To miss the first lockdown?

[TidyOchreReader]

I know it was a tough time for many but I genuinely loved that first lockdown. I think about it all the time. There was something strangely blissful about slowing down, having fewer obligations and just focusing on connecting with people - even though we couldn’t physically see them. And when you did see someone, the gratitude was immense. AIBU to feel nostalgic for that time?

It was a terrible time. I had to follow orders against my choice and judgment. Lockdown was authoritarian. I can’t romanticise that period no matter how hard I try.

I had a positive experience too. Prior to lockdown my son wasn’t attending school and my exh was coming over to our home everyday to work (self employed) while i went to work so I was seeing way more of him than was good for me. When we started working from home which I still love, I got that space from him I needed. Actually spoke to my best friend more too as she was at home and not out and about with her extended family. I also reconnected with friends I hadn’t spoken too in a while. I wasn’t worried about elderly patents or anything as they were already gone. Ultimately it made it possible for me to home ed DS through his gcses. Obviously all the fear and death was horrible. I remember being glued to the news in those first few weeks but on a personal level it wasn’t that bad looking back.

I don’t understand the people who go on about missing lockdown (and I say go on because there’s so many posts about it). Everyone can recreate the parts of lockdown they missed - say no to more things they don’t want to go to, have quieter weekend etc.

I suppose I still viscerally loathe people getting nostalgic about lockdown because of the sheer level of abuse and guilt tripping that was thrown at people who had the audacity to dare point out at the time that there were going to be lasting consequences... the impact on the economy, access to NHS services, children's education and social skills, mental health, grieving families treated so inhumanely, people living their last months or years under the isolation of lockdown. To mention all that was strongly shouted down. Granny killer! Selfish!

And here we are 5 years later, still paying for the NHS shutting down too rigourously for too many months. Still paying for the children denied education or early socialisation or support. Still paying after the economy was drained.

I came off lightly... we remained secure, but it still came at a cost of a depressed 7 year old sobbing with lonliness because it was illegal to have friends or go to school. It still came at a cost of never seeing MiL again because of travel and carehome restrictions. We tried in 2021, but only DH was permitted to see her (10 days earlier and we couldn't even leave the country). By the time restrictions eased in 2022, she was weeks away from death and too frail and wasted to recognise family anymore. The only time the DCs saw her again was open casket, but at least unlike the bereaved of 2020 she was allowed the final dignity of a proper funeral.

I wasn't abused. I wasn't denied access to open space like so many were. But still it dragged on like a living death. By 2021, not existing in some kind of passive way was an attractive concept.

Some regions got very little if any respite from lockdown in 2020. The tiers malarky showed up the lack of science involved in the restrictions.

The 2021 lockdown did not end until the July.

Many organisations continued restrictions well into 2022.

When I was hit by a string of bereavements in 2022, I was already on a low ebb. My friends that I would normally have considered a support were still burned out from their own battles from the Covid era. It wasn't until 2023 that we really had any communal energy to pull together beyond survival mode and to put into enjoyment and living more normally again.

We recently saw a 96yo relative who just didn't have the stamina to return to her previous pace of life before the lockdowns were imposed. So many older people were simultaneously aged by life stopping and unable to pick it back up.

Despite having above average means, it took 3-4 years to get DS back to the trajectory that he should have been on all along. His learning difficulties were brushed off "coz Covid" and he lost early interventions that his sibling had accessed as well at 6 months of schooling. In the winter, he sobbed on my lap daily, taunted by the videos of classmates that it was illegal to play with.

I'm still bitter about the cost to society, but at least it's a couple of years since I felt surges of raw anger about the whole topic. It's important to remember the multitude of costs of the political choices that were made when the government imposed such obstructive and long-lasting restrictions which limped on substantially after the highest risk people had access to vaccinations.

That's why I still find nostalgia for lockdown spring/ summer 2020 in poor taste.
Funny how it's never rose-tinted glasses about wading through the mud the following winter...

