Strange problem in relation to lockdown ending

[Bookridden]

Like many people, I'm feeling a bit low and angry. However, my feelings are caused by worry about the risk of Covid, but a sense of frustration about how risk averse society has become, and how many services are still not operating fully because of the risk. I think about the fact it's so difficult to see a GP face to face, the fact schools aren't back to normal (DD misses 2.5 hours a week due to a reduced school day), not many libraries open for browsing, people flattening themselves against walls when you go past them etc etc. I thought the successful rollout of vaccines was supposed to bring us back to normality, and yet now the threat of the Indian variant is the latest problem to delay opening up. The risk for even partially vaccinated people coming to serious harm is tiny, so any are we living like this? Vulnerable people will be (thankfully) fully vaccinated. I'm left feeling so fucking angry and tearful about this, and find I feel massively resentful towards people who are still talking about the covid risks. I realise this is my issue, and a reflection of my mental health. I'm posting as I'm looking for some supportive advice on how to deal with my resentment about all of this. Grateful for any support or morale boosting really. Thanks in advance.

I have found my people!

Agreed! I feel like I'm going to lose my mind with it all sometimes.

While I share your frustration, I also believe that we must respect each other's understanding of the risk.

This means that if your family is worried, reassure them but don't 'make' them come. It means that they don't criticize you for going out if you want to. It means that if someone asks you to wear a mask in their home or shop - you wear one.

We each have our own perception of our own risk that is not necessarily the same as other people's. Respect that.

I have been against the CV19 legal measures since March 2020. I respect the views of those with a different view but it is still very difficult for those of us against all the measures.

As you say yourself OP, lots of vulnerable are still only partially vaccinated if we accept that you need two jabs to be fully vaccinated. Two members of my family (one CV and one ECV - mobility issues delayed the ECV obtaining a jab) won’t have had both until the end of this month so well before the June date but not just yet.

There is also the legitimate concern that having a partially vaccinated population provides more opportunity for the virus to mutate to bypass it and of course there is the concern of variants testing the vaccines effectiveness.

As things stand nothing is guaranteed until it’s actually happened. We have every reason to be optimistic but optimism doesn’t make things go the way we want them to and we have to accept facts even if we don’t like them.

@MotherAbigail I’m feeling precarious today too, after the hope of the last two days and the subsequent fearmongering and threats of more restrictions.

I've totally had it with nonsensical performance safety measures.

The AD threads are good conversation about the state of the world, with some randomness thrown in. They are generally rule abiding, or maybe an odd tiptoe over the edge. They've been going for a year triggered originally by the zealous condemnation of people breaking made up rules about things like exercising for more than an hour, or the people predicting categorically that you'd be mad to be thinking about any kind of holiday in the next few years. They were also the only place on MN where you could have any kind of non-Covid worries; thank goodness that's eased! It's not a homogenous point of view in there, just gentle conversation. Attempts to "convert" to right-think tend to get quietly ignored though

I recently saw an old couple going for a rainy walk in a near empty park and one had a mask and visor on, and I found that rather sad. They've probably spent most of the year tucked away shielding and watching the BBC glooming away at everything and it is sad that they felt the need for that level of barrier between themself and the world, in a place that is of negligible risk.
A few days later, the young person who decided not to cross the road and instead walkacross two front gardens to avoid me was irritating. I even happened to be on the grass verge with the whole pavement free. Thank goodness that most of the exagerated bush diving died off a while back!

People are being more open about being fed up and frustrated with the government/ media narrative.

I agree with lunar1 and others on P1

@WouldBeGood - what are the 'AD threads' I see them in active threads sometimes and haven't worked out what it stands for ?

I also think you have to weigh up the benefit / enjoyment of doing something vs the risk. There is no reason to go back to doing something where you sit in a room with hundreds of others at the moment "just because" that is the way we used to do it, unless the benefit of doing so is high. OTOH, as far as I can see, you are going to be just as safe having a coffee with a friend inside today as you are next week, so crack on with moving into the warm and dry if you've arranged to meet your friend and it is rainy and cold. There has to be a risk / benefit assessment using common sense.

