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.

And I think the lack of a language to express it and the lack of much creative response does make it hard.

This, very much.

A PP did mention how they and many other creatives have been drowning and have not been in a position to talk about this, and I do get that.

But even those creative types who HAVE been in a position to create stuff don't often seem interested in talking about the loss.

I think it's linked to the fact that the creative arts tend to skew very hard left these days, for the most part, and most people on the left have tended to be really really pro lockdown and risk-averse about COVID.

I am sure this is not true of all creative types, and I'm hopeful that we will see some heartfelt novels, dramas and the like coming out of this---something that articulates the sadness and the anger.

MNHQ, agreeing with others but can we put this in Classics at some point?

This thread is both a real eye opener to what we have all experienced and not realised fully, how traumatic life has been. And, also warming to see so many people agreeing on not allowing themselves or others to suffer as we previously had.

I'll add mine:
Day before lock down, normal day with my 18 month old, swimming with friends then lunch.

Lock down

Ds development stunted, he was sat at a table entertaining himself as I was working from home, his speech was very delayed.

My lovely healthy 95 year old nan caught covid from an NHS appointment. She died, no singing or hardly any family at her funeral after so many years on our planet.

My dad got a cancer diagnosis, his treatment has been very delayed and mostly he attends appointments alone and forgets what they tell him. My mum in her 70s has become his carer.

My outgoing, adventurous parents have become shells and aged dramatically. My mum hasn't hugged anyone since this started. My son got use to waving to them through the window...we can see their house from ours.

My nephew, very intelligent and creative film teacher descended into a mental health crisis and was sectioned.

My husband was furlough...we are still in debt because of this.

I had our second baby, it was interesting. But, the care I received really was exceptional.

Because of all the above, I put my son into nursery and he is thriving. I am about to go back into work in Jan and I'm excited, not fearful.

I support the measures in place but I will not shut my family away like I did last time.

I hated “all you have to do is stay home” it underplayed the huge damage that caused.

The thing is though, despite everything we have been through, people STILL buy in to the narrative.

I just read a post on the testing daily thread that broke my heart, but not for the reasons you'd think.

PP lost her Mum to covid in 2020, devestating for her. But she then goes on to say she will continue testing so she doesnt end up killing my dad. And that is what upset me, that people still see catching as passing covid on as killing someone. And not something almost entirely out of control and a virus just doing what it does best.

Took me back to all the cried of ADs are selfish Granny killers. I'm not a killer FFS, pre pandemic i was a law abiding citizen who never killed anyone, now suddenly I'm a criminal because I hugged my Mum and saw my best friend and potentially a killer

I agree, OP. This picture that's painted of families exercising with Joe Wickes, clapping the NHS, baking banana bread.... is that what happened with romanticising the blitz spirit too?

Many were posting on social media "making memories" while we worked continuously, kids at home, our jobs being busier than ever, relentless. We were do lucky we didn't lose any close relatives or friends to this though.

Our lockdown - like so many - was not relaxing days in the garden, taking up new hobbies, they were very stressful. Our kids had 70 and 50 days respectively - of back to back isolations where they could not leave the house, it was really challenging. I look back with a shudder, not fondness. There was so much 'forced' community spirit too, which came to a head on VE Day. Hated it all.

@EnidSpyton

The inhumanity of it all is why I now feel that I can't see life as anything other than positive and joyful - things are so much better now than they were in 2020, when the world became such a truly frightening, callous place. My present attitude of apparent 'toxic positivity' isn't about denying or discounting how horrific it's all been - it's more about gratitude for no longer having to live like we did in 2020.

The government's attitude that nothing was more important than saving hospitals from getting overwhelmed, and the absolute fear and terror they encouraged through their policies, aided and abetted largely by the left wing media, was criminal.

I was a secondary school teacher during the pandemic. I taught for six months over zoom, six hours a day. It was awful. And it was awful seeing my gorgeous students, usually so full of cheek and laughter and life become reduced to shadows of themselves, with nothing I could do to help them.

I was so furious with my union's insistence that schools do NOTHING to provide online provision for students and their focus on protecting teachers over providing an education for students that I left and stopped paying my subs after a decade of loyalty. Their attitude was disgusting. Schools should never have been shut. There was no justification for it whatsoever and it has destroyed many young people's educational progress, social skills and mental health. For some of those children and young people, they will never recover or catch up.

The list of horrific policies is too long to list.

