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.

*loved, not pived

Totally agree and very well put

@Walkingthedog46

Why not, California?

Personally I have lost a lot in this pandemic- I won't go into details because I really don't want to be told others have it worse- and I sometimes just want to "sit with the loss" instead of being told it was worse in the Blitz.

It's not that I am hiding under the covers and weeping all day about what I have lost. I am going about my life, masked and boosted and doing as much I can to distance. But sometimes it just hits me like a train: the pain, the suffering, the memories. It hit me today when I was just walking down the street and suddenly remembered what I was supposed to be doing this Xmas, and what I am actually doing.

@Malteser71

I felt like this from the very beginning. To say it on MN was to risk taking a battering.

I’m glad it’s ok to say it now.

Me too. I remember trying to articulate some of these feelings with friends in April 2020 and being met with quizzical looks and disbelief. I felt so alone.

You have beautifully articulated everything I have thought myself. It is so desperately sad. 😢

@HaaaaaveyoumetTed

I'm one of the lucky ones, we lived lockdown. Our quality of life and mental health improved massively.

How? I am really asking to understand, as it might give me perspective.

@CaliforniaDrumming

Can we never mention the bloody world wars again, or the Blitz?

Could not agree more. It's as if no one is entitled to feel sorry for themselves/upset/distressed/anxious... because of there was a war a hundred years ago. It's not a competition to see who had it worse. These are terrible and difficult times we're living in and that can and should be acknowledged.

Isolation is incredibly hard on humans though

As much as other stuff is difficult being lonely or separated from daily life will have a very negative impact on some

I dunno… I can quite picture an 8 year old in soiled pants lying in rubble as he hears German planes ahead and then a voice pipes up “well laddie, at least it’s not flu. Now that was a time”.

Agree. Wish they would stop publishing the figures as well. Every time I see them I feel sick at the impending doom of another lockdown. So that’s every day at the moment.

Im beginning to feel sadder and sadder for 'the young' as this goes on.

@BusBusBus

Im beginning to feel sadder and sadder for 'the young' as this goes on.

I do and gave for a while

I’m always surprised by the amount of people on here that don’t

I totally agree OP the last couple of days it's all really hit me . I took the day off today as I just couldn't face the world . I never do this !

My teenagers lost their dad, my ex to covid earlier in the year , We all with love and determination got through that and the kids have gone off to uni and love it . I started a little business and I was making plans for my next steps work wise . My family is in Ireland I'm in the uk so that's another factor .

I dealt with all of this and although sometimes sad and worried about my kids never felt low and anxious.

And now just when things were starting to feel normal and that I've brought my family through this crisis . It's now all suddenly turned to crap again , kids home from uni this weekend for how long ? Dealing with their understandable anxiety about Covid.My business is screwed as are my plans .

I will rally the half bottle of wine and family bag of crisps I've just eaten have helped a bit ! But fuck this is shite .

Totally agree.
I am dreading another lockdown either by stealth or otherwise.
On a personal level my older teens’ education has been really affected - school & uni-wise. Likewise with mental health. I don’t know what will happen to DS if schools close again - he may end up with no ‘proper’ grades having not taken GCSEs in 2020.

Mental health really needs to be taken into account if another lockdown is announced. Esp as omicron so far isn’t proving to be ‘mild’.

I really feel for those of you who are abroad. My brother and my two nephews are too. The boys were 3 and 7 last time we saw them. They are now ten and 6 and next year isn't looking much brighter either.

Awful for my brother watching them miss out on time with family. The younger one barely remembers the Uk now.

And I really feel for their grandparents, particularly at this time of year. And feel very sorry for my parents who won't see their only other grandchildren this Christmas (my children) as one has tested positive for covid so we cannot go to see them (saw them once last year, twice this).

All such precious time we won't get back.

And I quite agree with the PP who said about just work/housework/childcare, I am permanently behind with everything due to the children having so many absences from school. Totally exhausted, it's so relentless. If schools don't open again in January, it might just tip me over the edge (except it can't, can it, because other people have had it worse....).

