Just can't take any more of this new normal

[JuneMoonstone]

I'm feeling incredibly low and depressed. I am just so, so utterly fed up of Covid. I can't be bothered to go anywhere, do anything, make plans. I've been waiting months for my 5 year old to start swimming lessons and they kept getting put off due to covid. I found out that she can start lessons next month but once she turns 6 she'll no longer be eligible so she'll only get a couple of lessons, so there's no point in her starting. Before anyone has a go at me, I completely understand there are many people far worse off than me and I am very grateful that I have not suffered from covid or lost anyone due to covid. I just feel so so despondent and depressed about the future. Everything is a chore now, there is zero fun to be had. The variants will keep coming, the threat of future lockdowns continue to loom for God knows how long, maybe forever. We're told that Covid will never go away and the old normal will never return. If I didn't have a child I think I would end it. Life has just become very small, dull, joyless, wearisome.

I wonder if the reason everyone is feeling down, well, at least for me, is related to this...

When this first started I believed it would be temporary - that things would be terrible for 6 months - one year and then go back to normal. But it's started to dawn on people that we may never get back what we had before.

Shy - I meant in terms of what people are missing. I cannot walk without pain. I haven't been on holiday since 2013. All of my dreams have gone - everything I wanted to do. All sports, pretty much. Any travel plans. Wanting to go around the city centre with a friend. I can barely get down the stairs where I live (no lift) and this is my home and I don't want to leave. So, in general (I don't mean relating to this thread) when I hear people talking about not being able to have a holiday for this year, or missing things, I understand it - because I think of how my life has turned upside down and what I miss. I miss going around shops. It is like stepping on glass with my left foot and I used to be an athlete. I can cope with giving up sport but I would give anything to have a normal day-to-day life back, to be able to do things, be outside, instead of being stuck in four walls, in my own personal lockdown since 2008.

I’m sorry, the last 14 months have been really hard, and it is so difficult that every time things seem a little more hopeful everything seems to go backwards again. And children have missed out on so many things.

On the swimming, are there any alternative lessons you could do instead? Or start and see how she gets on? It seems unusual to limit by age, and surely they should allow some flexibility given how much time children haven’t been able to swim for.

I am fucking done I am so angry with this shit ! I have been double vaxed and do you know what I have protected other people for 15 months but now I need to protect myself from falling into a whole !!! I literally cannot see life is with living at the moment

Sure I will be called selfish now !

@Loubellbell

I am fucking done I am so angry with this shit ! I have been double vaxed and do you know what I have protected other people for 15 months but now I need to protect myself from falling into a whole !!! I literally cannot see life is with living at the moment

Sure I will be called selfish now !

You won't be called selfish. You will just have your feelings minimised and told to stop feeling sorry for yourself. And possibly somebody might mention World War II

@bluebellscorner

I feel like I am living in airport security since March 2020. This was always my least favourite bit of travel - queuing, being barked at by the airport security staff about where to stand and what to do - but this is part of everyday life now. We queue to pretty much everything and get told what to do all the time. Apply hand gel, wear your mask, stand on the dot on the floor, follow the arrows, don't touch anything, shop alone, the list goes on. Depressing

Omg yes

@savethegrannies I know waiting for it ...

Thank you all for your replies. Im glad I'm not alone in feeling this way, whilst at the same time I don't want anyone to feel the way I do. One poster described this new way of life as being constantly in airport security and that's a good analogy. My main purpose in life nowadays is to stay safe, prevent the spread of covid and protect the NHS. The only thing I vaguely look forward to these days is going to bed at night.

@JuneMoonstone

Thank you all for your replies. Im glad I'm not alone in feeling this way, whilst at the same time I don't want anyone to feel the way I do. One poster described this new way of life as being constantly in airport security and that's a good analogy. My main purpose in life nowadays is to stay safe, prevent the spread of covid and protect the NHS. The only thing I vaguely look forward to these days is going to bed at night.

Agree with all of that. The airport security analogy is very good. That feeling that you've done something wrong even though you're pretty sure you haven't.

I too find myself looking forward to going to bed at night, or maybe a few hours of Netflix before then. It's one day less of this crap. Though seen differently, it's one more wasted day of my life that I will never get back.

And it's been a year.

I'm going to see my mum this week for the first time since Feb 2020 and bloody hell it's like a military operation. She's in a care home 300 miles away, so I've booked transport and accommodation. But instead of hanging out together for the weekend we get 30 minutes in an outdoor pod. Then we can take her out, hopefully for lunch - but not indoors (care home regs). Limited choices locally for outdoor eating, so probably a picnic in the park, despite the forecast being 10C and heavy rain all day (never mind covid, the weather will probably kill her). And I'm fully expecting not being allowed inside the home to use the loo!

I feel the same. All the restrictions kind of usurp the joy of any activity you try. I know the masks are not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but I have always suffered with mild anxiety, often triggered by sensory things like busy crowds and small spaces, etc. It’s now at a moderate level if I’m inside and wearing a mask. I tried to have a look around the shops but I had to leave and stand in the rain because I started having a panic attack (somewhat caused by the heat around my face and not being able to see properly). I’m not even sure if anxiety would make you exempt, even if it did I wouldn’t feel comfortable having to explain this to every security guard, shop assistant and Covid Marshall that spots me without a mask.

