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.

@VikingOnTheFridge

It's interesting that a greater number of anti lockdown voices in this forum over the past couple of months has led to accusations of bad faith, flying monkeys and the like from some quarters. I got the impression those accusations were made in the genuine belief they were true rather than just to be argumentative. That in itself is quite telling, as a response to increased levels of disagreement.

There are some people on here who simply can’t believe that anyone might disagree with them in good faith. Therefore anyone worried about anything other than dying of covid must be a government shill. I have been accused of this despite having been on MN since 2014.

@HesterShaw1

When I think if those early days and the amount of venom and abuse those daring to say "Hang on a minute...." received here on MN, I still can't believe it. And yet according to certain posters, nope, it never happened.

The AD threads were my safe haven away from the bullying and abuse. I clung onto them quite hard.

Coz Covid means even more than ever that myself and my immediate family comes first, because very, very few other people will give a shit. How can I care about strangers when my loved ones are out of reach? How can I care about communities when they're shut off, broken up and masked? I'm not the selfish one asking other people to sacrifice their way of life for me. I just want to live a real normal with human contact

Absolutely couldn't have worded this better. Many of us were trolled and vilified for stating that there were worse things than covid and we needed to make sure we didnt lose sight of this. But we were called selfish and granny killers.

@MarshaBradyo

Good post Bogroll

I’m glad this is a thread people can (finally) voice it without the usual derision, ridicule and hounding.

This site has been hugely skewed away from balance by some. Really poor.

A lot of people simply walked away from MN for much of 2020 because they weren't permitted to articulate anything non-Covid according to the script.

I stayed and fought back because other than rounds of doing battle over home learning and going for long walks, there was fuck-all else to do in life. Oh, there was cook dinner too. Constant feeding the family.

It's been such a relief to see the boards gradually fill up with the rest of life and more balance to discussions.

Yeh I kept going too as luckily it doesn’t resonate and I’m hardy wrt online stuff. Although I did avoid certain threads in the end. I was amazed they could carry on like that.

The shill thing seems to be the latest which is desperation I suppose.

And someone trolling from NZ I just remembered - a bit like those people who send abusive DMs on Instagram and other SM

That was weird tbh

Thanks Bog you always express so eloquently the harms being done. Thank you.

My DC are older than yours but I recognise so much of what you say. The disregard of children's needs with them reframed as frivolous wants/extras has been horrific and shameful. I'm sure that's true for lots of groups too but the effects of my own children and those I work with are the ones I see most

I'm a mum to preschool twins and these restrictions have made my life hell. For two years, women and children are bottom of the list. It is the opposite of war. In war, we face the enemy. We carry on regardless. Everyone has cowardly turned their backs on each other. Everyone is scared of covid. It is the least of our worries with these restrictions.

I can't get over the government making it illegal for people who live alone to go near another human for almost three months. People just say "oh but by bubbles..." without remembering it was 11 weeks before they were introduced. New Zealand had them from the start; it's not like we didn't have a precedent to follow. They just didn't give a shit. People who didn't go through that have no idea how damaging it was. I was close to the kids of a single parent friend (no aunties/uncles either so I filled that role) and the relationship was severed overnight. I used to have nightmares about terrible things happening to them and not being able to reach them to save them.

A few weeks ago I attended a yoga/mindfulness type "healing" session, and it unlocked a lot... Woke screaming in the night, having had nightmares about the separation and loss of the first lockdown. Still working through it all. It's so good to find this thread and know I'm not the only one.

I feel so utterly disillusioned by the political left, including many people I know, for not screaming from the rooftops about the unfairness and cruelty of this rule in particular, but others too. The opposition should have been scrutinising the rules, not endorsing them more heavily that the ruling party!

Also, I know it's irrational thinking but it does irritate me, having had some really significant problems and bad luck in life... that something finally happens where I'm lucky, ie. robust physical health, unlikely to be seriously affected by covid - yet I STILL have to fucking lose so much and suffer, for other people! Why do I have to get the shitty end of their burden when they don't give a flying fuck about mine? (

I keep saying this, but @BlueSeaGlass I empathise with every word.

If I'd followed the rules to the letter I wouldn't have had physical contact with another soul for 11 weeks. By the end of April my friend and I were meeting in a field for illicit hugs and picnics like two people having an affair. She'd sympathise as I sobbed, and she'd cry because she could barely ever get away from her kids and husband.

But contact with others was deemed frivolous and unnecessary because there was a GLOBAL PANDEMIC and we should be grateful we didn't have Covid (the massive irony being there was hardly any Covid in this area during the first wave)

@BlueSeaGlass that really resonates with me. My dad died when I was only 2 and my DM was a widow in her early 30s. Other than close friends and eventually, my lovely step dad, no-one has ever given a shit about us. I was at school in the 80s and literally nothing, no support, nothing. I didn't know my paternal grandparents and lost mum's parents by the time I was 10. Never knew my grandad properly as he had early onset dementia. Every covid death is a tragedy though and as long as we stay 'safe' nothing else matters.