Expecting people who lived alone to not see another human being for three months.
Denying people the right to fresh air and exercise.
Denying people the right to see their friends and families.
Denying people the right to visit sick loved ones.
Denying people the right to marry.
Denying people the right to have a funeral.
Forcing people to die alone.
Forcing people to give birth alone.
Expecting people to home school children while working full time.
Padlocking playgrounds.
Prosecuting people for sitting down in the park.

So much more I can't list.

It was horrific and so unnecessary. And yet if you voiced any of this at the time, the vilification by self righteous, smug lockdown police meant you were silenced.

I was criticised numerous times for going to the supermarket more than once a week during the first lockdown. How could I be so SELFISH?! How could I put so many people AT RISK of DEATH?!?! All from people who had huge houses, huge cars, etc. I live in a tiny central London flat with 3 kitchen cupboards. It takes me 20 minutes to walk to the supermarket. I don't have a car. I live alone, and I wasn't allowed to meet anyone else. So I could only buy what I could physically carry, and what I could store in my flat. When the government said we could only go to the supermarket once per week, they didn't think about people like me with no car and no cupboards, because obviously no one in the government is like me.

Same with working from home. How many people have spare rooms? Computer desks and comfortable chairs? I've still got back pain from hunching over my laptop on the sofa for six months - I don't have a space for a desk in my flat, or a dining room table!

My only exercise for months was walking through the streets of a desolate central London. It took me half an hour to walk to any kind of green space, and when I got there, I wasn't even allowed to sit down and enjoy it.

I realised one day I hadn't been touched by anyone for three months.

I survived because I am incredibly resilient, and I knew it wouldn't last forever. But I can understand completely how the lockdowns pushed other people in my position into depression. I have never been so lonely in my life. And the government gave zero shits about people like me. They gave no thought to how it would be for people who live alone. No thought at all.

In the early days of the pandemic I genuinely thought this experience would serve to make people kinder, more gentle, more empathetic, more inclusive. I thought it would bring people together. But the saddest legacy for me has been to see the growing division and distrust. And that is also the government's fault, because they encouraged people to turn on one another rather than turn on them for their own colossal failures. We are not led by kind people. We are led by selfish people. And that selfishness has ultimately been what has dominated the discourse of the pandemic. This has fractured my faith in the essential goodness of human nature, and I can now understand how the Holocaust happened.

BUT if I focus on all that I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning. Hence my attitude that a life where I can do pretty much everything I used to do with only minimal hassle is a pretty good life, and I choose to be grateful for it. However, I fully understand how many people can't be, because we have all been horrifically traumatised by what we have been through. And for me, most of that trauma doesn't lie in what happened, it lies in the fact that we let it happen and so many people enjoyed the process of enforcing it. That still strikes fear into my heart.

This is spot on and has reflected exactly how I felt. Tears in my eyes reading this xx

To nominate for Classics, open the OP (opening post, Page 1 Post 1) and click the 3 little dots to "Report". Then type you think it's a candidate for Classics and why.

@EnidSpyton

The inhumanity of it all is why I now feel that I can't see life as anything other than positive and joyful - things are so much better now than they were in 2020, when the world became such a truly frightening, callous place. My present attitude of apparent 'toxic positivity' isn't about denying or discounting how horrific it's all been - it's more about gratitude for no longer having to live like we did in 2020.

The government's attitude that nothing was more important than saving hospitals from getting overwhelmed, and the absolute fear and terror they encouraged through their policies, aided and abetted largely by the left wing media, was criminal.

I was a secondary school teacher during the pandemic. I taught for six months over zoom, six hours a day. It was awful. And it was awful seeing my gorgeous students, usually so full of cheek and laughter and life become reduced to shadows of themselves, with nothing I could do to help them.

I was so furious with my union's insistence that schools do NOTHING to provide online provision for students and their focus on protecting teachers over providing an education for students that I left and stopped paying my subs after a decade of loyalty. Their attitude was disgusting. Schools should never have been shut. There was no justification for it whatsoever and it has destroyed many young people's educational progress, social skills and mental health. For some of those children and young people, they will never recover or catch up.

The list of horrific policies is too long to list.

Expecting people who lived alone to not see another human being for three months.
Denying people the right to fresh air and exercise.
Denying people the right to see their friends and families.
Denying people the right to visit sick loved ones.
Denying people the right to marry.
Denying people the right to have a funeral.
Forcing people to die alone.
Forcing people to give birth alone.
Expecting people to home school children while working full time.
Padlocking playgrounds.
Prosecuting people for sitting down in the park.

