Is this all life will be from now onwards?

[Tartan333]

I have lost hope of things getting back to normal and I mean normal not the awful phrase "new normal".
This feels like existence, all the fun has gone from life, we are all ruled by covid now. Is this it now for the long term? Will it be years before we can do normal things again without masks, distancing, threat of covid etc?

It seems like a very dark future at the moment.

I don't understand the people who are minimising what we and large swathes of the rest of the world are going through. This is a fucking awful situation, which is in no way comparable to normal milestones in life like leaving home, going to university etc. Tens of thousands of people’s lives in this country are being ruined through COVID deaths or through the wider effects of the lockdown.

Yes, people got through the Spanish Flu epidemic, but I bet they went through a lot of despair, grief and hardship too.

It will pass. In five years' time, we will look back and wonder why we thought it was so bad.

I still remember the 70s when we had regular powercuts, rampant inflation and high unemployment. Not to mention regular terrorist bomb attacks and scares. We were permanently skint. At the time, we thought the world had ended and would never be ok again. It hadn't and it was. This will be the same.

It will pass. In five years' time, we will look back and wonder why we thought it was so bad

I disagree. In five years time well look back and think it was all a huge over reaction and we'll be thoroughly ashamed of all the unnecessary consequences lockdown had.

@MoreW1ne

Some people are obviously quite sheltered and have never faced adversity. So its natural that many will struggle to initially cope with this challenge.

You'll be surprised how quickly you'll be able to bounce back. You have more strength than you realise.

MoreW1ne I am in my late 50s and have gone through much adversity in life, but I am struggling with this like everyone is. I don't know a single person of any age, with or without children, who hasn't had days of feeling down and despairing.

I agree with your posts @MoreW1ne ,and I can't believe how many negative people there are on MN. I have several friends in the UK and not one of them has complained, they've just got on with what they are supposed to be doing and made the best of it. Then I look at MN and it's full of whiny people. Where I come from we have a term "whinging poms" - when I was young (and naive!) I thought that was a dreadful thing to say, now I fully understand.

Vanguard - I was and I apologise for that.

My original post wasn't designed to be though, but I don't think that made me naively optimistic.

Some will no doubt say I am lucky, maybe I am, although all life is a combination of luck, decisions and hard work in my opinion. I also am not suggesting life it easy at the moment (or indeed always fun). However, there are plenty of elements which have been more enjoyable for me and my family and many other families/friends I know.

I do however believe that this will pass in time and don't think it will be that long before people are enjoying whatever 'normal' they want. I guess the difference at the moment is that many are facing adversity together so there feels a more negative cloud over things. Whereas generally people (like in your situation) face adversity isolated and so it's harder to recognise how people overcome situations like the one we are in (and far worse) all of the time.

MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Don't know where you live but where I do in the south-east things public spaces are far from clean.

Everywhere is strewn with covid related litter. Wipes, discarded masks and other rubbish.

Nothing about this, is in any way, shape or form, better.

Agree totally.

We will be back to normal when I can turn up to church without booking. Sing my heart out. Hug people. Not have to look at arrows and two-tone tape in our beautiful church. Receive communion again, kneeling down, on the tongue, without the priest wearing a mask. Then move into the church hall, squeeze in with 100 other folk. Eat a shared table meal together. Help, serve and look after each other's kids and the very elderly. And allowed the kids to run wild in the church garden, with no worry about which families they are mixing with.

How long will that be do you reckon? Considering we still can't enter church?

We will be back to normal when I can invite 10 families to my house for food and play. Most of them have more than 4 kids, so we can't meet up at all at the moment, because we already have 6 people in our household.
How long?

When can we return to our home education swim and sports group. 50 families? All mixing?

This is all rubbish. I hate all of it.

@eaglejulesk

I agree with your posts *@MoreW1ne* ,and I can't believe how many negative people there are on MN. I have several friends in the UK and not one of them has complained, they've just got on with what they are supposed to be doing and made the best of it. Then I look at MN and it's full of whiny people. Where I come from we have a term "whinging poms" - when I was young (and naive!) I thought that was a dreadful thing to say, now I fully understand.

