Someone somewhere needs to articulate the lost quality of life

[Gguin]

Firstly, I am not saying I think there shouldn't be restrictions as needed, masks, reduced social contact. I do. Just to reemphasise that, to prevent people misreading the title, I support and abide and have abided by restrictions, both statutory and advised.
I also hated every single second of the lockdown. I hated what it did to friends. I hated the disregard of single people. I hated the criminalisation of social lives. I hated the lost opportunities for young and not so young people to build or change their lives. I hated the paranoia and judgmentalism. I hated the NHS worship and everyone else can go hang.
And yes I hate this feeling, somewhere between anxiety, depression and a grinding underlying fear of future regret on all that has been lost. I drove past a pub in rural Ireland where I live today and it was shut, boarded up and probably will never reopen. The sign "craic agus ceoil" (laughter and music) was worn and frayed, like a relic of the times when we were able to enjoy themselves with abandon.
All I would like as the latest chapter of shit unfolds is for someone, somewhere to actually articulate the sadness of all the lost opportunities. The friends that have never been made, the months and years spent indoors, the catastrophic toll on mental health and above all this awful feeling that the many of the very things that make life worth living are so expendable and in some quarters, not even mourned.

What I’ve hated the most is the way people seem to have become “unfriendly” - loudly judging others, horrible Facebook posts, calling the police on their own neighbours etc.

It makes me distrust people after seeing that they can turn nasty so quickly. I think it happens because they feel powerless and it helps them to feel they have some form of control.

@iBrows

What I’ve hated the most is the way people seem to have become “unfriendly” - loudly judging others, horrible Facebook posts, calling the police on their own neighbours etc.

It makes me distrust people after seeing that they can turn nasty so quickly. I think it happens because they feel powerless and it helps them to feel they have some form of control.

I think this is interesting, and not my experience. My reality is that my area has got more friendly, and more community spirited, helping others out more etc including the local Facebook group.

@GoldenOmber

Well, pandemics, however they are managed, have big downsides, don't they?

That’s not the most helpful of contributions to this thread, really, is it?

If this thread isn’t of interest to you then perhaps move along and find another one. It is okay if people want to discuss feeling sad without caveating it with sixteen paragraphs about how but of course covid is bad and dying is bad and etc etc etc.

I thought my post was balanced and considered actually.

oh, and both more polite and more sensible than yours

Please. Just one thread to let people talk about being sad without others trying to boss them out of it, doing something that people have said over and over and over again is not helpful. Please.

We're abroad. No prospect of travelling back to UK to see family any time soon. My parents will have Christmas will my sister and her family and I don't think I can bear the thought of another Zoom Christmas looking through a digital window at the life with family we used to enjoy together.

I know things will not go back to BC times and change in all forms is inevitable, blah blah etc., but the crushing sense of being an expat with no realistic prospects of returning home any time soon has taken a hammer blow to any sense I had of looking forward to anything.

I look back at the times when Brexit was the biggest headache in our expat lives with a sort of twisted nostalgia.

Thank you for this thread, OP.

@iBrows

What I’ve hated the most is the way people seem to have become “unfriendly” - loudly judging others, horrible Facebook posts, calling the police on their own neighbours etc.

It makes me distrust people after seeing that they can turn nasty so quickly. I think it happens because they feel powerless and it helps them to feel they have some form of control.

Me too. I had someone on a local fb page threaten to look for me and "batter" me. This was because I'd said I did not agree with masks in schools and that my kids did not want to wear them. Other people found my then 14 yo son on Facebook and posted awful comments about him. Grown adults did this

As if that wasn't enough they also found my business page and made fake reviews on it and made posts that I was a dirty bitch. The business that almost collapsed in the first lockdown and that I needed desperately in order to pay my mortgage and feed my 3 kids

All because I have a different opinion on masks to them. I never said I didn't wear them or wouldn't / couldnt - was just because I didn't agree with them

It's honestly made me distrustful and fearful of humans

Golden hang in there

One thing I like about this thread is no fear badgering with numbers. All else must be left off the table and not discussed bar increasing cases etc

There’s other things that are crucial to society and it helps to speak about it.

