To ask if anyone else feels like the covid era is a bad dream

[23rMarch2020]

Whenever I think of 2020 or 2021 it just doesn’t feel real at all. The lockdowns for months on end, the clapping for the NHS, the track and trace system, entire school years being sent home because a single case was discovered, panic buying, people developing intricate methods of sanitising their shopping, public shaming of rule breakers, religious holidays being stopped at very short notice. It’s all so bizarre to think of that this was in our country so recently and, really, there’s nothing to stop any of it happening again. In so many ways it just feels like a different world, my DS who had his GCSE’s cancelled is about to go off to uni (if he gets the grades 🤞) and my then little year 7 DD is doing her own GCSE’s next year. I guess my Aibu is to ask if anyone else feels so totally disconnected from that era to the extent it’s all like a bad dream?

Sorry but if your life didn't change during lockdown you are not lucky!

Yes absolutely, a bad dream. I occasionally remember something that seems bonkers now and wonder what we were all thinking. Like having to wear masks when dropping kids at school, even though we remained outside the entire time. Or wiping down the bin handles with antibac after putting them out to protect the refuse workers. Or feeling guilty if I took the kids out for a walk, and then went for a run myself the same day.

Some people I liked and respected turned out to be awful informants on social media, i.e. "look at the person failing to social distance". And some of the most vocal followers of "the rules" were secretly breaking (looks at Aunt who was having people to stay over whilst posting on social media about how people were abusing the bubble system).

I think part of the dream like feeling is that a lot of us are pretty mortified we went along with so much nonsense and would rather it hasn't happened.

I'd go as far as to say it was a fucking nightmare.
DH and I both made redundant, DS2 was stillborn and DS1 landed in intensive care all on account of COVID to a greater or lesser degree.
2019 feels like some golden dream by comparison.

Totally agree. We all just accepted it so blandly.

I lost two uncles in 2020 one covid one not, I had to watch the funerals on a livestream and hook up a loop back to my mum so she could watch.

She lives in a flat, I used to drop her groceries in a bag that she would haul up to the window. It has had a massive negative effect on her and mil they aged years over lockdowns.

It does seem the distant past. If it did happen again (the exact same sort of virus in terms of contagion and morbidity, unlikely) then hopefully we will have learned that slot if the rules were unnecessary. Seeing all those 'elbow' bumps on TV shoes filmed at the time look silly. Rules of four or six etc. we're OTT.
Washing groceries? Waiting 48 hours to open mail? Never did that...
I wish I had done more with the time during lock downs thought

Yes this is it for me! How many lives did this country save by the children at school not having a reading book all weekend because they needed to be sanitised?! Suddenly important things like literacy were not even considered as sanitising was all anyone cared about. Beware the covid infected Biff and Chip book!
And remember how even the 5 and 6 year old kids had to sit in rows in the classroom rather than round tables as normal (but then all went out any played together at lunchtime anyway). What a lifesaver! Some things were necessary but others were utterly ridiculous!

I remember being called a murderer on here because I went to the shops twice a day once. And arranged to meet my dd there and we walked round pretending we weren't together while she chose stuff she wanted

I agree with you total collective insanity.

I see your point, but no, it just feels like the past. I know it could happen again, or something else could, that I wouldn't have thought about in a million years.

I think that when you genuinely experience different cultures and different ways of life, you might be more aware how our "normal" is not normal at all for the rest of the world. Things can change quickly and drastically and not for the best.

I hated being on house arrest for weeks, months even and I hope we won't experience it again in our lifetime!

it looks like the whole planet got brainwahed and there were many times i felt like im only
sane person around- i was completely healthy,but high risk pregnant and because i didnt wear a mask and hadnt had the clot shots a sonographer walked out of the room because i was about to infect her and a consultant didnt enter same room as me talked from the doorway abd left my prescriptions on the floor to collect after he leaves when i leave the room lol. There were of course couple of sane doctors around who took mask off behind the doors.

i didnt do the seal claps the clot shots or the tests neither did i allow anyone do them on my children and my husband didnt either- it was an IQ test and i think about 70 percent of the population failed..i still see people driving in the car on their own with a mask on (:

Oh well done @Anon1612 your halo is in the post 🙄

Some people I liked and respected turned out to be awful informants on social media, i.e. "look at the person failing to social distance". And some of the most vocal followers of "the rules" were secretly breaking (looks at Aunt who was having people to stay over whilst posting on social media about how people were abusing the bubble system)

Yep I knew someone like that. Constantly judging every post on SM where people were sitting outside enjoying seeing friends again by putting ‘can’t see your masks’ or ‘no social distancing then?’
Yet was spotted in the background of somebodies video at a garden party (with more than 6 guests) hugging people and was also doing regular car boots sales all the while castigating anyone who was sitting in a beer garden.