It was never illegal to have "a slower pace of life" and WFH. There's no external reason why people can't work at restructuring their lives to replicate it.
This spring has proven that it doesn't take destructive restrictions on society to have a long spell of nice weather.
Feel free to live your own life like that, but don't romanticise such drastic restrictions on basic liberties.

Yep, this.
No one needs the Government to tell them what to do again to feel the good feels they got during lockdown.

Lots of “I didn’t like it so the OP must submit to how awful it was”.

No acceptance that people have different experiences.

Sound, we will just tell my partners employer she’s never coming in to the office again. I’ll tell them you said it’s fine.

@BogRollBOGOF poignant post. I personally don't feel too antagonistic towards those who went full in with the lockdown rules (I don't live in the UK and it was less strigent where I was) as I totally get it. People were scared, they were being asked to make huge sacrifices and had to go all in and ask everyone to go with them to be able to bear it. We're all in it together, keep calm carry on etc. Totally understandable. What is incomprehensible today, mid 2025, is you still have self-obsessed people hankering after a period that we now know was not just awful for so many people at the time but is still having terrible consequences today. Great that you reconnected with long lost friends and learnt some new baking skills but you don't need to tell everyone about it. You must know that the majority of people had a terrible time and that others had a truly hellish time that is still having consequences.

There's something fundamentally wrong with your life if you're still hankering for lockdown spring 2020 in summer 2025. Work out what it is and start a thread about that.

i LOVED it and get swept up in lockdown nostalgia very often
i was very very lucky though i was furloughed from work so i spent my days lying in the garden and baking and playing animal crossing and doing game nights with my friends

i think i enjoyed it so much because that pace of life is much preferred to me, but because everyone else was forced into it it meant that i never felt like i was missing out on things like i do now

i appreciate that it was a horrendous time for many people and it was very very tough though x

I obviously can't speak for @TidyOchreReader here, but at the end of 'whatever period of time you would like to insert' aren't most of us more selfish about ourselves and our loved ones - especially our children if we have them?

Well I was absolutely terrified when I first started realising about Covid 19, and just how horrendous it may become (which was in December 2019 - I am mainly bed ridden, so I have and had a lot of time to try to listen to, and read about, what is happening throughout the world, not just in my tiny patch of it). Please believe me, when I say that I do have masses of empathy for the good and the kind, the vunerable and the suffering, the confused and the ill - whether they be physically, mentally, or very sadly, afflicted in both ways, and above all else, for all young children.

So, as the Pandemic really started to be known about, and started spreading very quickly towards the end of January, and into February 2020, my fear for my loved ones, and my horror at the news, just grew to extremely scary proportions. Thank goodness my parents had already passed away 7 to 8 years before then, and I had been lucky enough, and honoured enough, to be with them when they each died, and I was able to organise and attend their funerals with no restrictions, or even thoughts of any, and also that neither of them had died suffering from the devastating effects of Covid 19. Of course, I had great fears for my Granchild - who was in Junior school when Covid struck - and for my adult children, and their partners, and their partners' families, and also for my husband - who was, and is also my carer - and myself as well, because I didn't feel ready to leave my loved ones behind, just then, or even now. The one positive thing I was able to do for my family, was to buy them all vitamin D tablets, 70% alcohol sanitisers, disposable gloves and face masks for when they went shopping, or to work if they had to, oh and hand cream.

But, apart from all of that, I personally, and yes selfishly, loved lock down. It was not because I wanted to have a slower pace of life, most people would have probably considered my life to be already slower than that of a snails! I think my love of lockdown itself was because for the first time in my adult life (I started having children in my very early 20's), I didn't feel as if I was the only one responsible for my, by then, adult children's health and happiness, or my husband's, or even my own, as the government had taken away nearly all of my choices, my abilities, to be able to/to have to, make decisions for myself, and my loved ones. Whenever the government messed up, ahem, I could moan about them and their choices, and the police forces misinterpretation of their duties (and I say that as someone whose Grandfather was honoured with the King's Police Medal in a New Year's Honours list - the King being our dear Queen Elizabeth 11's father - so I had always been a staunch supporter of our police forces, except unfortunately the Met). So, in that context, I got to relax for the first time in about 40 years. And (poetic licence for starting the sentence with "And" please!) that is why I think that I personally loved lockdown. I know that it was probably a very selfish stance to have, and I didn't tell it to anybody at the time, as I knew that it sounded awful, but if we could have a government enforced lockdown, every 4 or 5 years, I don't think that I would be the only one to breathe a sigh of relief.

