To ask how your life changed since 2020?

[IceAndLemonPlease]

Did your life get better or worse since covid happened ?
Mine definitely got worse. Made redundant from a job I was very comfortable in and which I had been in for many years. My colleague passed away at the age of just 39 (Lockdown became too much for her 😞) and DH diagnosed with a second chronic disease which caused a strain on us all. Life just feels very different now in a way I cannot describe. I wish more then anything to go back to 2019 life but I appreciate not everyone feels that way.

Worse. Severely special need child couldn't handle the effects lockdown had on his routines etc and tipped over into completely unmanageable. Still out of a school 3 years later because of the pressure on places. I've had to take an unpaid career break to look after him. Other dd just didn't get on as well with online learning as she's a sociable soul and missed the group sessions and just didn't learn as well as she could have.

Still feel trapped and unhappy now 😟

I changed job, I love my new team, earn more but find my job a weird mix of dull and stressful. I always did wfh so no change there.

My health is marginally better. My DD is older and more independent at 12.

The big change is swapping out a commitment phobic boyfriend who caused me more anxiety than I’d have believed possible for a kind, loving, open and committed guy. Our first anniversary is 23rd Dec and I am very much loved up. Planning our future together rather than spending my time trying to work out what’s wrong with me (hint: absolutely nothing!)

Better and different
2020 was furloughed from 60 hour weeks so had all the holdays off.
Xmas easter mothers day.
Returned for over a year but we were so v short staffed.
Gave up drinking.
Took on more exercise and supplements

Got a 40 hr week set shifts.
Downside i miss my old colleagues soo much as my new ones dont like me.
My dh can still be distant and angry and i see him more now.
Panic attacks stopped.

this is very similar to my story actually

life is better. I enjoyed lockdown and came out of it much less a people pleaser than I once was. I realised that I preferred not socialising, and now do much less of it

Worse for me. I developed Long Covid after becoming infected early in 2020. I’ve largely recovered physically apart from getting tired constantly, but the damage to my memory hasn’t gone away and it’s very difficult to live with. I also have a dairy intolerance that won’t go away.

I’ve also seen the impact of the pandemic on my 2 DDs (14 and 11), particularly DD2, who now suffers from bad anxiety which she never had as a younger child.

I got fat. Very fat.

I have 2 children that I didn’t think would ever be possible back in December 2019.

Rollercoaster to be honest.

March 2020 - was forced to move in with boyfriend at the time due to covid restrictions.

October 2020 - holiday was cancelled so ended up on a staycation which ended in disaster.

December 2020 - got dumped by boyfriend via text while at work and had to rush home to confront him before had made off without a word.

December 2020 - April 2021 - was severely depressed and trying to navigate getting over ex while hooking up with him at the same time.

May 2021 - finally said FU to the ex and started dating one my long term friends.

September 2022 - single again by mutual agreement because it wasnt working. Started going into a nervous breakdown.

October 2022 - ended up getting two STIs following a ONS.

December 2022 - unexpectedly met my current partner.

January 2023 - tired and sick to death of job, I went on the sick for 3 months.

March 2023 - started new job after a lovely holiday for my 30th birthday.

October 2023 - my son got his autism diagnosis!

November 2023 - celebrated one year anniversary with partner in Portugal.

2020 - major anorexia relapse, ocd diagnosis, psychosis & bipolar diagnoses, sectioned 3 weeks before xmas.

2021 - dad diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer (delayed dx due to covid
Sectioned again later that year.

2022 - dad passed away, I became borderline alcoholic following dads traumatic end to his life. Became borderline alcoholic trying to process & cope with everything from previous2 years.

2023 - signed off work for a month in May due to bullying & v poor m/h. In October had mini stroke & another 7 weeks off work.

2024...do your worst!

To be honest my life hasn’t changed much at all!

Same!! I'm probably taking the piss still calling it my lock down weight 3 years on. Cannot find the mental energy and motivation to change.

DH diagnosed with cancer as we entered lockdown

Upside hybrid working

Know alot more locals and their dogs due to dog walks during Covid times.

Buy from more local shops ie local
Butchers due to their customer service in Covid.

It's different.

Lockdown gave me the final nudge to leave my exH; I managed to move out into a shitty rental just after lockdown one eased off and have since managed to buy.

Being a single mother has certainly not made life easier in many ways, but we share childcare and he is probably forced to do more now than he ever has.

Financially, it's been a bit of a disaster and I've not recovered from that yet; this year especially I seem to have got hit with big bill after big bill. The house I bought is more of a long-term project out of necessity, but it is MY project and many things can, and will have to, wait.

Emotionally, I am happier day to day, but I am also discovering just how much chronic stress I was under and I haven't recovered from the emotional strain of that yet.

