To think some people found lockdown really hard and it wasn't their fault

[elliejjtiny]

I don't normally think about this, it's something horrible that happened but it's over for us for the most part thank goodness (I appreciate there are people who are still struggling a lot).

It's that time of year so some people are saying 5 years ago we were doing xyz for the last time etc. Mil was going on about how great she found lockdown. Not a lot changed for her and FIL as they don't go out much and they are retired. Meanwhile I had 5 dc with SEN, one of whom licks everything and for us life changed dramatically for the worse. I was saying that it was nice that MIL enjoyed lockdown but for us it was extremely hard. She told me it was my fault and it would have been fun for us too if I had been more organised.

IMO for some people lockdown was awful.

Your MIL does sound a little bit dim and a lot insensitive. Lots of people had a rubbish time in lockdown and not because they were disorganised.

I had a difficult pregnancy with crap maternity care, zero entitlement to furlough (and an industry that completely shut down) and my partner had a mental breakdown (because of said industry shut down/lack of furlough). There was no amount of “being organised” that would have changed any of that.

Lockdown with SEN kids must have been brutal. Tell your numpty MIL to do one 🤣

I was living alone in a small flat with no outside space and being bullied at work, so had to find a new job before it gave me a mental breakdown. Had none of the moral or social support I would have had before lockdown. We were in Tier Four on Christmas Day 2020 so I had to spend it alone; I had so many high risk family and friends that if I bubbled with any one person (which didn't come in until the second lockdown anyway) then I could not have seen anyone else. The first lockdown was sudden, there was no timeline defined and you couldn't go out for more than an hour - if you did, you weren't allowed to stop and talk to anyone. For anyone living alone, that meant going 12 weeks without even looking another human in the eye. It was horrendous, and I was worried about all my loved ones as well. I also got very sick with Covid and had no one to look after me. I remember lying in bed thinking about water for hours one day because I simply didn't have the strength to go and get some. My career hasn't recovered from the sudden job change that I had to make when I could no longer cope with the bullying without support around me.

I don't feel remotely sorry for myself, though - millions of people around the world lost their lives and total livelihoods. I wasn't an NHS worker. I didn't have a vulnerable child (my best fried had a 3yo with cancer at the time). I found it very hard to related to the people that were able to enjoy lockdown when the world was so obviously going up in flames. It felt very 'I'm alright Jack' to me.

For me, lockdown was enjoyable. We were lucky enough for it not to affect our jobs, we're rural with large gardens and woods, etc., and our house is big. We enjoyed the extra time all together, the community feel in our village or online with friends. DH and I get on like a house on fire so there was no tension or resentment there. The hardest part was lack of travel as we spend a lot of time in Norway throughout the year.

However, I can absolutely see why it wasn't like that for other people and count us as lucky. We didn't get ill, no one close to us did either. It could very easily have been very different for us, and it's not something I usually openly admit I enjoyed.

I loved lockdown with my ds with ASD, but I have one child. Surely if you choose to have 5 kids you know nothing is ever going to be 'easy'.

Me too. I'd never been more rebellious in my life than I was in 2020 and 2021.

One of my rebellions was taking down notices in parks about social distancing and masks: as far as I am concerned, these notices were even more of an eyesore than the litter and dog shit (and discarded masks) strewn over our parks all the time, with their moralising messages of "you should only be here to walk the dog, take exercise etc." I did it when it was dark and rainy, so there would be fewer witnesses, I could hide under my umbrella; and ironically, I wore one of those silly blue masks to hide my face. I do not regret doing this at all. I felt that there needed to be a visible resistance to the madness; I was much more frightened by the complete lack of public resistance and begging for more lockdown than I was of the virus. I learned later that there were lots of people doing this, but obviously they didn't talk about it on social media.

I think it was bad for most people to some degree, even though there may have been positives in some smaller things. A positive for me was the peace and quiet in normally noisy places.

