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Original poster

Life is a hideous nightmare

130 replies

Scaredshitlessagain · 22/12/2020 21:54

Can't cope with anymore of it. I know there's a vaccine but it's going to be months before it starts to have an effect. My kids schooling is crap, our lives are crap. The government is useless. I'm done.

OP posts:
Burnthurst187 · 23/12/2020 09:28

We have a vaccine, the longest day has been and gone and in less than eight weeks Spring will be visible. The nights will slowly draw out and it will gradually get milder, daffodils etc will be visible and this depressing way of life will get better

DuesToTheDirt · 23/12/2020 09:37

I'm totally fed up but also worried for my daughters' futures. One can't find a job. The other has a job starting in the new year, but will it go ahead? Can she move (across the border) to start this job? Will DH be allowed to go with her to share the drive? At the moment probably yes, but with new restrictions every week, who knows?

And they will both be paying for this for many years to come.

Ivytheterrible79 · 23/12/2020 09:40

I think once xmas has passed and the pressure is off to find the magic people will calm. My mum always says "people can keep panicking forever". We just need to hold on for a little longer to allow the vaccine to start kicking in and impacting the numbers.

DuesToTheDirt · 23/12/2020 09:46

Oh and on a more minor point, Christmas shopping has been giving me the rage. One door is entrance only, so I go in there, then can't come out the same way (where there is nobody) but must go right through the shop to another exit. John Lewis - some escalators blocked off entirely, how does that help? Another department store, which is a complete maze at the best of times, has some stairs up only and some down only (which I ignored or I'd never have found my way out of the place). Other shops with one way systems have people with prams blocking the way. Am I really supposed to wait endlessly while they choose their items, or do I cut across the wrong way, where there is nobody? And if I can't find what I want, and need to backtrack to find it?

I guess they have to put these things in place, but practical use of them defies logic. I am basically a rule follower but can't be doing with this!

Miljea · 23/12/2020 11:08

Tell you what's giving me the rage- and this is what is making things feel 'worse' for me.... it's the stupid application of The Roolz, too!

Use your bloody common sense.

We had a meal in a (independent, local) pub last night, with a drink. We'd both just put our cutlery down when we asked for a second drink, and initially were told no, as we 'weren't eating'.... luckily the manager stepped straight in and served us: but what to me is the essence of this ongoing nightmare is this sort of headless chicken idiocy.

What has become of us?

Spiratedaway · 23/12/2020 11:13

@Scaredshitlessagain

Can't cope with anymore of it. I know there's a vaccine but it's going to be months before it starts to have an effect. My kids schooling is crap, our lives are crap. The government is useless. I'm done.
I feel the same you are not alone
Original poster
Scaredshitlessagain · 23/12/2020 11:19

@Spiratedaway thank you. I just feel so hopeless.Xmas Sad

OP posts:
aoneandatwo · 23/12/2020 11:21

Can't cope with anymore of it. I know there's a vaccine but it's going to be months before it starts to have an effect. My kids schooling is crap, our lives are crap. The government is useless. I'm done.

They’ve already vaccinated 1 in 6 people over the age of 85... in the space of about two weeks! I think that’s pretty darn amazing TBH. The Oxford vaccine could be approved any day now which will be a further boost.

Take heart OP, it’s been utterly shit but there is light at the end of the tunnel! Bring on 2021 and getting back to normal.

IcedPurple · 23/12/2020 11:22

@DuesToTheDirt

Oh and on a more minor point, Christmas shopping has been giving me the rage. One door is entrance only, so I go in there, then can't come out the same way (where there is nobody) but must go right through the shop to another exit. John Lewis - some escalators blocked off entirely, how does that help? Another department store, which is a complete maze at the best of times, has some stairs up only and some down only (which I ignored or I'd never have found my way out of the place). Other shops with one way systems have people with prams blocking the way. Am I really supposed to wait endlessly while they choose their items, or do I cut across the wrong way, where there is nobody? And if I can't find what I want, and need to backtrack to find it?

I guess they have to put these things in place, but practical use of them defies logic. I am basically a rule follower but can't be doing with this!

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the security procedures at airports - especially in the US - are 'theatre'. They may make you feel safe, but it's questionable what, if any, benefit they actually have.

I reckon the same is true for a lot of the 'Covid secure' stuff. It's to give an impression of 'keeping you safe' (hate that expression) but the scientific basis for much of it is dodgy.

letsmakethetea · 23/12/2020 11:29

A lot of people are feeling the same way right now. Try to take things one day, or even one hour, at a time, if you can. Things will get so much better in the spring, we just need to hunker down and wait out the next couple of months. There's a lovely shining light at the end of the tunnel! Even if you can't see it right now, it's there.

MarshaBradyo · 23/12/2020 11:31

Iced I agree with you re ‘safe’

Mostly it’s a chain interruption aid. If we didn’t think it made us safer we wouldn’t comply with restrictions that keep us apart. But Covid secure is a marketing term almost.

bendmeoverbackwards · 23/12/2020 12:35

@Burnthurst187

We have a vaccine, the longest day has been and gone and in less than eight weeks Spring will be visible. The nights will slowly draw out and it will gradually get milder, daffodils etc will be visible and this depressing way of life will get better
I completely agree. It seems much harder now with dark nights. People say they find January depressing; I don't because the days are getting gradually longer and Spring is on the way.

It gives me comfort to know that every day thousands of people are being vaccinated.

I'm not a natural optimist and have days where I've felt very bleak. But I try and talk myself out of it.