I agree with all of this, I’ve been looking forward to the may half term so much and now who knows what will happen. I have some lovely breaks and trips planned 😞

I feel exactly the same OP and was in tears about it this morning. Do we all have to live this horrendous half life forever just because of one fucking illness that isn’t going anywhere, when there’s plenty of other things that can kill you. All the people with terminal illnesses who have hardly any time left, and they’re spending it like this. I can’t bear it any more.

One piece of GOOD news today..... You can now DEMAND to see your GP face to face again! There has been such a backlash against the Governments edict months ago, that all GP triage must be by phone...(UNQUALIFIED receptionist gatekeepers), that today the Gov have reversed the decision and instructed GP's to open their doors.....
About bloody time! Waiting rooms standing empty and no phone appointments available for 3 weeks! How can that be right?
You do sound depressed OP perhaps try it out. Are you getting enough exercise in the fresh air?
We all just need some good news... and some sunshine on our souls

@BackforGood, have a read of @BogRollBOGOF’s post above which explains the ADs well 😊

Ah. Thank you @WouldBeGood - that post wasn't there when I opened the thread, honest

However, I still want to know what AD stands for ?

Anti Dementor.

A reference to the days when people (Dementors) sucked the joy out of all of life with stuff like no Easter eggs, you murderer!!

This is what I do. Hope it helps.

1. I accepted right near the beginning that this all could last 3 years, like the Spanish flu did initially.

Once a person accepts things, things become a lot easier.

1. I happen to know a lot of people, and realised that if you chose even just 12 people, they have 12 different levels of risks and separate reactions to Covid. So I dont react much to their own personal level. They also have different health needs, and have to do what they feel right for themselves. Stressing about anyone's reaction was not going to get me far.

1. When new rules come out, I more or less right away look at the exemptions. Even if you dont qualify, it is more uplifting to read them and know they are all there.

1. Counting blessings always helps in life, not just counting blessings about what we can actually do, during a pandemic.

1. All things end and change.

Nothing lasts forever. There is always hope, and if there are people who dont have others' best interests at heart, they will be brought down at some point.

1. It is a global pandemic. If countries are or want to not do their best for their citizens, they will look out of step with other countries, if they try and get away with it for too long.

I feel the same. I looked at the risk of covid to me and my child last March and concluded it was lower than many of the risks which I take routinely without a second thought. I am in my mid thirties and there will now be very few unvaccinated people who are at a higher risk than me.

We would never have contemplated lockdown if everyone had the risk profile of a healthy 30 year old. We may barely have noticed that covid existed as distinct from other viruses.

I also find it difficult that lockdown is seen to be the cautious risk adverse option. It isn’t at all. It is very very high risk to the future of the country and everyone’s quality and quantity of life. The government has not even tried to quantify the human or financial costs of lockdown or conduct any form of risk assessment of it.

I think a lot of this is not coming from individuals but from businesses and organizations worried about their risk exposure (understandably I guess). And from a total lack of clarity about when social distancing is meant to end (which is different from stuff opening up). I was all excited to finally be able to take 7.5 month old DD to baby classes but turns out they're still doing social distancing within the class so I'm meant to physically restrain my jolly baby, who is desperate to start socialising, and stop her from meeting other babies, which feels terrible. I think there's also an element of people not knowing who is risk averse and who isn't and not wanting to impose, eg. I'd happily let DD interact with other babies (though preferably outside the class out of respect to the person running it) but unlike in normal times I feel a bit uncomfortable about just letting her rush up to them as I suspect some parents do still want to be socially distancing.

But I think PP are right when they say it will return to normal, it just needs time, and of course now that stuff is opening up we're all getting justifiably impatient.

Thank you WouldBeGood

Great post lightand

@lightand

This is what I do. Hope it helps.

1. I accepted right near the beginning that this all could last 3 years, like the Spanish flu did initially.

Once a person accepts things, things become a lot easier.

1. I happen to know a lot of people, and realised that if you chose even just 12 people, they have 12 different levels of risks and separate reactions to Covid. So I dont react much to their own personal level. They also have different health needs, and have to do what they feel right for themselves. Stressing about anyone's reaction was not going to get me far.

