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?

Everyone is different. I don't like talking about it. I think I'm moving on and talking about it sets me back. I know we have to learn from the experience to help us handle things if something similar were to occur again but the memorial type things I don't find helpful at all and, having watched someone die of Covid after not being allowed to see them for a month and witnessing the conditions for the hospital staff ,some of the attitudes in discussions make me very angry which does me no good at all. Its probably stupid of me to have opened this thread and got involved.

Well this is the British way with all national calamities. It'll probably play out the same as I've seen talk about WWII change during my lifetime - downplay the trauma for the first forty years after, then endlessly reference it from a safe, un/misremembered distance for the next forty.

I don’t know anyone who seems affected by it. It’s a distant memory as far as I’m concerned. Onwards and upwards OP, it was 5 years ago!

Interesting point. You could well be right. In decades to come, perhaps we'll see people who didn't live through covid 19 using it as a tool to try and get others to stop having a conversation they don't like.

I saw that - and had every sympathy when he was taking about the trauma of losing a family member, but then turns out it was his granny, 94 years old, cut down in her prime she was…honestly, I think people have lost all perspective. Someone who has lost a spouse or child, someone way before their time is one thing, and of course those with lasting post viral illness have something to be grieved about but claiming to be traumatised by the death of someone well into their dotage stretches the point a bit. We really seem to have lost all resilience as a nation.

Could he be talking about the loss of the normal experiences and rituals surrounding death? I know of some extremely traumatic deaths of elderly people during that time because of the separation during the final days and/or the lack of proper funeral. It's not the fact that they died at the ripe old age they did, it's how they died and what the family had to go through.

Lucy Easthope has some good stuff on the impact of people not being allowed the usual customs around dying people and death.

No no your sneery 'something something concentration camps' terminology is the inappropriate bit.

Lucy Easthope has some good stuff on the impact of people not being allowed the usual customs around dying people and death.

I think people who experienced this have a valid point.

I think people whose companies folded/lost jobs they struggled to find an equivalent replacement for have a valid point.

People who were significantly affected financially with an ongoing impact have a valid point.

I think people who had babies during lockdown or people who were forced to stay indoors with no garden and pre school children have a valid point.

Everyone else needs to stop whinging on about it. The weather was glorious. The roads were clear. I saw a group of teenagers in their own cars partying in Sainsbury's carpark in their pj's when I'd driven down there from change of scene myself at 10pm.

Yes, it was shit for a lot of people. But there was also something lovely about it.

Now it's in the past, the only people I personally know who still talk about it negatively are the sort of people who will find a cloud for every silver lining whatever the situation. Always have done; always will.

Thing is there was a very good reason for it, to protect people and reduce the spread. It isn't as if someone just announced no funerals allowed this week.

When there is a rationale for something it usually leads to understanding. I couldn't go to funerals and I absolutely accept the reasons behind it.

'Now it's in the past, the only people I personally know who still talk about it negatively are the sort of people who will find a cloud for every silver lining whatever the situation. Always have done; always will.'

Totally agree.

well someone did basically announce there are no funerals and it was a despicable thing to not allow people to be with their loved ones as they were dying and then not to allow a proper funeral and wake.
personally, I'm very angry about the hysterical over reaction anyway but if that had happened to either of my parents I would never have got over the rage both with the people making the ridiculous, unscientific rules an the gullible people who went along with t ensuring it went on and on

Given that you thought the Belsen remark amounted to 'perspective', your ability to correctly identify inappropriate is clearly lacking.

Whether a particular restriction was justified is an entirely separate point to whether it might be what a person found traumatic about losing an elderly relative.

But the thing with covid restrictions is that they all involved balancing the interests of some over others. It is not niche information that death and rituals around bereavement are of psychological and cultural importance, and we knew early on that people were suffering when denied those things. We just, as a society, decided it was worth it. Hopefully that was right, because the alternative isn't pleasant to contemplate.

There's a difference between understanding that the rationale for something, which is obvious in this case, and thinking it was the correct rationale. And then there's another one between thinking that your trauma was for the greater good whilst also being able to move past it, especially in a society where access to support to deal with it is completely shite.

Someone had glibly suggested thst is 'wasn't a competition' when a pp had disclosed actual traumatic events that had happend to her relatives. No it isn't a competition but they were offering perspective, not 'something something concentration camps'.

'well someone did basically announce there are no funerals and it was a despicable thing to not allow people to be with their loved ones as they were dying and then not to allow a proper funeral and wake.'

There were infact funerals, just with reduced numbers. For a reason!

It really did shine a light on the most disgusting aspects of society

But it also shone a light on some of the most beautiful aspects of it too.

Some of the stories I heard from people I worked with who had young families were idyllic - the cakes that were baked, the skills that were shared and learnt, the shift in focus, the slowing down and time spent together, the games that were invented and the joy that was found in simple pleasures...

A lot of my friends and I don't socialise the same way that we used to. But we socialise in different ways. People found ways to be creative and to support each other.

Never before has a cup flask of Baileys and hot chocolate shared with a colleague on opposite ends of a park bench tasted so good!

Local businesses found new and creative ways of running their businesses where they could.

Aside from the idiots who cleared the shop shelves, there was a far greater sense of community spirit. Strangers would stop for socially distanced chats during their state sanctioned daily walk.

Someone I know turned his summerhouse into a bar and they still socialise in there.

I've spoken to so many people who redecorated their houses or landscaped their gardens.

The air was cleaner.

Was I ever sad, lonely, down? Of course was. But those aren't the parts I choose to focus on. The only thing I regret is that I probably didn't appreciate it as much as should have.

They were right, it isn't a competition. The entire approach of using other things to try and relativise people talking about their trauma has been an unpleasant feature of the pandemic, with WW2 being a particularly irresistible example apparently, because some people just cannot seem to help themselves.

Using other far more serious and traumatic events to offer some perspective is absolutely understandable
WW2 is an 'irresistible example' .

So true, many people really made the most of the simple things.

The fact that you think unconsensually co-opting other people's sufferings during an industrial genocide amounts to perspective is where you're going wrong here.

@BlueSlate

A lot of my friends and I don't socialise the same way that we used to. But we socialise in different ways. People found ways to be creative and to support each other.

Intrigued by this comment, as you use a present tense. Your socialising is still affected by covid/lockdowns? Why? And do you think you would have made these friends in the first place with your current method of socialising?

there was no god reason for making people die without their family with them , nor for denying them a proper funeral .
I'm amazed people still think it was the right response when it was obviously cruel and did no good whatsoever.

and people can impose those mad rules of 2m apart etc. on themselves if they want to.
If it was that great why hadn't you done it before?
Why not carry on now with your weird socialising at a distance if it's so lovely?
I've no problem with that .
What I had a problem with is the bullshit being forced on the rest of us.

No it's not 'affected' by it. It's just changed as a result of it. But it's not worse. It's just different.

It still happens, but people are more likely to socialise at home now rather than go to the pub. People realised they were spending less money and that actually going to the same pub every Friday/Saturday night, surrounded by the same people and listening to the same bands had just become a habit.

So we still go out and we still go to gigs but now it's more 'purposeful'.

I've met new people since lockdown too so it's not like people have disappeared!

@Gloriia

there was a far greater sense of community spirit. Strangers would stop for socially distanced chats during their state sanctioned daily walk.

Are you taking the piss?
Sounds likesomething from North Korea
( there was never a rule on how many walks you could have btw)