We lost both my MIL and FIL during 2020. FIL wasn't allowed to go to his wife of 53 years funeral as he wouldn't have been able to go back to the care home he was in (MIL had been his carer til she got to poorly) He had to watch on a ipad! We're sure he died of a broken heart. He just gave up.

@BlueSeaGlass yes exactly this. We've been through a lot as a family too and no one gave a shit.

We lost both my MIL and FIL during 2020. FIL wasn't allowed to go to his wife of 53 years funeral as he wouldn't have been able to go back to the care home he was in (MIL had been his carer til she got to poorly) He had to watch on a ipad! We're sure he died of a broken heart. He just gave up.

That may be the saddest thing I’ve read on any of these threads. I’m so very sorry.

@bookworm14 so sorry.

[quote MrsDeaconClaybourne]@BlueSeaGlass that really resonates with me. My dad died when I was only 2 and my DM was a widow in her early 30s. Other than close friends and eventually, my lovely step dad, no-one has ever given a shit about us. I was at school in the 80s and literally nothing, no support, nothing. I didn't know my paternal grandparents and lost mum's parents by the time I was 10. Never knew my grandad properly as he had early onset dementia. Every covid death is a tragedy though and as long as we stay 'safe' nothing else matters.

We lost both my MIL and FIL during 2020. FIL wasn't allowed to go to his wife of 53 years funeral as he wouldn't have been able to go back to the care home he was in (MIL had been his carer til she got to poorly) He had to watch on a ipad! We're sure he died of a broken heart. He just gave up. [/quote]
This is devastating. So sorry.

I feel so utterly disillusioned by the political left, including many people I know, for not screaming from the rooftops about the unfairness and cruelty of this rule in particular, but others too. The opposition should have been scrutinising the rules, not endorsing them more heavily that the ruling party!

Totally agree with this. I've found it extraordinary the way the political left just abandoned all thought or responsibility for those most impacted by the measures. Like nothing was of any consequence at all except covid.

I think we'll look back in absolute horror at how funerals were handled during the first covid wave in particular

We trampled on each other to avoid the virus.

@TheKeatingFive

I feel so utterly disillusioned by the political left, including many people I know, for not screaming from the rooftops about the unfairness and cruelty of this rule in particular, but others too. The opposition should have been scrutinising the rules, not endorsing them more heavily that the ruling party!

Totally agree with this. I've found it extraordinary the way the political left just abandoned all thought or responsibility for those most impacted by the measures. Like nothing was of any consequence at all except covid.

There's been rather a void when it comes to articulating the left wing case against various of the restrictions. School closures in particular. The left should be kicking the shit out of the Tories for the way kids who didn't have parents who could support homeschooling have been shat on.

[quote sharkyandme]@BlueSeaGlass yes exactly this. We've been through a lot as a family too and no one gave a shit. [/quote]
I think that's what I find so utterly alienating.

That no one gave a single shit about me and people like me, yet I was expected to endlessly put the needs of people I didn't know above my own. To the extent that I had to close my life down and exist in a vacuum. And if I expressed disquiet about that I was being SELFISH.

I'm speaking for myself of course. Everyone has their own stories.

It goes back to the phenomenon of some people having been encouraged to think their selfishness is more moral than other people's. That sums up a lot of the last 20 months.

Your responses have made me cry. Thank you. I agree so much with the OP that these stories need to be heard. There is no recognition of the non-covid damage done to people.

Viking absolutely agree about the Left and schools. The postion taken by the union I'm in has been shocking in its disregard for children over the perceived 'safety' of its members. I'd leave but the others are as bad and I need to be part of one for insurance. I've been completely disillusioned by many on the left and their calling for more restrictions with no acknowledgement of the harms for ordinary people.

@TheKeatingFive

I think we'll look back in absolute horror at how funerals were handled during the first covid wave in particular

Yes I agree. Funerals and also the restrictions on the maternity and Labour wards, and subsequent lack of support for new mothers, and the callous way women were treated who were having miscarriages. And old people dying and saying goodbye to their loved ones from an iPad . I still have waves of horror when I think about these things. Utterly inhumane

Reading all the replies to my comment, and more. Sending so much empathy to you all. I'm so glad this thread was started.

VikingOnTheFridge
There's been rather a void when it comes to articulating the left wing case against various of the restrictions. School closures in particular. The left should be kicking the shit out of the Tories for the way kids who didn't have parents who could support homeschooling have been shat on.

What I find so bizarre about it is that the Tories are in power. If it was Labour overseeing all this I could sort of understand why these people might go along with it. But the "evil party" (in their view - not to alienate any Tory voters who need this thread as much as anyone) made inhumane laws and they lapped them up! I just cannot fathom why. The only slight disquiet was around school meals being provided for kids out of school, as far as I can see.

Perhaps this needs a separate thread, actually.

And the MPs who spoke up most forcibly in favour of people's overall well-being and mental health and livelihood were the likes of Charles Walker and Theresa May

Truly it's a mad world.