I am a full time carer for a disabled relative and I am finding this situation very hard. I am a person wrestling with a difficult situation that COVID 19 has made even more difficult and isolating than usual. I am not a whinging pom and neither is anyone else who is struggling. We are human beings who are allowed to feel shit during a shit time.

Carla, I'm in Wales so maybe I've been a bit cushioned from crowded beaches and people shitting in burger boxes. We aren't allowed to travel too far from home yet.
I was thinking more about cafes and shops needing to be kept extra clean and having hand sanitizer in public places, which I quite like.

Some people are obviously quite sheltered and have never faced adversity. So its natural that many will struggle to initially cope with this challenge.

how superior you are.

It is quite a different feeling facing adversity when other things around you are normal and functioning. It is a vastly more uncomfortable feeling when every single person around you is also facing adversity and the usual things we'd find comfort in are not available to us.

I've faced quite a bit of adversity in my life but unfortunately that does not make me immune to finding this situation fucking depressing. I suppose my previous experience of adversity has taught me that I can get through difficult times but really, no, it doesn't make all the difference.

@Darcysshirt - I'm not talking about people in your situation, and you know that. I'm talking about those who can't cope with queuing at a supermarket, not being able to go on holiday etc, and those moaning that "life will never get better".

*Some people are obviously quite sheltered and have never faced adversity. So its natural that many will struggle to initially cope with this challenge.

You'll be surprised how quickly you'll be able to bounce back. You have more strength than you realise.*

I have a diagnosis of ptsd so have faced adversity before. I absolutely hate this. It feels like I'm losing everything I fought for off the back of my trauma and I don't have the strength/desire to do it all again. There is nothing fun about my life right now and I don't see any on the horizon either.

My adored grandmother died in March, couldn't say goodbye, couldn't go to the funeral, couldn't support my recently widowed and devestated mother in any practical way. My son starts school in August and is losing all the socialisation skills we had to work at for just this moment because he's not around other children anymore (sibling doesn't count because their dynamic is very different). Dh will be wfh for the foreseeable future and apparently our marriage only worked because we spent a good chunk of the week apart, he's driving me up the wall.

Assuming everyone struggling has had an easy life is far too simplistic.

I think this issue shows, yet again the great divide on MN and in the U.K as a whole.

I'm defo on the whingy side of this. Its shit, and for our family it will continue to be shit for a long while after restrictions are lifted. Doesnt matter to us the pubs are open and we can go shopping soon, we're fucking skint. I've been well and truely fucked over by my work and will not be returning after being on unpaid leave for 3 months. There are NO jobs avaialble to fit around having two kids at home full time.
My kids, through no fault of mine or theres have already had some big upheavals in there lives and we'd done well to get ourselves just about settled in our new lives. Then this!
So yer, if the 'new normal' consists of me being even poorer than I already was, I'm not too happy about it either.
I guess those that are cheerily taking it in thier stride will be jumping in their cars and booking days out and taking holidays...

[quote eaglejulesk]@Darcysshirt - I'm not talking about people in your situation, and you know that. I'm talking about those who can't cope with queuing at a supermarket, not being able to go on holiday etc, and those moaning that "life will never get better".[/quote]
But until I mentioned my situation, you couldn't know about it and you don't know the life details of anyone on here, but you have still lumped everyone together in a sweeping generalisation.

I've spoken to a few elderly relatives who lived through WW2, the bombing, rations etc and they have all said this is worse! Their view was that at least then they could hold tight to their friends and relatives, be in social situations to give each other strength, go dancing!
Humans are social mammals and isolating them is traumatic and difficult.
This is a pandemic. We have NEVER been through this before and the unknown is fucking terrifying!

All those saying they are fine and everyone should stop whinging need to check their privilege quite frankly.