So much more I can't list.

It was horrific and so unnecessary. And yet if you voiced any of this at the time, the vilification by self righteous, smug lockdown police meant you were silenced.

I was criticised numerous times for going to the supermarket more than once a week during the first lockdown. How could I be so SELFISH?! How could I put so many people AT RISK of DEATH?!?! All from people who had huge houses, huge cars, etc. I live in a tiny central London flat with 3 kitchen cupboards. It takes me 20 minutes to walk to the supermarket. I don't have a car. I live alone, and I wasn't allowed to meet anyone else. So I could only buy what I could physically carry, and what I could store in my flat. When the government said we could only go to the supermarket once per week, they didn't think about people like me with no car and no cupboards, because obviously no one in the government is like me.

Same with working from home. How many people have spare rooms? Computer desks and comfortable chairs? I've still got back pain from hunching over my laptop on the sofa for six months - I don't have a space for a desk in my flat, or a dining room table!

My only exercise for months was walking through the streets of a desolate central London. It took me half an hour to walk to any kind of green space, and when I got there, I wasn't even allowed to sit down and enjoy it.

I realised one day I hadn't been touched by anyone for three months.

I survived because I am incredibly resilient, and I knew it wouldn't last forever. But I can understand completely how the lockdowns pushed other people in my position into depression. I have never been so lonely in my life. And the government gave zero shits about people like me. They gave no thought to how it would be for people who live alone. No thought at all.

In the early days of the pandemic I genuinely thought this experience would serve to make people kinder, more gentle, more empathetic, more inclusive. I thought it would bring people together. But the saddest legacy for me has been to see the growing division and distrust. And that is also the government's fault, because they encouraged people to turn on one another rather than turn on them for their own colossal failures. We are not led by kind people. We are led by selfish people. And that selfishness has ultimately been what has dominated the discourse of the pandemic. This has fractured my faith in the essential goodness of human nature, and I can now understand how the Holocaust happened.

BUT if I focus on all that I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning. Hence my attitude that a life where I can do pretty much everything I used to do with only minimal hassle is a pretty good life, and I choose to be grateful for it. However, I fully understand how many people can't be, because we have all been horrifically traumatised by what we have been through. And for me, most of that trauma doesn't lie in what happened, it lies in the fact that we let it happen and so many people enjoyed the process of enforcing it. That still strikes fear into my heart.

This.

I hope this thread makes it into classics.

I feel angry, sad, yet comforted that I am not alone or going insane in my experiences/feelings. Thank you, all.

I watched a really interesting Lucy Worseley documentary about how a lot of the Blitz Spirit stuff was made up or spun at the time for morale. It was on the BBC, not sure if it's still on iplayer. Really resonated with the narrative around lockdown.

for everyone sharing stories. I think the collective trauma will have an impact long after covid.

I’ve been very lucky during Covid. We live pretty rurally and have a good sized house. DH is self-employed, works outdoors and could avoid contact with clients, so has been able to continue to work throughout. We have a garden and thanks to the weather being idyllic in spring/summer 2020 we had ‘pub in the garden’ for a few friends when we were able to meet outdoors. I work part-time in a GPs surgery and continued to go into the office throughout the pandemic, which I think saved my sanity. We have no school-aged children. We have always realised how lucky we have been compared with so many others.

My parents are very elderly and no longer drive. For months I was the only person they saw regularly. Originally I would deliver their groceries and chat briefly in the garden. After they both had a couple of falls and it became clear they needed more help and we all agreed I’d go in the house again. I used to take my mum out for lunch weekly and my SD would go to his music groups. They have both aged so much more because of lack of outside stimulation. I’m also aware that if they get Covid, it will be me that has made them ill and although logically I know it wouldn’t be my fault, I’m not sure Step Dad’s family would agree. .

My oldest friend lives alone in a studio flat in London. She was furloughed so stuck at home alone, apart from her daily walk, for months. We tried to get her to ‘break the rules’ and come up to us, but she was frightened of being caught so stayed put.

I’ve lost three friends to cancer since this all started and I’m so angry that they all had to spend their last year of life unable to see their friends and family, or go on a longed for holiday. It was also incredibly hard on those family members who looked after them without any outside support.