What is fundamental to me is that it could have been less bad. Action in early March would have meant schools could have resumed part-time at least in Late June/July, so children would have had some face to face contact before the school summer holidays. The second period of restrictions were in November, if they had been in October would have been far easier with daylight until after 6pm.

I will maintain until my last breath that if the country had been led at the time by anyone other than Mr Johnson, there would have been at least 20,000 fewer deaths and the impact on everyone less than it was. My lifelong opposition to the death penalty is the sole reason I would not wish to see him hang.

you couldn't go out for more than an hour
This was NEVER true. Michael Gove improvised "you shouldn't go out for more than an hour" during an interview, and it was taken as gospel; the government conveniently neglected to correct the record. Lots of figures were made up on the spot: scientists have admitted that "two metres" was made up on the spot, and I bet "rule of six" was as well.

And no less a paragon of truth and integrity than Boris Johnson has said (since the madness) that he didn't think people would take the rules seriously, and that he regrets apologising for Partygate.

Gosh this thread brings it all back, the panic buying, empty supermarket shelves, silence everywhere, roads deserted, very odd times indeed..

I think this is a good point and whether you are introverted or extroverted makes a huge difference to how you managed in lockdown. I am introverted, have no children and live alone, and can do my job remotely if necessary so lockdown was more of a nuisance than mentally crippling. It was nice to work from home instead of driving to the office and dealing with thoughtless co-workers, but even though I am an introvert, direct human interaction and connection with those I care about is highly valuable. Cuddling female friends is hugely mentally uplifting for me. What made it worse is that it coincided with a fantastic period of weather during the spring, and I couldn't go out hiking or take a trip to the highlands because we were all ordered to stay at home. My local bridge club set up online bridge during the pandemic and haven't gone back to F2F bridge like pre-pandemic since, the quality of the club dropped off a cliff IMO and I have switched to another club where the membership value human interaction.

I would have loved it as an introvert, but I have an only child who was 3 at the time. DH was a key worker so I had a difficult time just me and my child most days trying to keep him entertained and not really being able to explain to him either. He just did not believe me when I told him that the park was closed because we can see it out the window but I couldn't take him there.

There was a lot of focus on "lockdown babies" but I personally think it was more traumatic for a lockdown three year old and a baby would have been easier.

The amazing weather of early lockdown , and it all being so novel and new was lovely for some, especially those on furlough.

Wonderful early morning walks just as the sun was rising - and then the desperate shortages of loo roll and idiots panic buying stuff..

It was a Curate's Egg of an era {I didn't have a dog and refused to get one until Covid was over} but so many fools paid many thousands for back yard bred dogs- one woman close to us made £22,000 selling one litter of pups, two of which had a congenital condition. {I see one of these poor dogs now}

Yes I imagine having a toddler in lockdown was super hard...

I hated it so much that even now I can hardly bear to think about it. All my work (NHS) was covid related( I had to do telephone tirage for staff testing, staff health risk assessment and advice and guidance) and it was scary. Because it was so prominent in my work life I thought about it all the time and it really impacted my mental well-being My family are scattered throughout the county and by the time we got to winter 2020 I honestly thought I would never see them in real life again. I live alone and was terrified of catching it and I was so lonely. The thing I did benefit from was the much cleaner air, my hay fever hardly impacted on me during the summer of 2020. I also think it must have been so stressful for parents trying to do home schooling and WFH, i used to think about them and feel so guilty for moaning about my lot.

It is becoming apparent why the UK had one of the developed world's worst death rates. This highlights a massive problem with the UK population, they don't like following rules even when those rules are put in place for the social good. It is like the UK is competing with America in the neo-liberal individualism toxic crapness league tables, and my God they almost beat them. I wouldn't be surprised during the next pandemic if the death toll isn't even worse.

My Brother's friend, a Hospital Doctor tragically died in the days of early Covid.
It was chaos for the medical staff ''at the coal face''.

