some lost their beloved family members.

You could have built the business back up once the lockdowns lifted. People are still using cleaners. Anyway, we live and learn. It was tough but we made it to the other side. Onwards and upwards. Wish you luck x

Have you had counselling? Because it sounds like you have chronic anxiety.

Many MN'ers experienced covid to very different experiences. Mine was fine, we lost no one, Dh and I continued working, ds's at home studying was fine. I whinged at some of the restrictions, I never bleached my shopping because I thought that was all bullshit. I thought that it airborne and couldn't be caught from a park bench. I was sceptical about masks, but I wore one to the supermarket. I don't know what you are expecting here. You could've picked up your cleaning company again now if you chose. You are now doing beauty instead?

Not a single child died that we knew of or knew very well. Nothing in the local newspapers yet still they had our children separated, isolated and questioning whether they should be doing basics like holding hands with friends. The absolute obsession with hand gels for children instead of hand washing. Those that lip read unable to communicate properly for over a year except through a screen.

No, I don't think I will ever get over the abuse on our children's childhood.

YANBU to be upset over your business, or your dc being harassed, or the ongoing financial impact of lockdown.

Yabu to still be a self-righteous anti-masker in a time when none of us are required to wear masks. Get over that one. People were harassed for wearing masks; people were harassed for not wearing them. Always by people who were unswervingly correct in their opinions at all times.

I'm sorry that you lost your business and had a mental health breakdown during lockdown. Sounds really tough.

The rest- the individual arguments etc- I think you need to let go.

YANBU. I’m sorry you’ve struggled with all of those points. I have no idea why masks were required outside either.

I needed to seek counselling for anxiety due to worry regarding some of the points you have raised. It helped

@Woeismeitappears

I'm so very sorry about your DH. 💔& all you, your kids & family/friends went through. I hope you've been able to get some trauma support xx

I hope your post makes some people stop & think.

My Dad died. I can't be bothered to sympathise with you not wanting to wear a mask.

For the most part re work and kids, many many many people were in the same boat as you.

Nobody wanted covid to happen.