As I said above, we don’t have school aged children, but we do have a 20 year old DD. When Covid hit, she was three weeks into a solo gap year trip that she’d planned and saved for for over a year. Of course, she had to come home. She then started Uni in the September - I probably don’t need to elaborate on that. She got a part-time job, which lasted for three weeks until they had to close. Her boyfriend lives abroad and they have somehow managed to keep going - travelling when allowed and on a couple of occasions spending the entire visit in isolation.

When things opened up she got another part-time job in a pub, which she’s enjoying. They gave her 10 days off over Christmas, which was very generous, and she came home at the beginning of the week, boyfriend in tow. She’s been planning cocktails, games, pub, dog walks and seeing old friends. She had a positive LFT yesterday and cried for the first time since this whole shit show started. We will still have the cocktails and games and, of course, make the most of it, but we have had to cancel (at short notice) the guests we’d invited for Christmas dinner, there will be no pub, she can’t see her friends and worst of all she can’t see her grandparents. My heart is hurting so much for her - and for all those who’ve suffered so much and in so many different ways.

@FakeFruitShoot

To nominate for Classics, open the OP (opening post, Page 1 Post 1) and click the 3 little dots to "Report". Then type you think it's a candidate for Classics and why.

Done!

MrsDeacon yes, I watched that. It was an eye opener.

I think universities need to think their messaging around this. My dd got a letter from the principal and it was all about the challenging year, covid restrictions etc. Not a thing about the successes of the year, the amazing alumni, music concerts, drama shows, research. How depressing and one sided. School headteacher was so much better citing all the amazing things that the students had done.

We need to think about how to move forward to as not to add to the collective depression.

Yes it makes truly sobering reading. How many of us actually questioned it at the time?

I feel so utterly relieved, on a purely personal level, that I was questioning this from the start, or at least after a couple of weeks.

My initial feelings, as things unravelled , were fuck, I live alone! I'm going to be so bloody lonely. How will I cope? How will my business survive? How will my mum cope? Yeah ok - selfish.

Then over the course of those first few weeks when it became apparent that people had actually gone mad, I was more and more horrified. Thank God I found the AD threads.

@HesterShaw1

Yes it makes truly sobering reading. How many of us actually questioned it at the time?

I feel so utterly relieved, on a purely personal level, that I was questioning this from the start, or at least after a couple of weeks.

My initial feelings, as things unravelled , were fuck, I live alone! I'm going to be so bloody lonely. How will I cope? How will my business survive? How will my mum cope? Yeah ok - selfish.

Then over the course of those first few weeks when it became apparent that people had actually gone mad, I was more and more horrified. Thank God I found the AD threads.

I feel the same.

By the way I keep seeing references on here to the AD threads, what does AD stand for?🤔

I really feel like all the voices on this thread need some sort of collective place (website/suppprt group/ organisation/ written record?) where all of these feelings and experiences can be aired. I know we are airing them here but there must be so many other people not on Mumsnet who are desperately in need of a place/platform that they can find support or validation form others who understand. I'm not even sure what I'm suggesting here but I feel like something is needed out there for people to come together and share their experiences and most importantly document them as a written and permanent record for future generations, we can't let this trauma be buried.

@EnidSpyton

Your post is one of the best well written posts that I have every read on MN. It so accurately reflects my own personal experience.

The moment of taking my DS to the local play park to find the swings padlocked with Covid signs and him crying on the walk back home will stay with me forever.

Thank you so much for your post and if it is any consolation to your own trials, your post made a big difference to me ❤️

By the way I keep seeing references on here to the AD threads, what does AD stand for?

Tis the name we dare not speak!

It was a bunch of us who found each other very early on in the pandemic (end April 2020 IIRC), who basically were feeling the same way from the start. We were separately reading those threads in which, for example, a single mother was vilified for wanting to take her autistic child to the beach for a run around ("What part of stay at home don't you understand?"), the thread which shouted in its OP that the people sitting on benches during their walks (YOU ARE THE PROBLEM), the thread in which it was claimed that milk and bread were not essential and that replacing them when they ran out was not necessary if you had only been to the shops four days before (cheese and potatoes are adequate nutritional substitutes, you know)...and were aghast. A thread started in which these people were described as dementors after the beings from Harry Potter, who suck the joy and hope and love out of life. And it morphed into the anti dementors. That was considered a little othering and goady so it changed to ADs. We hid out on another section of MN. We kept being found though. I don't go on the threads any more, so I don't know if they're still going, but we took a great deal of comfort from one another and reassured us that we were not the only ones feeling this total alienation. Some MNers enjoyed coming on and telling us what selfish monsters we were

@HesterShaw1

By the way I keep seeing references on here to the AD threads, what does AD stand for?

