To think many people are still dealing with the trauma of COVID, but we just don’t talk about it?

[BluntLilacGuide]

It feels like everyone wants to act as if life has completely gone back to normal, but I don’t think that’s true for a lot of people. The pandemic disrupted lives in ways we still haven’t fully processed - whether it’s grief, anxiety, financial struggles, or just a lingering sense of uncertainty.

I see people who still struggle with social anxiety, who haven’t fully recovered financially, or who feel like they lost years of their lives. But because everything has “moved on,” there’s no space to acknowledge it anymore.

AIBU to think that COVID left a lasting impact on people’s mental health and general outlook on life, even if no one really talks about it?

The dire state of the economy, dramatic decline in small businesses especially, but also the high street, run down towns especially northern and seaside resorts, tells the story of the effects of the lockdowns and restrictions. Who’d have thought that forcing businesses to close for months would collapse the economy??? Who’d have thought that excluding 3 million from support would force self employed to give up, close their businesses, and go on benefits or have to take minimum wage jobs. The whole thing was a fiasco.

Don’t you think internet shopping and Amazon have any effect on the decline of the high street and difficulties of small businesses? Do you think we should all have been out shopping?

I saw a piece on BBC news this morning. Chap said he had covid during interview and it's still out there, he's still testing. He was traumatised from losing his grandmother during the lockdown.

Others weren't affected much and so back to normal years ago.

Depends on personal circumstances, resilience, etc. We all deal with stress etc differently.

Someone still stressing about covid would be stressing about something else if covid hadn't ever happened. It isn't covid that causes these behaviours it is personalities and those with wellbeing issues.

If they didn't have long covid they'd have something else.

It is sad and I'm not minimising people's struggles but they need to find some resilience and strategies to cope and move on. Wallowing in the past is never helpful.

I don’t think I’d be stressing about anything if l was well.

Im sure my family wouldn’t either. They’d all be much happier.

We've heard from a number of people on this thread who feel that continuing to discuss trauma and negative impacts of covid isn't achieving anything. Demonstrably neither is telling people they shouldn't be doing it, so perhaps it might be time to take some of your own advice.

The number of people who were suggesting that it was a bit of a cold still. Don’t acknowledge the loss of life. Or they don’t care.
It really did shine a light on the most disgusting aspects of society

I’ve noticed people with diagnoses such as ASD/ADHD/anxiety are also far more likely to have long covid, fibromyalgia etc

I wonder if there’s a link.

Yes I agree. I have found the 5 year anniversary mark really hard - I feel like we have not reckoned with the impact of the lockdowns on people's lives, health, how it truly decimated social connections, businesses and lives. We might have "moved on" but we havent moved past it, if that makes sense. Something changed 5 years ago, and nothing has felt quite the same since.

My mum saw her mother and younger brother blown limb from limb by a German bomb in WWII and my father was in one of the first medical teams to reach Bergen- Belsen concentration camp where he saw horrors beyond comprehension. I know that all trauma is relative but there are levels nonetheless.

I worked in the NHS with covid patients throughout but I barely remember any of it. I just want to move on. The only thing that sticks in my mind is coming home and having to endure all that fucking clapping and wishing they would all pack it in and go home.
I'm more concerned about how life has gone downhill since then, the economy, businesses the cost of everything, my divorce and now my disability, the fact you can't see a GP even when you are in dire need of a treatment plan. Nothing works any more.

You’re not being unreasonable.

But many people just have have moved on from it.

I have.

i was lucky enough to not lose anybody to Covid. I was also lucky that I had a job I could do fro
home.

My baby was born during covid though, I had to be alone in the hospital, no visitors, and mat leave was lonely and depressing.

A lot of it was very isolating, I had a family member with severe asthma who I worried about daily and didn’t see for a long time due to shielding.

i found it all very distressing at the time and I did feel that I would never get over the trauma.

but I did. I guess that’s the strength of the human spirit.

but I accept that it would be very different for people who had suffered longer term effects.

Oh what a tiresome topic. Get the fuck over it, OP. Lockdown was half a decade ago. There are people living in war zones who just get on with it unlike this stupid, snowflake generation. Stop moaning and blaming every twitch on bloody Covid. It’s not Covid, it’s you!

As previous posters have pointed out - there are some people who still feel affected and some who just want to move on. I'm one of those who want to move on, it was an awful period for everyone and my kids missed an important part of their teenage years. But I want to put it behind me, move on and can't be bothered with reports into what we should have done differently or better. Equally I have sympathy for those that can't move past it, it affected different people in different ways.

Hilarious that you spent the time to write a response though on a topic you find tiresome, why not just scroll on?

Sounds like you have some issues of your own to work through though given the tone of your post.

@Gloriia
It is sad and I'm not minimising people's struggles but they need to find some resilience and strategies to cope and move on. Wallowing in the past is never helpful.

Talking about it helps people to process what happened, learn from it, and move on.

Yes. I developed a drink problem to go with a total breakdown in my mental state due to being high risk and stuck in my flat alone. I thrive in the outdoors. A close family member hasn’t forgiven me for some of the things I said. I’m sober now but it’s legacy abates.

I appreciate this is horrendous however it really is not a competition.

It is perspective.

That at 9yo he still needed to go to school as DH and I are key workers and his teacher told the class they had to stay 2m apart or they might pass on covid which can kill other people.

Then, when playing in a playground a kid ran into him and they fell on the ground, this kid on top of my son.

My son, being 9, took it literally and came home shaking in terror that he was now going to kill me and was too scared to come near me or his dad.

That trauma!! Over something that for the vast majority of adults was akin to a bad cold.

Back to normal except for the national debt.

Indeed, but I'm sure we can just stop talking about that because it's been 5 years, we should all be over it by now something something concentration camps.

Did you really say 'something something concentration camps'?!

Indeed I did. Can't tell whether the really mean that you don't think the subject is appropriate to this thread? If so, we're in total agreement.