I hate this new normal bollocks, I want to have the spontaneous lunch with my mum on a Saturday or drinks with my friends, having to book to go to the pub and give my contact details takes the fun out of it, I hated queuing before and I still hate it now but its even worse now as I have to queue outside in rain and 30 degree heat just for frigging cat food or cat litter. I'm fed up of people giving the dirty looks if you go the wrong way down the one way aisle in Tesco. I miss hugging my friends, I miss the gym, I even miss the rush hour traffic. I hated having to pass my sick cat over to the vet in the car park and then sitting in my car whilst they got examined. I hate that I still can't go to my dentist for routine treatment (and my teeth will suffer in the long run). It isn't normal in any sense of the word. And on top of all of that I have the rather depressing prospect of either redundancy, or a pay cut, or a pay freeze, for the next 3 years(with the real prospect that I may not be able to afford my mortgage or get another job). But at least I'm alive and can get a hair cut I suppose.

I'm feeling shit today. All these idiot people on this thread saying 'oh it could only be for 2 years until we find a vaccine blah blah we'll look back on this in years to come'. Are you fucking deranged?? You might be able to afford to throw away 2 years of your life but I cant!

What if your mother, your sibling, your child is dying of a terminal illness and you cant see them for the last 2 years of their life? What if you've looked forward to going to a specific university for years and years, to study your dream subject and you were due to start in September and now universities are closed, possibly for years, and your stuck in your childhood bedroom watching lectures on a laptop and paying £9000 a year for it. What if you've been saving 2 years for a wedding and now it doesnt look like it could happen for years and years. You're throwing away child bearing years waiting until it can happen.

What if your stuck in a job you hate but at least you have a job so you're too scared to move roles in case the next job you go to you get made redundant from and you havent been there long enough for redundancy so you stick in the shotty, low paid job your in because at least even if your made redundant you'll get a pay out.

Its shit. This whole situation is shit and martyrs saying it's for the greater good doesnt make it any better.

But until I mentioned my situation, you couldn't know about it and you don't know the life details of anyone on here, but you have still lumped everyone together in a sweeping generalisation.

Yea but Darcy who has time on here to really send a comprehensive message aimed at the 100 different groups of people in the country and tailor it to everyone's situation. Even if they did it would be too long to bother reading.

It's no different to those who lump us 'cheery' folk together as being introverts, booking holidays, running to the pub etc.

The good news is for the OP and similar is that there are quite a few people on this thread and in the country who are managing and will be able to go on and manage fine. And for some (granted, not all) that will provide some hope/optimism that they may need in this time that life will be OK for them.

@IndiaMay completely agree!!

Also two years in a child's life is huge.

But MoreW1ne there is a difference between “things will get better” and “you will learn to love the way things are now, stop grumbling about it.” Both are ‘positive’ in a sense I suppose but they’re really not the same message.

Some people are enjoying or managing fine with life now. Some people are not. That’s not a moral judgement about the strength of anyone’s character, it’s a recognition that people are in different situations right now.

I dont need your optimism. I need a fucking job.

I've spoken to a few elderly relatives who lived through WW2, the bombing, rations etc and they have all said this is worse! Their view was that at least then they could hold tight to their friends and relatives, be in social situations to give each other strength, go dancing

Really? I have too. They have said this isn't as bad because no one is actually out to kill them and they are not facing waking up to find their neighbours splattered on the street.

@onedayinthefuture exactly!

2 years of a childs life, thrown away is massive! They're missing key moments in development, there are children who go into this as young minded children and come out teenagers, losing those precious last few childhood years behind a closed door. I loved my school days and look back on them so fondly and these children have lost that for quite possibly a long time

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-53218704
A new strain of flu that has the potential to become a pandemic has been identified in China by scientists.
It emerged recently and is carried by pigs, but can infect humans, they say.
The researchers are concerned that it could mutate further so that it can spread easily from person to person, and trigger a global outbreak.
While it is not an immediate problem, they say, it has "all the hallmarks" of being highly adapted to infect humans and needs close monitoring.
As it's new, people could have little or no immunity to the virus'

yup from now on its turtles respiratory viruses with pandemic potential..... all the way down