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.

The AD threads were properly life changing for me. I'd been super anxious to start off with in April 2020 but as I started to get back out in the world my view changed. The whole Cummings affair was a big deal for me - it not only made me feel like I'd been taken for a mug for following the rules but that he and those in charge obviously weren't scared of covid on an individual level.

@5128gap

No one I know looks forward to anything anymore. We make our plans knowing it might not happen, so don't allow ourselves to get excited. Two huge one off life events have been marred this year because we didn't dare anticipate them. The fact that they ended up happening in the end doesn't compensate for the lost build up. People don't understand this because they think all's well that ends well, and we should be grateful.

Same. I feel like I've actually given up hope now.

@MrsDeaconClaybourne

The AD threads were properly life changing for me. I'd been super anxious to start off with in April 2020 but as I started to get back out in the world my view changed. The whole Cummings affair was a big deal for me - it not only made me feel like I'd been taken for a mug for following the rules but that he and those in charge obviously weren't scared of covid on an individual level.

They were for me too. It sounds so corny to say now, but in the bleakest times (esp the jan lockdown) they offered so much solace and compassion. To know that others approached things from a similar perspective sometimes, and were prepared to articulate that.... It meant a lot.

@glimpsing

Well, I'll leave you all to it then. Yes, there are some awful experiences and I fully acknowledge that. I have been through some myself. I just felt it was important to let people know that often people do have a limited capacity to continually listen to venting and being at the receiving end of somebody offloading. That is not because they are horrible people but just because they have their limitations. As everyone does. Hating them just perpetuates the suffering, doesn't it?

The thing is, it almost seems that you are suggesting that there are people imprisoned here having their emotional reserves used up by listening to others' bad experiences. I don't really think this is true. But what lies behind the opprobrium that this and other threads which focus on acknowledgment of the flipside of the Covid suffering I find interesting. It often seems to me that we are in a world which is hugely uncomfortable with divergence & with challenge. I wonder if what lies behind it is a kind of deep deep psychological discomfort with the changes that have happened in society, & the implications they might have for possible future changes. In 50 years we have gone from a period of relatively stable postwar growth, underpinned by adherence to religion, respect for authority which was both feared and regarded as benign, and fixed gender roles, to one where gender itself is being questioned, where many people live nowhere near their extended family, Christian religious belief and attendance is in freefall, politicians and the political system is widely mistrusted, there have been at least three major recessions, social welfare is both derided and inadequate & now we are regularly informed that the planet itself is on its last legs unless we make the most radical changes of all in record time while actively accepting this will require a completely new economic model.

So just as those that first believed the children who said Catholic priests had sexually assaulted them, and who spoke out against an institution that once seemed invincible, were scorned and mocked and derided, so anything that points to further painful truths is suspect, or negative, or dangerous.

It is of course perfectly possible that I and other posters here articulating non Covid suffering are in some way wrong. I cannot say that these words are right or this approach is right or any other approach isn't. But it does feel like this is the beginning and not the end of something.

In a way this thread makes me feel better. I live alone and am really beginning to suffer from all the isolation from a MH standpoint, but I don't feel able to say so because I am still employed and haven't lost any loved ones so appreciate that my lot is much luckier than many. But the loneliness has been so corrosive, some days I feel I can barely do anything because what it the point. I know the advice is to be proactive etc and I do try, but like others I can barely fathom the difference between life in 2019 and life now and it feels cathartic to admit it for once.

But it does feel like this is the beginning and not the end of something.

Now that's a feeling I can get behind! Exciting isn't it?🍷

I think the difficulty with my posts are that they come from a really quite moderate stance. What I am essentially trying to argue for is balance. There really are positives to come from this. One is greater understanding of the mechanisms of power within our society and the scales falling from people's eyes.

@glimpsing

But it does feel like this is the beginning and not the end of something.

Now that's a feeling I can get behind! Exciting isn't it?🍷

I think the difficulty with my posts are that they come from a really quite moderate stance. What I am essentially trying to argue for is balance. There really are positives to come from this. One is greater understanding of the mechanisms of power within our society and the scales falling from people's eyes.

The difficulty with your posts is you assume you can tell others what to feel.

No one else is doing that on this thread and it makes a nice change.

It often seems to me that we are in a world which is hugely uncomfortable with divergence & with challenge.

Yes, as is evident when I tried to counter some points made in a quest for balance. It's why I actually dare do this. Go against the flow. I'm not uncomfortable with challenge and have learnt to embrace cognitive dissonance. Because it is from there further understanding is achieved. You need to be able to hold two apparently conflicting ideas in your mind for long enough to find the complex links between them and put each into context where one is more relevant than the other.

Is this why you have been so keen to hear glimpsing's perspective on this thread?

The pursuit of balance?

The difficulty with your posts is you assume you can tell others what to feel.

I'm just posting from my perspective. You can either take a closer look at what I'm describing, why I might see something as I do or dismiss it. Entirely your choice.

@DukeofEarlGrey

In a way this thread makes me feel better. I live alone and am really beginning to suffer from all the isolation from a MH standpoint, but I don't feel able to say so because I am still employed and haven't lost any loved ones so appreciate that my lot is much luckier than many. But the loneliness has been so corrosive, some days I feel I can barely do anything because what it the point. I know the advice is to be proactive etc and I do try, but like others I can barely fathom the difference between life in 2019 and life now and it feels cathartic to admit it for once.

cathartic is the word- I can relate

The difficulty with your posts is you assume you can tell others what to feel.