I've climbed the career ladder to a reasonably comfortable spot now, and lockdown helped with that, so it's better in that sense, but I am not enjoying the work too much - it's almost as if something has switched and I feel more disconnected from work, for better or worse, as I only ever do overtime on MY terms now, and in many ways I don't care as much as I used to.

So it's a very mixed bag. It's just life, I guess.

I / my little family were lucky as we had an amazing first lockdown.

Three of us spent some amazing quality time together. My DC could still see his friend as our gardens backed on to each other.

I paid off my overdraft as no socialising meant no spending

Ate and drank very well and very naughtily at the same time.

Loads of exercise.

Got promoted as a result of job changes and remote working.

I'll never forget the life pause and the reconnection with important things. I will never do a 9-5 office job again. Any role now must have hybrid working.

So that's how my life has changed, knowing there is a another way to live that isn't the 'rat race'.

I found lockdown hard. Third child was born early on, my parents locked down hard the month before official lockdown and it took a long time for them to come out of it.

BUT I have a full time job that I work from home for where as before I could only dream of that kind of set up.

I feel sad that that last year and a half before my eldest started school were so stressful but we are lucky in many ways.

When I was heavily pregnant in a heat wave and didn't feel like going out, I enjoyed seeing so many people walk past our house. I sort of miss that.

I think Covid & Lockdown, along with Brexit, has shown a 'dark side' of the population that might have remained hidden.

There's a selfishness and entitlement, and dare I say ignorance emerged that means a distinct lack of community thinking, caring about people outside your close family and general respect and kindness for others.

Apparently volunteering has significantly decreased as people just got used to putting themselves first, and not going much further than that.

We were very lucky during COVID, our work wasn't affected and neither of us furloughed or made redundant, we had kids old enough not to need constant supervision neither of whom was in a super-critical year educationally during the lockdown periods, and in a spacious house. Which I do appreciate makes us very fortunate.

DH basically gave up working by end of 2021 to develop his own product that he's basically been working on ever since but is finally close to taking to market, but he'd made enough money for us to manage in the meantime.

I changed jobs last year which I was going to do around then anyway, but the total lack of anyone coming in to the office at all (I wanted to come in once a week at least for a change of scene) kind of sped that up as it made me feel kind of isolated. I still WFH 3 days a week and that's been a massive change for me from 1 day per week pre COVID.

The first year of Covid was my last year of being child free.

So pre and post Covid are wildly different for me but not because of Covid, just because that's when I happened to have kids. It's a shame that we weren't able to go on holidays and out to restaurants to make the most of our last bit of freedom before kids came along, but it is what it is.

We had fertility issues TTC our first so I am definitely much happier now than I was immediately before Covid, when I had just had a traumatic missed miscarriage.

Covid itself didn't affect us that much. My husband continued to go to work as usual and I worked from home for months. I do live abroad so the closure of the borders and the ever-shifting rules were pretty stressful when we were trying to see my family.

Mixed bag, left work in June 2021, early retirement at 59
dianosed with Parkinson’s September’22, grandson December last year, lost 1 cat, at 13, adopted 7 Yr old , 4 weeks later.
life more settled now, just started aqua fit

My life has changed since March 2020 but the only thing really related to lockdown was being able to WFH.

DH retired and DS moved to live with his GF in May 2020 but although those things were partly to do with Covid/lockdown, they wouldn't have happened if DH hadn't have inherited after his father passed away (not Covid).

We've had more recent changes over the last year too - but things that would have happened anyway .

To add - my life was good in 2019 and it's good now. Some difficult times in between but not all specifically related to Covid or lockdown .

Vastly better. At the start of 2021 I came back to my home state after two years of living in Queensland, an experience I never want to repeat. Being in the suburbs of a major regional city instead of the outskirts of a small country town is a huge improvement. Even during lockdown it was fine (the roads were empty, useful when you're just learning where everything is). I was far less isolated than before, because I moved into a retirement village, so there were always people to say hello to. I'm not at work, I'm my mother's carer, and since the restrictions lifted I've got help for her that wasn't available in Queensland, and joined a social group, another thing not possible there.

The only thing that's worse is being back to paying rent (though with food and water costs covered, it saves on other bills) and the general cost of living, particularly as I have two cats on expensive food and medications.

I was already self-employed and WFH, and in fact became very busy during lockdown, it doubled my work. I live alone, and going out to see friends and join in activities has always been vital to me. Despite joint walks when allowed, Zoom calls and so on, I found it very hard.

I am very moved by reading some of the stories on here. I was fortunate, nobody close to me became ill or died during this time.

Three years on and I have moved house to a town that I love, I am semi-retired and making new friends. But something in me broke during lockdown. I no longer feel secure, and I’m not sure I will ever recover that.