Maybe I didn't explain things very well. I suppose I just meant to say I understand how you're feeling and how it wears you down. And how things may feel copeable at first and then over time it becomes less and less so. I don't have any good advice for you. But I did want to say I do understand.

I think a lot of people may be feeling like this, like you say. A lot of the things we used to look forward to have gone. If that is how you feel I get it. Sorry.

Airport security analogy is excellent.

I nearly lost it the other day over ketchup in tiny packets with a fairly high-end meal. It's ridiculous, I know it is. I was lucky to have that meal. But honestly, fiddling around with that tiny packet getting fingers covered in sauce, spraying it across the plate. Ffs! Give me a FUCKING BOTTLE!

I think I'm on the verge of tearing my mask off in the supermarket along with all my clothes and screaming

I know some people are fine with it, and seem ok with each series of restrictions rolling in, esp a few on here, but honestly I find it awful.

I can only hope we get to move on

@ComtesseDeSpair

This has been a strange eighteen months, but in a few years’ time we’ll just look back on it as a blip in our lives. It isn’t going to last forever, we’ll learn to live with whatever variants arise just as we live with different variants of ‘flu – some of which cause tens of thousands of deaths in a bad year. With the best will in the world, life is not over because a five-year-old’s swimming lessons have had to be delayed.

You can worry yourself into a depression; or you can just make the best of things, knowing that it really will be over soon. Whichever route you choose has no effect on what actually happens, so the worrying is pointless.

I fucking hope so. There is another thread with people getting excited about tracking their local numbers of the India variant !

@bearandowl

I totally get it OP. These lockdown measures are ridiculously over the top. Covid is a minor infection for most - it is definitely not in the same league as the plague or Ebola

And yet I keep reading posts from people saying 'I'm under 30 and not had my vaccination yet so I am uncomfortable with the roadmap' why?!?! You've more at risk from a bee sting

To add I think if I thought it were a blip it would be OK to live with. I don't think that though. I think the Government, for whatever reason, is now enjoying this power so actually life will not return to what it was before. I feel so sad for my kids. What a shitty life. I hope I am wrong on this..but that's how I feel today.

I really don’t think they are if that’s any comfort Louloujh

They want us out of this faster than possible right now. It’s costing a fortune.

I don’t worry so much about Covid more the reactions we have to take to it. It’s gone on so long

@ShyButMiffed: SPOT ON!!!!!

@MarshaBradyo: I hope you are right. It is costing huge amounts of money. But the Government is happily wasting on senseless things whilst things that need money throwing at it-cancer testing for example-are simply neglected. It does not make sense to me.

I have not worried once about Covid itself. But everything else. Yes. Really worried all the time. And getting worse as the end is certainly not in any sight.

Sorry OP-this has probably not helped! But you are not alone.

I actually fear i've become numb to it and will stay shut away from everything.

We are not being allowed to behave like human beings - everything is still so weird.

@selfieelf

I feel the same. Yeah things are opening again but the masks, the QR codes, ordering and paying on your phone, the look of fear on everyone's faces, treating all humans as potential germ carriers as opposed to people. One way systems, queuing, booking weeks in advance...

Feels like life ended in March 2020.

So relieved I'm not the only one to feel like this. I hate it.

I'm not sure I agree with the narrative that "it's harder for children". For teenagers maybe but for young children? There is a weird obsession these days with the importance of peer contact and a million activities for pre-school aged children but actually research clearly shows that what most pre-schoolers need is dedicated 1:1 time with an attached caregiver (usually a parent).

Obviously it is hugely nuanced and clearly a 5 year old living in a high rise flat with a single parent who has had to work from home full time while their school has been shut is definitely going to have had a shit time (along with many other children in different situations), but I don't think the average MN 5 year old fits into that mould.

I don't want to say this because I know I'll get jumped on, but my own 5 year old thrived so much during school closures that we withdrew him and have continued to home educate. He now gets to play with much smaller groups of other home educated children which suits him so much better than a large classroom. Prior to the pandemic DH was out of the house from 7am until 7pm - now he gets Daddy between 7 and 9, again at lunchtime and then again at 5.30.

When people say their 4/5 year olds are tearful and worried, I honestly question why that is because why on earth would a child of that age know to be worried? They will be picking it up from you. Young children accept the reality of the world they're presented with.

I know all children are different and some are a lot more extroverted than others, and believe me I've missed my extended family and museum trips and meals out as much as anyone else, but I don't think it is the case that children have automatically had it worse than adults. I tell you the group I've most felt for - pregnant women and new mothers.

Back when the roadmap was first discussed I sort of envisaged the 21st june to be a huge party with people tearing up the "stand here" spots on the floors, huge facemask bonfires, street parties.

Now it feels like we'll limp across that date, if we even do, with little reason to celebrate and half the population still hell bent on remaining in this weird state were in and some of us not even sure if we can remember how to function

I think we all do. But that isn't going to make the problem go away. All we can do is sit tight, follow the rulest until it's safe to do something else.

At least we're not in an actual war zone. I daresay people there get even more depressed.