So, I readily give my very real apologies to those who suffered from any of the tragedies that lockdown itself inflicted on them, such as not being able to be at a loved one's bedside whether they were in a residential care setting, or in hospital, and whether they were ill, or giving birth, or indeed, incredibly sadly, dying - I think that all of those government rules were totally cruel and unnecessary, and I hated them then, and I hate them now. They were never a part of a necessary lockdown, they were just human beings trying to play at being God, and woefully failing.

Imo, the only World Wide positive thing about the lockdowns, was how nature and it's wild creatures, started reclaiming the Earth and it's Oceans, even Venice benefitted for a short while, during those lockdowns. Unfortunately, we don't - as citizens of the World - seems to have learned any lessons at all, our lives, and the World's climate and eco systems seem to be in even faster free fall than before. I can think of several World powers and leaders that it seems a great pity that they didn't succumb to the ravages of Covid 19. I am not including Boris in that, he was an absolutely idiotic plonker of a man, who it seems couldn't even manage to treat his past wives (and children?) in a caring and loving manor, but I don't think he was, or is, actually evil. Unlike , , * (sorry about my spelling,) and unfortunately quite a few more, who I am not going to even try to spell correctly...

I hope my reason for personally loving lockdown, and hating the Pandemic, makes some sort of sense to those of you who have excellent reasons to think that lockdowns were the worst things that could have ever been inflicted on us. I was extremely lucky to not lose any loved ones during the Pandemic, and my heart really did, and does, hurt for those that did.

Sorry, my above response was to someone I quoted, and I hadn't realised that the quote had disappeared by the time I posted my essay. Anyway, if anyone can be bothered to read it. I was trying to explain why I too, personally, loved lockdown.

Actually, the local world forces us to! Particularly the NHS - on it's terms of course - everyone and their mother think that they know what is better for me, than I do myself. Which has helped me to feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and very stressed. I will probably be on the strongest possible antidepressants for the rest of my life, and just because these people refuse to listen to me.
I no longer have the strength to fight them.

I was fortunate I didn’t have an awful time. I didn’t know a single person that got covid for the first 9 months. And no one I knew had any severe symptoms.
I struggled at times keeping the routine and stability for my four year old. I missed taking him to parks and soft play. But I enjoyed the peacefulness of it, doing zoom quizzes and FaceTime people. Dh worked from home so was a lot more hands on and my work massively reduced. We had a lot of quality time as our own little unit which was lovely. The slow pace, less social expectations made life a lot easier. We were also fortunate that as our wages stayed the same we saved tons of money as we weren’t doing anything.

id love to live in the country in a charming little village where everyone knows each other and life is very simple and slow paced.

It was the first time I understood quite how much anxiety was impacting my life.

Everyone can recreate the parts of lockdown they missed

Well, no. The only thing I miss was the sudden cessation of traffic noise and the ability to walk safely down the roads. Oh, and the lack of aircraft noise.

I was a keyworker so didn't slow down and all lockdown meant to me was being stuck in my house, alone, for months while working flat out to keep things running. I didn't see anyone, couldn't go anywhere and had no break from the awfulness of isolation and loneliness.

It wasn't great and I don't miss it.

How do you know the majority of the population had a terrible time?

Same here. I was being moved to ITU for the duration as they needed extra staff. I wrote a holographic will different from my previous one, leaving everything to my parents, if I died in service. The first lockdown wasn’t peace and tranquillity to me, or a slower pace, it was frenetic long shifts, watching many people die, including colleagues, coming home to remove all clothing into a bucket of disinfectant, and only being able to speak to my elderly parents through a window.
You feel how you feel, OP, so YANBU, but I feel how I feel, and it was horrific to me.

