Revelling in the misery?!

[RainyDaze4]

I’ve made the mistake of reading some of the threads on here and I’m just fed up of seeing people seemingly enjoying bringing doom and gloom to every discussion.

I don’t mean people feeling sad/hopeless, I mean the people who seem to enjoy telling others ‘If you think Christmas will be better you’re naive!’, ‘we’ll be in lockdown for another year yet!’, ‘ha! No vaccine until 2022 I reckon..’ etc etc

Do you feel better by writing that sort of stuff, is it genuinely what you think? I just find it unnecessary in a lot of cases, particularly when the OP is clearly struggling.

It’s like earlier in the year when it seemed like some people almost wanted the death toll to rise so they could be even more bitter about the government and take an air of ‘Told you so!!!’ about needing an earlier lockdown etc.

I think maybe I need to avoid this board in future...

No, but I think 2020 has made a lot of people have pent up rage/anger issues, and taking aim at “worriers” is one of their outlets.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

My issue has been more with posters seemingly trying to outdo each other to see who can do lockdown 'properly', people spying on their neighbours and itching to report them, having a go at people for buying what they deemed to be non essentials. A lot of them seemed to have gone quiet, but I'm sure they'll be back now there are new restrictions.

Theres so many perfect posters in here its unreal who feel the need to brandish the selfish word out like its going out of fashion to other posters who for the most part are just trying to muddle through this whole thing the best they can.

I did also notice a comment from a poster a few days ago saying they made notes of other people's comments to refer back on at a later stage which I thought was rather odd and extreme.

Very true but remember these are people OPINIONS and not to say they will happen u have stopped reading

@swg1 Just want to add my thanks for your posts, you summed up perfectly how I feel.

Over the years I have had friends who were willing to cheerfully put themselves and others in peril whilst accusing anyone who pointed out potential problems of being negative. They also tend to be the ones who start crying and expect others to sort out the mess when it all goes tits up.

I must admit, I hadn't really thought of blind optimism as a MH coping strategy, it has always looked like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic to me. I will try to be kinder in future, but as PPs have said, if you know what the worst case scenario is then there is a chance it can either be avoided or a plan B formed.

Ironically this type of OP was exactly what started the Anti-Dementor threads, back in April when being worried about anything non-Covid, or the wider effects of lockdown were shouted down, and anything not strictly within a whole extra layer of rules (such as going for a run exceeding an hour or sitting on a bench to eat crisps was liable to have you shouted down for MURDER.

My default is to optomism. I despise the term "new normal" and favour "temporary normal" because so much of what we are being asked to do contravenes human instinct. How I longed to hug my friend last night when she was in intense pain and facing extensive waiting lists to be seen and I can't even give her a hug to make her feel cared for, but no, I have to stand 2m away watching her cry holding back the tears seeing her pain and feeling impotent to help.

I'm pessamistic about Christmas. This far in with the direction we are in, it seems realistic that we are going to struggle until the natural decline roughly around Easter as the colds and flu season ends.

I was keen for schools to get back by June, not out of denial, but out of the realism that it was better to live a fuller life with the advantages of spring/ summer, and keep young people's immune systems exposed to the world rather than delaying until the start of the colds/ flu season. As much as I would love to see full time education in half class sizes, there never was going to be the resources of money, staffing, accommodation or space to make it happen. As the parent of a child with SNs, I oppose part time schooling around blended learning because it further disadvantages the children who struggled to access home education the most in lockdown, and blended is worse because you are expected to keep up to match where the teacher is planning for next. It's not that Covid 19 isn't serious, but having taught through the realities of flu/ norovirus etc epidemics in secondary schools, I don't know what other viable alternatives there are without seriously compromising access to education for all.

There's a massive difference in saying, "as things stand, a Christmas stripped of access to family and other social rituals comes at significant mental health and social cost" to saying "yes Christmas is going to be very basic, suck it up and stop complaining."
It is important to acknowledge the "trivial" of the range of human emotions. Those "trivial" things may be the support that keep a bereaved or redundant person going through the toughest times. Or they maybe the final straw into pulling a person into depression because there is little concrete hope to keep mentally plodding on for in the near future. It may even just be that they need a healthy, theraputic whinge so they can crack on with life.

Times are hard for the vast majority and it's important to listen to the costs of the Covid response, both direct and indirect and not belittle people as though Covid 19 is the only hazard to life and wellbeing.

I was on a board early on where I posted that I thought it wouldn’t be truly over till end of summer 2022.

I was admonished by one poster who said I was doom mongering. They then went on to say that it will never be over.

I still think if the world goes on the way we are going it will be about then when it is all over.

I don’t relish this in the least as we as a family are barely hanging on.

I can understand the first lockdown and supported that but if everyone had adhered to it I don’t think we would have been in the position we are in today.

Personally I think we should get things open, we should keep SD and wear masks everywhere (including in our homes if we have visitors), wash our hands and take as much precautions as we can but just now get on with things.

What does get me is the posters who are clearly on furlough and have one or two sets of wages coming in and are all wfh who say we need to lockdown for 6 months.
There is a Global Pandemic so sacrifices have to be made. But not by them. They are sitting pretty with their salaries paid each month and saving on commuting costs

I wonder if they would be so enthusiastic if they no longer had a job.

There always have been doom-plopping, "dementors" on MN. You can guarentee that on any post about going NC with a seriously abusive, toxic mother will attract a wailing poster telling OP to suck it up because they'll miss her when she's dead, and the poster would drink bleach and walk the streets, tarred and feathered to see their deceased mother again.

Or the "just get a nanny/ move house/ change jobs" types who don't register that life is not that simple and many people's circumstances can't change that simply.