Does anyone else find it difficult to look back?

[MyBadHabitsLeadToYou]

I can’t sleep. Down a Facebook wormhole and come across lots of posts from March 2020 on the nursery Facebook page. They put the info up there about the closure and the page was used as a little way for the staff to see what the kids were up to. Parents uploaded photos and videos and comments etc. There is a wee video montage thing from all the staff holding up rainbows etc.

It makes me want to sob, looking back at it.

It’s funny. I’m not a crier. I am a generally pragmatic, practical person. March 2020 onwards - that first lockdown - was however a horrific time for us. Trying to work from home all of a sudden in stressful, full on jobs with 2 and 4 year old at home. My mental health still hasn’t recovered.

I kept a video diary of that first lockdown with the kids and all the stuff we did. Thought it would be interesting for them to look back on it one day (I just felt at the time I needed to document it) but I can’t watch it back now. It makes me feel..sad? Anxious? I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Can anyone relate to this at all?

I just remembered how all the play parks were locked up and forbidden as well

I remember during the lockdown I went for my daily walk and my shoelaces were undone. I carried on walking anyway because I feared getting a police caution (or shouted at) for stopping. Sounds absurd now, but that was how I thought, as you weren't allowed to stop.

The day before the police had turned up at the local park and dispersed everyone in there (a handful of dog walkers including my Mum).

I find looking back excruciating. I'm a key worker - children's sw. It's been hell. But the very worst days were the first school closure. I sobbed in the playground. Half the kids didn't go that day anyway. My kids had that one day of school in January this year. They both bounced out of school yapping about exciting theme work and so on. I knew 90 minutes later the closure would be announced.
The whole thing has been really fucking traumatic.

Oh God, remember the taped up park benches? Not to mention the tied up swings in the playground.

Insane!!!

@Jourdain11

Oh God, remember the taped up park benches? Not to mention the tied up swings in the playground.

Insane!!!

This was such a sad sight. Never in history before.

Mumsnet completely changed as well didn't it!
People were at each other constantly.

I remember a thread about whether children would be allowed to travel between homes if parents were separated etc and people were saying 'IT SAYS NO NON ESSENTIAL TRAVEL!!' This was before any particular guidance had come out, people were so quick to jump at each other. It was really disappointing when we could have been supporting each other.
After a while I managed to find support here though and on the whole I've found it helpful.

@RubyFowler

Mumsnet completely changed as well didn't it! People were at each other constantly.

I remember a thread about whether children would be allowed to travel between homes if parents were separated etc and people were saying 'IT SAYS NO NON ESSENTIAL TRAVEL!!' This was before any particular guidance had come out, people were so quick to jump at each other. It was really disappointing when we could have been supporting each other.
After a while I managed to find support here though and on the whole I've found it helpful.

People lost their humanity entirely. It was like nothing else mattered.

Interesting to have found this thread. I do feel traumatised. It helps to acknowledge it. I do feel I lost my baby's babyhood in it. I didn't have the worst of times compared to many, but the whole situation has been deeply traumatic for many people I think and on a societal scale too.

Yep. We were talking about a series we watched together during lockdown and discussing when it will be starting again. My heart honestly started to race thinking about watching it again because it reminds me so much of that time.

Yes absolutely, when I think of the first lockdown I feel absolutely sick. I am so glad that it's behind us. I was lucky enough not to be affected by serious illness (in terms of me, family or friends) but it was a dark and awful time to get through nevertheless. I have since left my husband of 20 years and we are living in a different town and in a different school so the second lockdown was hard as a single parent, those cold dark months too.

And yes to the music! Blinding Lights particularly. Takes me right back. I can't look at tie dye either as the kids and I bought a tie dye kit early on and it just brings it all back to me!

You're all so right. It's been such a bizarre time to look back on. It's interesting to see the perspectives we've come out with for me, I was lucky to be able to work from home but nature of my job and industry meant 12 hour days were required, it was brutal, meanwhile being sent platitudes from hr on how they were looking after our mental health. I've learned:

1. I need to look for a new job with a life/work balance not a work/life balance. I wasn't the best mother dealing with stress. I don't want my children to see that as normal.
2. No one but you is responsible for looking after yourself
3. I'm not commuting 5 days a week, clearly I can perform at a high level from home at least part the week
4. Breakfast with my children and picking them up from school is not a privilege- it flipping normal, what the hell was I thinking before this.

So it's been a truly crap 18 months but I've learned some life lessons. I feel lucky that whilst we got Covid, we got off lightly. It's been so hard for so many.

People lost their humanity entirely. It was like nothing else mattered.

Does anyone else remember the poster who made her 8 year old isolate by themselves in their room for 10 days, including their birthday?

Crazy times

@TheKeatingFive

People lost their humanity entirely. It was like nothing else mattered.

Does anyone else remember the poster who made her 8 year old isolate by themselves in their room for 10 days, including their birthday?

Crazy times

The sad thing about that (well the whole thing is sad obviously!) Is that person must have been genuinely terrified that the child was going to pass this killer virus on to them that would sweep through the family, potentially killing vulnerable people, perhaps an elderly relative. If that was early days, they would have been isolating because of symptoms before we could get tested. So she probably didn't even have it. It became for some people, all about the virus. And I'm sure there were people on here agreeing with them. So, so awful.

