To think that life just hasn’t been the same ever since covid

[Youcantbeseriousmate]

Does anyone feel the same?

It feels like something changed. Life carries on and there are sometimes good times, but it doesn’t feel the same, people don’t seem genuinely happy anymore.
When I think back to before covid, it seems like a different world

Exactly. Some may be happy with the current gov as it works for their sector but many are losing jobs or seeing loss

For those people it's a different story.

I feel a lot happier now actually. Lockdown allowed us to completely restructure delivery of services which means I can now work remotely. I am about to bugger off somewhere warm for 6 weeks on a working holiday.
I feel cheated out of lockdown, pretty much as I was working throughout but it was still a nice time to do reading and pottering on my allotment without pressures to be somewhere after work.
As soon as things were open, I was back to doing my regular activities.
I am the lucky one with no losses in my family (apart from great uncle who died during lockdown from unrelated ailment) and I had covid three times without experiencing Long Covid.
Many people's lives changed dramatically as a result of the pandemic, but I wasn't one of them. This also makes me feel quite happy and relieved.

people don’t seem genuinely happy anymore

Having people you care about die, unnecessarily, can have that effect.....who knew?

people don’t seem genuinely happy anymore

That's just the UK. It's not COVID really, it's everything else that you did wrong 🤷‍♀️

I think OP there is a feeling of gloom and doom because we have been battered with one disaster after another in the past few years: Brexit, Covid and the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Add to that incompetent, untrustworthy governments and a difficult job market.

It is no wonder that things feel hopeless a lot of the time...

I think that is one of Labour's big failure. They have failed to bring back a glimmer of hope. I voted for them and hoped that things would finally be a more hopeful but all they brought is more of the same.

Lockdowns devastated my DD already fragile MH. It ruined her finals at Uni, and the ongoing effects are enormous.,

Pre Covid was definitely a better time for us.

Yes, I agree.
For me it's a few factors:
Mental health of then teen DCs was terrible during the lockdowns, they were GCSE and A level years respectively and so went from a really busy social and academic life to nothing overnight. Even when things were more stable for them, it had far reaching consequences as it made them more vulnerable.
My health has never been the same since getting a bad bout of Covid a year after restrictions ended - it definitely did a number on my digestive system and I'm still having tests now (2.5 years on).
Social life - definitely lost touch with some people - we were getting quite good friends with the parents of DS's friendship group - enough to have occasional dinner out/bbq etc. but that all went away as Covid did fragment the group a bit as it was a bit 'toxc' online. My book club disbanded shortly after restrictions ended as that momentum was lost - it had been going for way over 10 years.
Thankfully it didn't affect us financially and no-one close to us died, but I do think that if it hadn't happened, things would be very different for us as a family now and the DCs and I wouldn't be doing what we are doing now in terms of study and employment if that makes sense.

I enjoyed lockdown. I and DH worked on our projects, built a pond in the garden etc. We did get on each others nerves occasionally but now I remember the time very happily. I especially remember going out into the garden on a sunny morning in March and the sky was clear, no planes, no traffic and I could hear the birds sing.
Life is more or less back to normal. It's more recession and the change to catalogue shopping on the internet that has made a difference.

I do think there has been a breakdown in societal norms. I don’t think it was just covid, I think that as we’ve moved to a model of liberalism, schisms have appeared which have grown into great dividing chasms within society.

In lots of ways society became better for the many, say 1950-2010 home ownership, education, single parents, gay rights, healthcare, benefits like DLA. Not saying it was perfect but felt like society was moving in the right direction. Better is never better for everyone though and what we’ve seen post brexit/ post covid is a move towards far right/ facist politics and enormous amounts of wealth being accrued by the richest people in the world.

An alarming level of batshit whataboutery pervades. You can pretty much argue any case for either side with a pseudo psychology absent from facts. Can you imagine having a conversation with a 90s you about the male doctor who believes he is a biological woman and therefore should get changed in the ladies changing room. 90s me would think he’d be having a visit from the police, possibly short section for observations as would clearly be seen as having some kind of breakdown.

Its pervasive and obfuscates the big issues.

I agree there have been changes which would've taken longer, more deliveries, click and collect, cashless payments etc and a move towards more video doctors and hospital appointments etc - these really suit me but I appreciate not everyone does.

It really highlighted how out of touch my in laws were with regards to using tech, at one point they where posting a shopping list and cheque spayed with disinfectant through the letterbox because that was the only way we could do their shopping.

The main change for me is my relationships with people and how I view them. I have teacher and nurse friends who were absolute troupers and Im forever grateful.

There are also friends and family members who I now view not as favorably. My mum and sister frequently flouted the rules and when questioned claimed not to understand them and for a while mine and DM's relationship broke down because she wouldn't comprehend me not breaking the rules for her to see my DD, she also "couldn't understand" bubbles and is convinced to this day that I chose my single Dad and DH's single Nan (both with health issues) over her and her perfectly healthy partner.

I also have more friends that believe in conspiracy theories than I previously realised...

Yes, I do.

I think life is fine until you're faced with one of the 'services' that is entirely unfit for purpose - I'm thinking of health and social care. If you have ageing parents, you are likely to encounter just how poor these 'services' are sooner or later. The difference between pre covid and now is the unapologetic manner in which they're run. Time was you could appeal to a person's better nature, but not now.

People who do the carrying have also lost patience.