1. When new rules come out, I more or less right away look at the exemptions. Even if you dont qualify, it is more uplifting to read them and know they are all there.

1. Counting blessings always helps in life, not just counting blessings about what we can actually do, during a pandemic.

1. All things end and change.

Nothing lasts forever. There is always hope, and if there are people who dont have others' best interests at heart, they will be brought down at some point.

1. It is a global pandemic. If countries are or want to not do their best for their citizens, they will look out of step with other countries, if they try and get away with it for too long.

I found this really helpful, thank you.

OP, i understand your frustration. I am going out most days - my job really requires me to be onsite, plus I have other responsibilities. I go on the tube, on buses, am in central London.

However, I also ask people to step back if they are too close, I won't allow others to share small lifts with me, and I ask mask chin-wearers on the bus to put their masks on properly.

I had covid, unluckily, in March 2020, just before the lockdown. I was quite hard-hit, and indeed now, more than a year later, I still haven't fully recovered. The first time I was rushed to hospital (in a period when very few people were being rushed to hospital) my teenage DS was left in our flat alone, in the middle of the night, not even knowing which hospital I was being taken to. I don't know if you can remember what it was like last March, but we said our goodbyes as we genuinely didn't know if we'd see each other again.

That experience will stay with me, and with my DS, the rest of our lives. I don't want that to happen to anyone else, or to my DS and me again (because you can catch it more than once, although you are less at risk).

I also want to end this cycle of lockdown/reopen/lockdown/reopen as soon as possible, not least because my job depends on footfall. I think the best way of doing that is by not going nuts and bringing yet another lockdown on our heads with another spike in infections.

I think it's possible to be cautious AND start to enjoy life more. I bought a coffee in an (open-air) cafe the other day - and oh! The bliss of drinking a coffee someone else had made! But I still wash my glasses, my face, as well as my hands, when I get back home, and change into indoor clothes. I still quarantine non-perishables for a week in a cardboard box in the hall before they are put away. I'm having to use handcream for the first time in my life because the skin on my hands is so dry from all the bloody handwashing.

You may think I am over-cautious, OP, and annoyed and resentful when I back away from you in crowded places, but we all have our ways of managing risk, and this is mine.

I couldn’t agree more OP. We have pandered to the risk-adverse for far too long. I’m sick of other people’s lack of understand of basic statistics affecting what I am allowed to do - enough is enough!

I completely agree as well, lovely post lightand - thanks. It made me feel better. I also accepted at the outset it would be 2-3 years but I still get fed up sometimes (like today) of all the pointlessness.
I also don't dare look forward to anything in case it doesn't happen. I book stuff, I feel nothing. If it doesn't go ahead, I feel nothing. Sometimes I don't bother booking things because I don't care either way. I'm not depressed, just deeply, deeply fed up of this shit. I'm not following the rules anymore.

I'm with you OP. So fed up of nonsensical rules and bloody masks everywhere. I haven't been vaccinated, and probably won't be for a while, but I would happily go back to normal right now.
I've booked loads of stuff for this summer, most recently a week away in June, and will be very very angry if they have to be cancelled.

I agree OP. Had lots of stuff cancelled last year, some moved to this year which I was ok with. Having had some of them cancelled for the second time I've had enough

Oh I can relate to this post.
I can understand people being cautious but some of my friends (late 20s, WFH, parents fully vacinated) are now talking about meeting up in 2022. They said even after being fully vaccinated they aren't even sure about meeting up for a walk. I'm concerned about their mental health. And sometimes I feel like they are being tone deaf, as I've continued going to work throughout and being CV. It's difficult to not say anything.

I agree about the flattening against walls OP - usually by people who've definitely had at least one vaccine and almost certainly two. And I don't think (sadly) that I look under 40, so it's pretty obvious I've had the vaccine too. How are two people going to catch it from passing each other outside, especially when vaccinated. I know anxiety makes people irrational, but it also irrationally offends me that everyone thinks I have the covid plague!