Feeling sad about time passing and there still being in a pandemic

[SadAboutCovid]

I was going through the photographs on my phone earlier and I realised it has been six months since my birthday. I remember going out for a meal and discussing with friends the situation in China and we were talking about how if it spread to the UK maybe they would have increased hand sanitiser and move the tables in the restaurant further apart. It was a completely hypothetical conversation, we never really believed it would spread to the UK or if it did it would be easily contained. Even if it did spread, we never anticipated that restaurants would be forced to close along with schools, workplaces, shops etc.

I know it is silly but somehow realising that half of this year of my life has been wasted has just really upset me. It feels like life has been paused and yet time has still carried on passing. Soon Autumn will be on its way and it will be a painful reminder of the amount of time we have been under lockdown.

I have tried to embrace lockdown and at some points I did enjoy it. However gone is the sense of collective "national effort" and the Thursday night clapping with all of your neighbours in the street. Gone is the feeling of support from the government with their regular news conference briefings. Now it just feels sad, endless and hopeless. I have been more cautious than most due to an underlying health condition so I had not ventured out to the shops until last week. However just knowing that outside of my home there was a sense of normalcy with shops and restaurants back open I felt comforted. It wasn't until I stepped foot into a shop myself that I realise that whilst they are open it is in no way normal. What would have been a leisurely day spent looking around shops with a coffee afterwards has now turned into a mission of going into the shop and being as direct and quick as possible. No longer can you share a smile with the cashier or other strangers (or at least a visible smile), instead there is fear and frustration when someone gets too close when walking past. Other people aren't just people anymore, they are also potential hosts of a deadly virus.

I don't know, I am just really struggling with it. Yet I feel guilty for being worried about myself. I feel like I will be shamed for these thoughts and told to get over it, it's "over".

duemarch
I'm due in 3 weeks with my third. It has been a gruelling pregnancy thanks in part to the lockdown. I hear ya! Its not how you hope your pregnancy to be and all those things we took for granted previously- visits to baby shops , getting measured for bras , attending scans/the birth with your partner, going out for a celebratory lunch, support networks . Even just normal maternity care has all but stopped here but now resumed thank God.

No one gets to say whether any one else has the right to feel anything, but like you I feel so sad and robbed and no wonder . X

This may well drag on for 5 years. What is your point?

That worrying about things you can’t change is a bit pointless? That potentially good things can come out of situations like this as well as bad?

My husband left me at Easter last year we were married for 15 years, I married him when I was 18.

What got me through the lowest points of last year was thinking "well this time next year will be different, I just need to get through this year"

But it's now worse with no end in sight. I am so tired of being alone and lonely and I don't know how much longer I can bear the pain of all this for.

I sympathise HappyCria - I went through two shitty years 2018-2019 due to the fallout from a death in the family, and things were just starting to settle down by the end of 2019 to the point where I thought I would be able to relax and enjoy life again. Then along came covid...

Also feel the same. We had so many plans to change our life for the better this year but another year almost gone, another year older and chance of change now very slim. When each 'job' (if it actually exists) on one single website alone attract 3-400 applicants within 40 minutes, it seems hopeless. It continues to be a very surreal time in our lives. Mental health is not great so I just try to remind myself each day to be thankful for small blessings..