After the first lockdown - which was understandable until we knew what we were dealing with - the whole thing struck me as a mass experiment into what control governments could get away with if they really put their minds to it

Unfortunately the mass catastrophising, especially on social media, fed into this alarmingly. Yes caution was needed, but the manic project it turned into seemed deranged even at the time, and in retrospect is almost unbelievable

I hated it. I felt so trapped. I just wanted my life to go back to normal. We lost all our money/jobs during covid and we’ve never recovered financially. It made me almost a recluse not because I was scared of Covid but I just shut myself away and couldn’t get out of the rut. I wish I hadn’t shut off from social media because I had the vaccine and developed all sorts of health issues.

It was difficult. Over the lockdown we sadly lost three close friends and none were covid related, and only able to attend two funerals due to number restrictions.
Business wise also very difficult. We run a b&b in a very touristy area plus a small maintenance business, mainly serving other b&bs and other small businesses. Overnight all our income disappeared. We had just changed mortgage provider and they refused to suspend our payments. Whilst help had been announced for the employed, nothing had been announced for the self employed. There was a resignation that this was where we lost our home and businesses. We were fortunate compared to those who had not been running businesses for long enough to qualify for help.

It did all change when help was announced though still paying back bounce back loan. After that it became bearable with the maintenance businesses picking up a little. Having good outside space helped and feel for those who didn't have that luxury.

Your MIL is very wrong and sounds very unable to see things from others' perspectives. Of course those with small kids at the time were amongst those who had the worst of it. You couldn't organise your way out of that. There was hardly any chance for organisation anyway. It was sprung on everyone.

It was fine for me. I owned my own home with a small backyard so could go outside easily, could work from home so my job continued and I was early stages pregnancy with my 1st so could take care of myself more as I was sick and tired and didn't want to go far anyway. I'd be deluded to think others didn't have vastly different experiences to me through no fault of their own.

What an incredibly privileged position your mother in law was in! And how self absorbed and clueless her comments are! Utter nonsense. Don't let her make you feel bad in ANY way

Surely only people with no ties outside of their household was harmed by it. Humans are social animals, we thrive in tribes. Everybody is harmed by isolation.

What's that saying we was all in the same boat but a different storm. I feel like i got that wrong but you know what i mean 🙈🤣🤣

YANBU, for some it was fine, my DH couldn't have cared less. I still feel upset and traumatised everytime I think of it. I had 2 primary kids at home with home schooling, looking after them all the time, working full time in a relentless job just from home, picking up work that my team said they couldn't do due to their own childcare, I picked up all the slack and lost 3 family members during the lockdowns. It was utterly horrific and I'm generally very resilient and have the benefit of living in a huge house and gardens so we had plenty of space. For some of us it was really hard for many many different reasons. You feel how you feel and that's completely fine.

I am so sorry, that is tragic. Friends of mine on the wards caught it, some of them multiple times, one of my mates who is only in her 30's has been left with damaged lungs. It used to make my blood boil when people either denied it existed or said "It's just a cold"

@asrl78 it all depends on who the virus effects as to how much people will give up their freedom. Parents will always give up anything if it affects kids....80 year old grandma with COPD due to poor lifestyle choices not so much.

We strongly believe our purpose in life is to give our son the best life possible, regardless of what that costs us mentally or physically.

We found it very hard to see the economic impact our kids will be paying for combined with missed essential years of education for what? We had our grandparents totally isolated (and signed up to clinical trials) and you could see from the China data that for the healthy COVID even originally had a very low death rate. Would I accept that risk to keep our son in school and the economy running? I don't even think it would have registered as a risk more a urgh flu thanks DS.

I look back in what was cancelled - holidays, weddings and life events you can't get back like 30th birthdays that upsets me. We lost an elderly relative to COVID the fact it was COVID not cancer doesn't mean the death is any worse in our eyes it was a minor disease that killed due to her underlying pathology.