I do a few voluntary roles in different organisations, and understandably spring 2020 provided a natural stop point for some volunteers to step off be it for age or changing circumstances. So coming back in 2021, things were tighter on continuing volunteers. The chains of succession that gave older teens experience and bridged them into adulthood were broken so that ongoing incoming of new volunteers broke down, and in a more over-worked, under-paid, insular world it's harder to get other volunteers coming in to share the load. It's changed many roles from a pleasure to a chore.

2020 was the end of me volunteering with the DCs' primary school.
They kept parents out until spring 2022 and another year before wanting volunteers again. Too late, too much water under the bridge. My younger child was on the cusp of leaving anyway. Time for the next cohort to step up. I do enough for the community elsewhere and felt rather detached from that one after that length of time. In a non-Covid parallel universe, I probably would have kept going though.

Yes, I have long Covid. I have no stamina, poor concentration and brain fog, muscle weakness, an inability to stay awake past 8pm and an immune system that can’t stand up to the mildest of bugs.

And now no one is being in the least bit careful, I keep catching Covid and being pulled back into the cycle.

If people feel worse under the current gov why aren't they mentioned?

You may not be in the sectors or groups hit by policy but many are

I agree with this.

Agree with this. Like on a termtime holidays thread people coming out with 'well if they could close the schools then I will do what I like now'. It created a division between those who mainly went along with the rules, and those who willfully ignored them. One group would call the other 'sheep', the other wouod be called 'rude, thoughtless etc'. Some people did fine during covid, linked in part to those who received furlough, had support networks they could see, some really struggled financially and with their mental health.

In a strange way we appreciated it - we were living a 100mph life in a small house in London, rushing from plsydate to party to baby group, long commutes and not much quality family time. Covid gave as time as a family to re evaluate our priorities, led us to move out to a lovely village and DH has continued to work from home which has made our lives so much easier.

I do feel this a little bit.

Just in things like my friends and I used to visit each other's houses far more often for a cuppa etc. Now if we meet it's always out. Also, I'm definitely used to spending more time at home myself, I used to go out a lot more than I do now.

I think Britain started turning nasty after Brexit.

For life in the rest of Europe, I feel the attack on Kyiv was the turning point, not COVID.

Probably happier. COVID enabled work from home which meant we could move abroad
But I'm every other respect I've forgotten it

I used to be a total stickler for rules, often to my own detriment. I was that child who always pointed out others doing wrong, and who baulked at my parents telling me to disobey the "no cycling" signs in the park.

Now, I decide for myself which arbitrary rules (not laws) are to be kept. It's liberating.

Well my life hasn’t been the same. Covid killed my fully vaccinated husband in 2023.😢

Personally I don’t feel any different, but loads of people seem
to have anxiety and can’t commit to plans.

DC’s school are hyper-focused on teaching resilience - DH was in Reception/Y1 during lockdowns. Her and her peers are absolutely fine.

DSC who were in the middle of secondary at the time, (and their friends) all seem to all struggle with MH and anxiety.

I don’t know anyone who cares about Brexit. It’s not affected working, travel or living abroad in my industry, thats’s still ongoing, maybe that’s why.

Not true - I am in Ireland. We didn't Brexit and it's shit here post Covid too

Such an interesting thread. Like many others, I feel that the pandemic was the catalyst and magnifier of many of these things, rather than the actual cause. It hid the effects of Brexit for a while, making them feel starker when lockdown ended (avoiding the 'boiled frog' effect).

It also feels that we emerged from the pandemic into a much lower-trust society. Partly this was down to all the lies and the gaslighting of government, partly it was how lockdown changed many societal norms, making people less considerate of others (terrible, aggressive driving and loud music on public transport spring to mind) and partly it was the massive increase in screen and social media use that has fundamentally changed how many of us interact with and experience the world.

But it's other things too: my London suburb had changed almost unrecognisably in demographic terms by the time the lockdowns ended. Many families took the opportunity to move of London between 2020 and 2022, and they seem to have been replaced by a huge influx of immigrants from cultures not especially similar to ours. This happened very quickly, while most of us were oblivious on our screens at home, and has added to the sense of reduced trust and community spirit in the area. It's not an exaggeration to say it's nothing like it was in 2019.

A few observations (among many others) that I think have changed or been exacerbated since Covid:

• very anecdotal, but a disproportionate number of the children I know who were born during the pandemic seem to have SEN or physical disabilities of some kind. Most of our NCT group had 2nd children during this time and almost everyone has been affected in some way.

• the children starting school alongside my DD in 2022 were undoubtedly behind developmentally as a cohort. According to the school the cohorts immediately above and below them have been even worse affected. DD was flagged up as 'exceptional' simply because she was one of the only pupils to be considered 'school-ready'.

• degraded street environment, more litter and fly-tipping, more graffiti, more anti-social behaviour. Probably mostly COL/austerity linked, but also connected to a breakdown of social norms I think

• adults and children alike are now hopelessly addicted to phones and social media. Doing the school run I see other parents walking into street furniture on an almost daily basis as they are walking along absorbed by whatever they're staring at on their phones.

• no one dresses up any more, for anything. In some ways caring less about appearances is a good thing, but I think that for many it has tipped over into lack of self-worth and not caring what anyone else thinks about anything at all. I notice many more parents wearing pyjamas for the school run etc.

• agree with PPs that as a country we somehow seem stagnant and 'stuck', which is especially noticeable when you travel overseas. There is very little genuinely new and exciting happening, and many 'new' things are actually tired rehashes of something else.