I couldn’t give a toss what anyone else was doing at that point but it was the breathtaking hypocrisy that wound me up.

It does feel like a dream but then other parts of my life have felt like that - I lived in another part of the country all during my twenties and that feels like a dream that happened to someone else.

I also think that insight is a wonderful thing.

It's easy to mock everything now, when the covid we are catching regularly is just another annoyance. We are quick to forget the catastrophic situations in hospitals and the lack of ventilators for those that were dying.

Any measure would always have been called a mistake: too light, too many death. Too strict, and the lives they saved ignored?

I am a lot more resentful of Brexit impacting my travel plans because it was completely avoidable! 😂

i didnt do the seal claps the clot shots or the tests neither did i allow anyone do them on my children and my husband didnt either- it was an IQ test and i think about 70 percent of the population failed..i still see people driving in the car on their own with a mask on (:

You also see surgeons and medical professional wearing masks, decades pre covid and now post covid.. Is that a fashion statement do you think?

Deciding you were above any measure might have be the real IQ test.

Still in it. Living nightmare. Long Covid. 2 million people in the UK suffering every day 🙃

You're right, it was an IQ test. Studies have shown a correlation between cognitive function and vaccine uptake, but not in the direction you believe.

You're right, it was an IQ test. Studies have shown a correlation between cognitive function and vaccine uptake, but not in the direction you believe.

again, that's your interpretation of things.

Anti-vaxxers have always been rife, it's nothing new!

I think it will definitely be like WW2 where we will be like Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses - regaling whoever will listen with what it was like.

"During the pandemic..."

It drove me to drink and to the brink of sanity, "homeschooling" was the most ridiculous concept for working parents and I'm still struggling with health issues entirely traceable to the things that happened during that time. But yes, all of a sudden it just sort of went away. A bit like Brexit. Years of wrangling for an agreement and weirdly one day it was all apparently a done deal, with none of us really knowing nor will we ever know how we got into those surreal places, out the other side blinking into what's apparently normal. "Normal" feels damaged now. We are damaged.

It's not my interpretation of things - the lower the level of education, the higher the vaccine hesitancy.

Yes it seems like a dream. DH and I occasionally ask each other “do you remember x?” As if we can’t believe it actually happened- from funerals on zoom to debates about whether you had to eat one or two scotch eggs, to policemen making people put Easter eggs back on the shelves as they’re non essential, to someone getting fined for drinking coffee on a walk.

I mainly followed the rules (although was never very worried about getting it myself and didn’t go to extremes like washing shopping). Didn’t do the clap as it felt false and manufactured to me although I know others felt differently.

Was horrified by how quick the police were to exceed their new powers and it’s changed my view of police for good. Was also horrified about people shopping their neighbours- same sort of authoritarian mindset that saw people shop their neighbours to the Nazis or the Stasi, I guess.

Absolutely! It's so odd looking bad! It really feels like a film! Crazy we lost a couple of years to it! I always have a horrible feeling in the back of mind it will come back again some day! Hope not! 👍

Absolutely.

It was a very strange time, a terrible time for many. It was alarming how quickly life changed.

None of that means it was unnecessary.

Agreed the clapping was like something out of North Korea. One of our neighbours started a WhatsApp chat group at the start of lockdown 1, ostensibly to provide support for anyone who was alone, elderly, shielding or unwell with Covid and who might need groceries or medications picking up. Fine - seemed like a nice idea at first. But with regard to the clapping, there was a couple of people who were real cheerleaders and used to post things like 'Hope to see everyone out clapping at XX time this evening' and 'Let's all make an effort to get out and clap for the NHS this week', which made me feel like we were being watched and it had been noted that we weren't joining in. We did it twice, I think, and only because the fucking neighbours were watching!!

It does feel unreal and yes I loathed it.

I still can’t believe how much people bought into the fear and restrictions, especially knowing the impact on young people. I don’t think that will leave me

Although the actual period I’ve moved on from, Covid is not part of what I think about, even if the mass hysteria that occurred kind of is