Tis the name we dare not speak!

It was a bunch of us who found each other very early on in the pandemic (end April 2020 IIRC), who basically were feeling the same way from the start. We were separately reading those threads in which, for example, a single mother was vilified for wanting to take her autistic child to the beach for a run around ("What part of stay at home don't you understand?"), the thread which shouted in its OP that the people sitting on benches during their walks (YOU ARE THE PROBLEM), the thread in which it was claimed that milk and bread were not essential and that replacing them when they ran out was not necessary if you had only been to the shops four days before (cheese and potatoes are adequate nutritional substitutes, you know)...and were aghast. A thread started in which these people were described as dementors after the beings from Harry Potter, who suck the joy and hope and love out of life. And it morphed into the anti dementors. That was considered a little othering and goady so it changed to ADs. We hid out on another section of MN. We kept being found though. I don't go on the threads any more, so I don't know if they're still going, but we took a great deal of comfort from one another and reassured us that we were not the only ones feeling this total alienation. Some MNers enjoyed coming on and telling us what selfish monsters we were

Ah I see, thanks! I wish I had been aware of the AD threads back in 2020, I could've really used an outlet like that for my despair 😩

I think this pandemic has separated the 'rule followers' from the 'rule questioners' big time.
It reminds me (sorry for the WW2 analogy) of a biography I read about a Jewish woman and how she survived WW2 Berlin: by going into hiding in the 'underworld' of often poor people who were used to distrusting the authorities and didn't care whether or not rules were followed, who didn't ask questions about her ID papers and were very adept at evading the police/gestapo. It was the 'respectable' non-Jewish families she as a middle class assimilated Jewish girl had hung out with before, that she could no longer trust, because they were conditioned to 'follow the rules' and might betray her.

Before anyone jumps on me, I'm not comparing covid regs to nazi rule. But I do think that too many of us (me included) were too ready to follow the rules and then there were those who took it further and would report people for 'breaking' them.

It's only now that my elderly neighbour told us that he continued to see 2 of his friends, more elderly and housebound, throughout the pandemic because otherwise they wouldn't have seen anybody. He kept saying 'I know if was against the rules, but...' It's so sad he felt he had to keep quiet about this because he feared someone, even we, might report him.

I agree that there will probably much less compliance this time.

@middleager me too

@Helocariad

I think this pandemic has separated the 'rule followers' from the 'rule questioners' big time. It reminds me (sorry for the WW2 analogy) of a biography I read about a Jewish woman and how she survived WW2 Berlin: by going into hiding in the 'underworld' of often poor people who were used to distrusting the authorities and didn't care whether or not rules were followed, who didn't ask questions about her ID papers and were very adept at evading the police/gestapo. It was the 'respectable' non-Jewish families she as a middle class assimilated Jewish girl had hung out with before, that she could no longer trust, because they were conditioned to 'follow the rules' and might betray her.

Before anyone jumps on me, I'm not comparing covid regs to nazi rule. But I do think that too many of us (me included) were too ready to follow the rules and then there were those who took it further and would report people for 'breaking' them.

It's only now that my elderly neighbour told us that he continued to see 2 of his friends, more elderly and housebound, throughout the pandemic because otherwise they wouldn't have seen anybody. He kept saying 'I know if was against the rules, but...' It's so sad he felt he had to keep quiet about this because he feared someone, even we, might report him.

I agree that there will probably much less compliance this time.

The jumping on anyone who tries to draw historical analogies and the branding of them as offensive is another thing which has been eye opening. It's just another way of shutting down debate.

Pre Covid if anyone had said they were keeping their (healthy) child shut up in the house for the entire school holidays there would have been cries of abuse.
Now its normal.

Dd isn't a teen and doesn't have a phone. She hasn't seen another person since school and may well not do so for the entire holidays.

Its now normal not to see extended family for months/years.

Dd is sad, frustrated and lonely. I'm allowing her to feel these emotions and doing my best to comfort her.
She doesn't want to leave her room or talk. She doesn't want to bake cookies or make Xmas decorations. She wants to be allowed to feel unhappy instead of being forced to be upbeat and 'grateful'.

Thank you for starting this thread OP.

I couldn’t take the ease at which those worried about being ‘safe’ used digital replacement as a catch all.

Posters telling others there was no downside to making all dc interaction with friends virtual

Makes me feel ill how easily that was pushed.