@Gguin

I've been really moved by some of the stories on here. What's wrong with feeling the hurt and the pain and the suffering, with grieving, so that in some way a value can be given to socialising, so that it can be seen as something to aspire to, the thing that you look forward to.

And I think it's worth saying that there needs to be a counter narrative too. There is a person living in the next village I live in who is the living incarnation of the "Smiling Jailer" mentality that has spring up. 60ish, financially secure and a former health care worker, they monitor and regularly post on a local website which at the height of restrictions brutalised mental health with paranoia, sanctimoniousness and judgementalism. Never has their self perceived status been higher, and never will it be. It is like they are drunk on the status and control.

You see, for me, the first step in rebuilding a future which is better than the present and maybe even than the past is to look at the things that aren't working, or used to but don't, & think how you want them to be.

I've never been a big festival goer but I have been dreaming about the first proper Glastonbury. One where in whatever form people can really really let themselves go, can really really live. Meet new people, discover new bands, fall in love, create memories.

As for this constant mentioning of "well don't expect things to go back to the way they were, anytime soon, if ever" said in the nagging tone of a parent reminding their child of impending exams, well I don't.
Because when I read the stories here, the stories of isolation, of heartbreak, that awful story about the young woman with Long Covid stuck ill at home, the fact that they may not get the beautiful future they deserve doesn't stop me wanting it, or planning it, or refusing to accept things I would have done before. Like people who take pleasure in deflating other people's bubbles, people who think that because there was a war that ended 76 years ago nobody ever again has the right to mourn for anything or to want anything to be different.

Because I do want things to be different. Radically different. And believe it or not listening to and vocalising these stories of loss is for me the first step in this process.

As for this whole "Glastonbury next year-you'll be lucky" (written with a self-righteous smirk) mentality, the truth is nobody knows what will actually happen. Maybe this latest wave recedes or new drugs appear. Maybe it is crap for a while and then the seesaw breaks and electorates pressurise governments to change approach. Maybe it doesn't change, maybe it gets worse. But I won't ever let the the vacuum of uncertainty be filled with the twin poisons of denial and dread.

I went to a pub last night for the last pee curfew music session. (Yes I went to a pub! And still I'm writing on here about loss and grief and suffering and wanting things to be better...so don't bother with the tirades) At the end the landlord played Fairytale of New York and it felt like an elegy but more than that it felt like a song for the future and how we want it to be. Happy Christmas your arse, I pray God its not our last

Here here!

hang on being unreasonable and rude?

hang on in there emotionally, fair enough, it hasn't been a great couple of years

What I'm saying is that conversations like this where everyone supports one another in a spiral of negative thinking is really damaging.

But that's not what is happening here. We're all just sharing our experiences and feelings. Many of us are finding it very helpful. I'm not sure what gave you the right to tell other people how they should feel and how they should handle their pain, especially when you breezily said that your life is pretty much as it was 2 years ago.

I didn't realise it was 'nasty' and 'smug' and 'toxic' to offer a different way of approaching the times we're living through. Sorry that I've come across as apparently being so offensive. I was just trying to give a different view.

I'm sure you meant well, but surely you can accept what I and others have said about how insisting on 'positivity' when many of us see very little to be positive about, can do more harm than good? If it works for you, great, but it's now widely acknowledged that berating people for not 'looking on the bright side' can be very damaging. It creates guilt on top of all the other stuff. As the saying goes, it's OK not to be OK.

I think nobody's attitude to the pandemic is objective. Everyone has an agenda, a personal experience that colours their stance.

So for somebody to NOT have found the pandemic almost impossible to deal with psychologically, and to actively choose to come onto a supportive thread for those who have, I would ask: what is going on in YOUR life, what are the dynamics at play in your experience, thatmake you feel so strongly about this, you feel the need to do that?

Well, I used to organise my team's Christmas party, I love Christmas. It's my wedding anniversary today (we had a massive Christmas party for our wedding).

We used to do a lot of carol singing around our village before Christmas, and took the children every year.

I used to take the kids to concerts, to plays, to the cinema, we would head off every weekend to a different food/art/ music festival/ fete/ fun day.

I miss all that, sure.