Well, do you believe you can choose how to feel? If not, well, I can't tell you, can I? If you do believe you can choose, well, you just go ahead and enjoy feeling your feelings.

@glimpsing

The difficulty with your posts is you assume you can tell others what to feel.

I'm just posting from my perspective. You can either take a closer look at what I'm describing, why I might see something as I do or dismiss it. Entirely your choice.

I really cannot accept this lack of awareness especially someone claiming to want further understanding

When the ability to hear what posters are saying to you is very low. That shows very low understanding.

You can have your own experience, that’s absolutely fine, we all do, but we don’t need commentary on anyone else’s.

@glimpsing

But it does feel like this is the beginning and not the end of something.

Now that's a feeling I can get behind! Exciting isn't it?🍷

I think the difficulty with my posts are that they come from a really quite moderate stance. What I am essentially trying to argue for is balance. There really are positives to come from this. One is greater understanding of the mechanisms of power within our society and the scales falling from people's eyes.

The difficulty with your posts is that they're unwelcome and unhelpful, which you have been told repeatedly, but you still insist on imposing yourself on the thread.

You can have your own experience, that’s absolutely fine, we all do, but we don’t need commentary on anyone else’s.

But it is fine to comment on my understanding? How do you know what I understand? I've gone through people close to me with severe mental illness (enough to be hospitalised), cancer, a parent and other close family members deaths, having a child with additional needs, an emergency birth, partner caught up in 911, failing a module at university and having to change courses, amongst other things. I probably understand more than you think. Yet, I have come through all these things.

@glimpsing

You can have your own experience, that’s absolutely fine, we all do, but we don’t need commentary on anyone else’s.

But it is fine to comment on my understanding? How do you know what I understand? I've gone through people close to me with severe mental illness (enough to be hospitalised), cancer, a parent and other close family members deaths, having a child with additional needs, an emergency birth, partner caught up in 911, failing a module at university and having to change courses, amongst other things. I probably understand more than you think. Yet, I have come through all these things.

No, low awareness / understanding on why your posts are being received as they are.

You are telling people what to feel and it is not welcome.

You are telling people what to feel and it is not welcome.

Why?

Because,

It often seems to me that we are in a world which is hugely uncomfortable with divergence & with challenge.

..as the OP has acknowledged...

But as I said, I acknowledge grief and injustice but where do we move on from there? I'm just looking towards a more hopeful time, that's all. The worst thing ever for me, when going through anything difficult is people trying to quash all hope. And I do not believe anyone is actually qualified to quash all hopes with any degree of certainty, at all.

Didn't you say you were going to 'leave us to it, @glimpsing

I wish you would. But experience has told me that flouncers always come back for more. I'm at a bit of a loss as to your motivations. People have repeatedly said that your trite 'insights' are unwelcome and unhelpful, but you just cant stay away?

Why?

Because why should you? What makes you think it’s your place to do so?

It’s lack of awareness that makes you think it’s ok.

Btw I haven’t read any posts as quashing hope

A sharing of experience which I’ve appreciated.

If it’s not the thread for you then great.

100% agree

@glimpsing

You can have your own experience, that’s absolutely fine, we all do, but we don’t need commentary on anyone else’s.

But it is fine to comment on my understanding? How do you know what I understand? I've gone through people close to me with severe mental illness (enough to be hospitalised), cancer, a parent and other close family members deaths, having a child with additional needs, an emergency birth, partner caught up in 911, failing a module at university and having to change courses, amongst other things. I probably understand more than you think. Yet, I have come through all these things.

This thread isn't about other things we've gone through though is it? I've had all sorts of experiences during my life, including a couple in your list. But what we're doing here is sharing our experiences of what we lost during covid times and how that has made us feel. I'll survive, of course I will, but I'm allowed to feel sad about it. And having other people say, yes it is sad and it has even for me too has helped.

I don't think this thread is quashing hope though @glimpsing quite the opposite. People are beginning to articulate some of what they've been through and I believe that telling our stories, and having them seen and acknowledged, is a massive step towards healing. It's definitely helped me.

wish you would. But experience has told me that flouncers always come back for more. I'm at a bit of a loss as to your motivations. People have repeatedly said that your trite 'insights' are unwelcome and unhelpful, but you just cant stay away?

Why? Just because I agree the bad stuff is bad but admit I would rather focus on the positives. Offering an explanation as why people might not want to spend time going over all the bad stuff. Because if something is acknowledged as bad how much further processing is required?

I get it people on here do but half the of the grief is over being denied expressing this. I'm just offering an explanation as to why. That's part of what processing something demands. It should help confirm that your feelings are not necessarily being invalidated rather that they are uncomfortable to experience and some people would rather not go there (again).

People are beginning to articulate some of what they've been through and I believe that telling our stories, and having them seen and acknowledged, is a massive step towards healing. It's definitely helped me.

Good. That is a positive thing. Maybe the problematic thing is being at different stages in this. In recent years I have spent less time processing and moved through difficult things onto acceptance rather quickly through necessity.

some people would rather not go there

Ok don’t. But let people process as they want to.