BogRollBOGOF · 23/12/2020 12:59

@Burnthurst187

We have a vaccine, the longest day has been and gone and in less than eight weeks Spring will be visible. The nights will slowly draw out and it will gradually get milder, daffodils etc will be visible and this depressing way of life will get better
This is where my optomism lies. Spring will make a substantial difference; it has so far through the northern and southern hemisphere. Around the time the daffodills come up, we'll be past the peak. If nothing else, being outdoors will get easier. Restrictions should ease far quicker than last spring because we know more about the seasonal nature of the virus, and enough of the critical allocation of the vaccine will have been given out by the autumn to avoid a repeat of this year.

It is hard. I'm really not looking forwards to the next couple of months, but it will not be like this forever.

RubaiyatOfAnyone · 23/12/2020 15:07

@HmmSureJan
whats this professor guys name please?
Dr Nicholas Christakis

Not to derail your very serious thread, OP, but does anyone else think this is the sort of name Father Christmas takes in a 1990s film when he disguises himself as a normal person in the run up to Christmas to spread optimism and hope and restore our faith in the festive season?

ConfusedcomMum · 23/12/2020 15:13

I read somewhere a while ago that pandemics tend to last an average of two years so for the UK that will be March 2022. Don't know if this will be the case but it's the date I've got on my head anyway so I can live with one more year or so of this iyswim.

IcedPurple · 23/12/2020 15:20

I can live with one more year or so of this

The economy can't.

BlueBlancmange · 23/12/2020 17:23

@HmmSureJan

I read that too, also heard him on a podcast about a month ago. I mentioned it on here and got the usual doom and gloom, sneering and attempts to pull his theory apart. I don't want to hear the naysayers tbh. What he says rings true to me and gives me a goal to look to, so for now, in the absence of anything better, that's what I am focussing on

You posted it saying that we wouldn't be anywhere near normal until about 2023, so I perceived you to be the one spreading doom and gloom. I for one looked at it and did not have such a pessimistic interpretation. I responded as below:

It seems to me that he is saying it will take until 2022 for the vaccines to make a difference, but the interview was done in October just before any vaccines were approved. He mentions them becoming available in 2021, where of course vaccinations have already started, albeit only at the very end of this year. I think perhaps he is overestimating the difficulties of delivering the vaccines as well, considering that distribution seems to be going fairly smoothly

His prediction for the time between 2022 and 2024 still not being normal appears to be more to do with the economy needing to recover

greeneyedlulu · 23/12/2020 17:34

I hear you!!! My son has just tested positive for coronavirus so we are all in isolation, luckily he seems to be ok. My poor 70 year old dad is now on his own for xmas, our first xmas without mum as she passed away a few months ago and his boiler has just been condemned today. My uncle has just been diagnosed with cancer!!! I'm kinda in a "Christmas can fuck off" this year! However I'm also thinking that things cant get worse right?

Spiratedaway · 23/12/2020 17:37

[quote Scaredshitlessagain]@Spiratedaway thank you. I just feel so hopeless.Xmas Sad[/quote]
I am scared if the new mutation etc too

Frenchdressing · 23/12/2020 17:52

Seems 5 minutes since we went into lockdown in March. Get Xmas over and it will fly. Even in a lockdown.

Get a routine going. Really helps with the passing of time. I broke some bones last year and was housebound And bed bound for the best part of 2 months. A routine really helped me get through the day,

IcedPurple · 23/12/2020 17:55

Seems 5 minutes since we went into lockdown in March.

Seems like a century to me.

Jessuk86 · 23/12/2020 20:15

It’s shit it’s like March again but worse as so many people re crippled financial and mentally sending hugs xx

AgentCooper · 23/12/2020 20:15

[quote RubaiyatOfAnyone]@HmmSureJan
whats this professor guys name please?
Dr Nicholas Christakis

Not to derail your very serious thread, OP, but does anyone else think this is the sort of name Father Christmas takes in a 1990s film when he disguises himself as a normal person in the run up to Christmas to spread optimism and hope and restore our faith in the festive season?[/quote]
@RubaiyatOfAnyone that made me laugh Grin thank you. And you’re spot on!

80sMum · 23/12/2020 20:26

OP, I hear you. It seems that just as we begin to feel that there's a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, everything changes again. Three steps forward and 2.9 steps back.

I've just been reading about the 2nd worrying new variant, the South African one that appears not only to spread very rapidly but also to infect younger people and in SA they've been seeing a big increase in younger people, with no pre-existing conditions, being admitted to hospital critically ill with Covid. It's suddenly all very frightening again. I feel like I did back in March, that I just want to hide in the house and not go out. Sad

It is, as you put it, a horrible nightmare.

Circumlocutious · 23/12/2020 20:36

It really is horrible - but I think it’s even worse if your comparison point is our old lives. ‘What we did in 2019, what we would have done in a normal 2020’. That makes it even more unbearable.

My own comparison is other global, extenuating events, whether pandemics, famines, displacement, war (my family is from a Middle Eastern country and some extended members lost literally everything in the aftermath of the Arab uprising...think children in comfortable middle class lifestyles, to them becoming homeless for years, living in refugee camps, and having to search among rubbish and rubble for scraps of food. Zero education to speak of. Psychological trauma and PTSD. That’s fucking grim, and to me it was a reality, not a 5 minute news clip.

In the West, for many decades, we’ve been incredibly lucky to have our lives basically undisturbed (financial crash aside...but still nothing in comparison to this). And I hope that happens again. But placing this event in those contexts, for me, makes it easier to handle. And we all have our own coping mechanisms I guess.