I think we'll be doing many of those things again, as well. Just not yet.

I have also been shielding for months at a time.

I also fought to allow relatives to see dying covid patients at the start of the pandemic and still hated telling them that they only had half an hour to say goodbye. Some things we will not have back again.

It's all part of the experience many of us share.

It isn't toxic to miss going to the pub, it is one part of the overall picture.

It is alright to say that there is an overall picture.

@herecomesthsun
I don't want to dismiss your experience but compared to some of the stories on here... That is seriously small change.

Based on what you have felt you have missed out on paired with the need you feel to come on here to downplay the quite traumatic experiences we have heard, I would say you are experiencing existential void and covid is serving as a calling for you.

It isn't a competition and people's experiences are all valid surely?

I'm not saying that looking after a covid ward outweighs feelings of loneliness, or people slagging your business off on Facebook or feeling profoundly sad that a pub has shut where people felt a sense of connection and joy.

There are a lot of different sorts of loss all mixed together and one sort of pain isn't better than another,

oh and come again about the existential void?

What's 'existential void' when it's at home?

It is something that alienbaby thinks I am experiencing. I don't know why.

Agree; we are reaching the point that life is more just existing than actually living
I feel especially sorry for young people today who may never know a normal life
I fear I won't see normality again in my lifetime, but at least I can look back and appreciate having lived it. Many won't get the opportunity to ever experience it

Beautifully put. Couldn't agree more.

So people need to start standing up to this bullshit without it it's going to get worse, I have a FIL who's dying from cancer at home and they are coming round to Jab him in the arm, what for? He's dying and what arrogance that he gets a jab that others may need, the worlds gone mad

Totally agree… NHS should be there to look after you and me. The underfunding over the last decade is showing as is the fact there is a huge hole in social care (get paid more to stack shelves). Until the government realises that healthcare is important and invests in its future then? Patients can’t be discharged from hospital because there is no care package available… this is tying up beds which means a&e can’t admit patients into wards which means paramedics can’t handover their patients which means ambulances can’t get to urgent calls!!!!
We are all being restricted because of lack of funding in our nhs!!!

I agree that it's been shit, so much sadness, children missing out on so much.
Did wince at your 'NHS worship' line, though. The clapping was silly & pointless - maybe a nice gesture to do it once. Doctors and other healthcare staff are facing more abuse than ever. They have been working longer hours in more difficult conditions. Then you get Johnson saying, 'Everyone can get their 3rd vaccine now!' on TV, leading to pharmacists working 14 hour days, with queues of irate people giving them abuse.
The NHS should be treasured & the workers don't need snide comments about being worshipped.
No, I don't work for the NHS.

He is of high risk.. health professionals can’t ignore that and it’s in his best interest to be vaccinated ASAP.

@LadyIckenham

Absolutely agree.

Can I add to your list the emphasis on children being 'resilient'. They really need the opportunity to be sad for the things they have lost.

It also bothers me how much I try to stop them looking forward to things in case they don't happen.

Someone really does need to articulate it.

This is it exactly - how much longer do our children carry on having to be 'resilient'. This is the second year they're facing having Christmas pulled away from them.

Yesterday was my DS's birthday; I've got covid so he opened his presents in the hall so I could watch him from the room I'm isolating in. We had to cancel everything else. I don't mind isolating, I don't want to pass it on, but it is just pants.

My other DS is terrified of catching covid from me as he doesn't want to miss out on Christmas, he is too scared to look forward to it. I feel like it is just a huge relief when we make it to something we would normally look forward to.

My husband works for the NHS but I've always hated the NHS worship - it was all meaningless and shallow. Now they are all being blamed for the collapse in the health-service whilst he is work literally all hours and still never gets all his work done.

And now the BBC are talking about the schools not reopening in the new year. It is like we are stuck in Groundhog Day.

I rant, I've been in isolation for too long. But tomorrow I miss my DS singing a big solo in a big concert. I'm just fed up with being resilient and have to keeping ploughing on because 'that is just life at the moment'. And I'm even more fed up with our children having to do this. (as I am writing this it includes a lot of swear words in my head but I've obviously omitted putting them in!)