The second lockdown was horrific because my DH was back to work and it was the height of winter. I was at home all day with a toddler and trying to homeschool a 5 year old (whilst trying to wfh too). It was just soul destroying. I remember one day we had to get out the house at all costs and went for a walk in the pissing rain. It got so bad we had to shelter in an empty bus stop with nowhere to go. I couldn't see an end to it.

That feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop I.e. the unshakeable feeling that everything might be taken away again is a trauma response.

@User135644

I just remembered how all the play parks were locked up and forbidden as well

I remember during the lockdown I went for my daily walk and my shoelaces were undone. I carried on walking anyway because I feared getting a police caution (or shouted at) for stopping. Sounds absurd now, but that was how I thought, as you weren't allowed to stop.

The day before the police had turned up at the local park and dispersed everyone in there (a handful of dog walkers including my Mum).

Yes, I remember the many police cars waiting outside the local park stopping people who looked like they weren't from the same household walking together.

All their lives you tell your children that the police are the good guys, the ones who catch the bad guys, the ones they should go to if they are ever in trouble.

When DC asked why the police were at the park I was taken with the thought that the children meeting and playing with their friends were the 'bad guys' they were trying to catch How do you try to make sense of that or justify it to a child?

[quote Wingingthis]@Justanotherquestioner I feel the same, except I have a 1 yo & nearly 4 yo (born in first lockdown & 2.5 in first lockdown)

It absolutely broke me having a newborn and 2 yo in lockdown with no support. I was wishing time away for it all to be over which breaks my heart as it was my youngest baby year which I absolutely adored when my first was born. 😔😔[/quote]
I’m the same. I had very bad PND with my second born at the start of the first lockdown and had a toddler at home. I barely remember a thing about DS first year of life I think my brain has shoved it away somewhere. I have lots of photos to remind me but I don’t remember it if that makes sense. It makes me so sad for both of them how unhappy I was. All of my effort and energy was put into keeping things normal. How different things were meant to be when we excitedly got our BFP that second time.

I think perhaps this is why I’m dreading this winter: the memories of the last one and the fear it might be the same.

Yes, I remember the many police cars waiting outside the local park stopping people who looked like they weren't from the same household walking together. All their lives you tell your children that the police are the good guys, the ones who catch the bad guys, the ones they should go to if they are ever in trouble.

Yet when the police have been needed to act, they don't. I really lost faith in the police last year. I realised how much they just love an easy target.

@KhoshkaKatya

That feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop I.e. the unshakeable feeling that everything might be taken away again is a trauma response.

Interesting - though we're now feeling it.

A week into college and DD1 has had to have a pcr test and await results to go back on campus and then 8 days another one to be sure.

I didn't think we had a lot planned but any postive result will have inconvenient impacts - on us being able to get to flu vaccines appointments get up to check on older relative just out of hosiptal with seemingly little support having been put in place - and she's upset that she can't be in lessons today.

Rest of the household are on three different large educations sites with 1000+ people - last year all three of the kids had at least 3 isloations due to postive year testson top of lockdown and firebreaks and DH was WFH full - we're as vaccinated as allowed - DH and I twice DD1 once but it does feel we are at the mercy of circumstances out side our control this winter.

I had my first baby a few weeks before we went into lockdown. It makes me so sad that when I think back to her first months of life I just feel bleak. I think I must have cried every day of that first lockdown.

Thanks for this thread OP, it made me feel much less alone. I really identified with so many posts, particularly not concretely remember parts and anxiety about/not trusting the future.

@backoffice

I think perhaps this is why I’m dreading this winter: the memories of the last one and the fear it might be the same.

Same. I normally really like autumn/early winter, but this year I'm feeling quite panicky about it already. I don't think we will have another lockdown, but if it is needed it's just too depressing to think about. Another three months of the same park, mud, snow and ice. And fucking snowsuits. Urrrrgh.

This thread is the reality of lockdown and restrictions for millions of women, and I dare say men. It's not being at home enjoying a slower pace of life with their little famalam, baking and crafting.

It's stressful, anxiety inducing, boring, depressing, poverty laden, trauma-inducing and lonely. So bloody lonely. So bloody depressing.

Those calling for further lockdowns lack empathy and soul.

It will take millions of us a long time to recover I think, and that's even if this Sword of Damocles stops hanging over us quite so much.

“ Those calling for further lockdowns lack empathy and soul.”

I actually would go further and say that for a proportion there is a certain satisfaction in us feeling this way. Like we (perceived as “smug mums” or whatever) are finally getting our comeuppance. They delight in our anxiety and our feelings of precariousness

I remember late March and April 2020 vividly but tbh the rest is a blur. I think I just got used to it. Dismal.

I think there are people secretly hoping that there’ll be restrictions in December 2021 so they don’t have to visit Aunt Peggy on Christmas Day or entertain 20 people on Boxing Day. Why can’t these people learn to be more robust and assertive?

@SMBH

“ Those calling for further lockdowns lack empathy and soul.”

I actually would go further and say that for a proportion there is a certain satisfaction in us feeling this way. Like we (perceived as “smug mums” or whatever) are finally getting our comeuppance. They delight in our anxiety and our feelings of precariousness

Or smug lone dwellers, finally getting some comeuppance for disdaining relationships and procreation .

Either way they are pretty unpleasant and I don't want to know any of them.