It was dreadful and we were conned by MPs who were cheerfully breaking their own rules.

It has cost us billions.

My DH died of Covid in 2023, despite all the shielding etc - there is nothing about that entire saga I miss.

So, yes you are BU. 🙄

For what it’s worth, my own lockdown experience wasn’t that bad; I have no children, and I wasn’t one of the self employed who fell through the cracks in billionaire rishi’s support scheme. Nobody in my family caught covid, although I think I might have done in 2019, when the narrative was still “it’s nothing to worry to about”. I don’t know anybody who died from it. But I can’t even think about these “positives”: the collateral damage is far more important to me.

It’s notable how now, those who “loved lockdowns” are kind of getting a sympathetic audience: this thread is more half-and-half than previous ones have been, as people forget the collective horror of lockdown (which I will never do).

But note that in 2020, those of us who foresaw the massive damage of lockdowns certainly did not get that fair hearing. We were unanimously told to shut up and stop killing granny. Even though I loathe him with a passion, I even feel sorry for Boris Johnson, because was a lone opponent of lockdown even after he was made to impose it: it was obvious from his body language that he didn’t believe the script he was reciting at all. I expect there’s some truth to the rumours that his own “behavioural insights” team worked on him, to make him support lockdown, and that while he was in hospital, his own heavy mob held his feet to the fire and said “you will support lockdown whether you want to or not”, and showed him a montage of world leaders wearing masks, followed by pictures of himself not wearing one. And he never got to have his big moment of saying “it is with great pleasure that I announce the complete end of restrictions, never to return”; because the new dose of fear being spooned into our mouths was Ukraine, and could we pleeeeeeeeeeeease take in refugees, moments after we had been criminalised for having our own families as guests.

No, not everyone CAN recreate the parts of the lockdown they enjoyed. I worked with disabled people who enjoyed the kind of accessibility during this period they could only dream of previously. Things moving online and being able to work from home meant they could now participate in things that most people take for granted and never give any thought to.

When the lockdowns ended, all the accessibility they had enjoyed dried up as the country pivoted back to 'normal' with no thought for disabled people's access or how to maintain parity for them now everything was back on-site.

Many of my clients often speak fondly of that time, though there were aspects they obviously hated (like everyone else).

It's not unreasonable to have different opinions about something, even lockdown. Those of us who enjoyed it are allowed to feel that, whilst at the same time being aware that it was awful for many.

I enjoyed it too, mostly I think because of the lack of expectation of my time and energy from other people. In particular, my extremely demanding mother. I couldn't visit her weekly, take her on holiday or out in the evening, and she couldn't blame me for being a neglectful daughter during lockdown.

I also enjoyed creating a new routine with online lessons with my neice and nephew, exercise, cooking, and online events in the evenings like theatre and talks. I started studying again, with free online courses in various subjects.

I was a supply teacher at the time, so I initially had no work or furlough, but even so, I loved the peace. I remember how quiet it was with less traffic.

I have made changes to my life as a result. I do a lot less in terms of going out, I often didn't really enjoy it, and it took lockdown to really make me realise. I spend more time at home doing the things I actually enjoy. And I'm studying for a science degree.

Well, MN is not necessarily representative, but out of over 1500 votes so far, 53% AGREE with the OP. So it would seem over half the posters here either did NOT have a terrible time OR simply agree that it's reasonable for someone else to feel the way OP does.

💯

It’s like two people visiting the same place, one has a fantastic time, while the other has a terrible experience where everything goes wrong.

Does the person who enjoyed it have to agree that the destination, museum, attraction, or experience was completely awful just because someone else somewhere didn’t have a good time?

People have different experiences of the same reality all the time. You can acknowledge all of them.

Because lockdown wasn't a horror to those people and they didnt see any horror apart from stories in the news. You talk about yourself being told to shut up for voicing your opinions. Maybe the increase in a sympathetic audience to posts like OPs is because people feel like they can start to be more honest about how they felt about lockdown, rather than pretending they hated it for fear of the backlash for being honest.