I totally agree OP.

DD and I have always been mentally robust, thank God. But the past two years, I've had to comfort her sobbing her heart out because she missed her friends, having clubs and parties cancelled, to say nothing of her education. She's behind where she should be - as is pretty much every single child. The sacrifice of our children angers me to tears. Because that's what it is.

As for me, I'm struggling with undiagnosed anxiety and its physical symptoms. I was (still am!) a very social person, I live alone and this is absolute fucking purgatory.

And I look at the comparisons of outcomes from countries with different restrictions and I genuinely don't think we have succeeded. Such a terrible, terrible waste.

Totally agree op.

It’s the loss of certainty that I struggle with - knowing I can book a summer visit to family abroad; knowing that thr kids will be back in school in Jan; knowing that DDs GCSEs will go ahead as planned.

I hate seeing the kids miss out on so much.

I agree.
There's a young person in my family who I think is on the edge of despair. I stalk them on whatsapp to see when they last checked in, then I know they are alive.

This has destroyed the young adults of my family.

For me it’s always been about the impact on the children. They are disproportionately affected and don’t have a voice. I find it so disingenuous the people calling anyone who disagrees with lockdown selfish, or for those hoping the schools stay open self interested and selfish. Anyone who’s happy for schools to be closer but campaigning for pubs to open or shrugging their shoulders at the abysmal excuse for online learning and saying its what needs to be done needs a hard reflection on their own selfish attitude. The children of today are the adults of tomorrow- doctors, lawyers, refuse collectors, bus drivers. They need and deserve an education. And socialisation.

on the doorstep for five minutes once a week yomping like a seal

Thank you OP. I agree with everything and thank you everyone else for your comments, it's so emotional and yet a relief to read this.
I thought I was mostly alone mourning the life that might have been for young and old.
I fought so much to enjoy life after years of depression. I arrived at that exciting place where I felt anything was possible. I was happy, and confident. For the first time ever! And then lockdown happened, and happened again, and again.
I just don't have any hope in me now. I'm single with few friends. Life is that dullness again. That glass cage, that distance from humanity.

But thank you again OP, for this thread, and I hope it continues to be as empathetic as it has been so far

@CaliforniaDrumming

Can we never mention the bloody world wars again, or the Blitz?

Yep and also, my grandparents lived through and remember the war. They still found lockdown excruciatingly lonely and depressing. My gran’s mobility and memory deteriorated at an alarming rate during the lockdowns. She had zero cognitive issues prior to Covid and her decline has almost certainly been sped up by loneliness and lack of interaction with others.

Totally agree

A historian on the radio very very early on said that we would end up seeing things as 'BC' and 'AC' for before covid and after covid. At the time that seemed overdramatic to some but I think he was right. I look back at 2019 and want to cry. I wish I could just step back into it and be back there even for a day.

I like the fact that the OP (like most people) both mourns what we're missing and appreciates that it's been for some purpose. I have hated reading that people who, say, think more restrictions might have been necessary on a particular date must actually enjoy them. (I absolutely hate and loathe cleaning up sick, but if there's sick there and no one's cleaning it up even I would still argue that we should clean it up. Sometimes horrible things are unavoidable.)

There will surely be art that comes out that reflects a lot of this. I believe there are actually hardly any people at either of the two extremes we find ourselves wanting to lash out against ('lockdown lovers' and 'selfish people who don't take precautions'). Most of us are somewhere in the middle, exhausted and psychologically drained, mourning both people and ways of life, trying to find joy here and there but really fed up. I do have faith that, as a species and as a society, we're gradually building up defences against this particular virus, so it will fade into the background eventually for most of us.

I wouldn’t mind comparisons to the Blitz so much if they weren’t always done in this tone of “think yourself lucky and stop grumbling”, like people living through the Blitz marched through life whistling We’ll Meet Again and greeting everyone they met with “keep calm and carry on!” The Blitz was endless and miserable and people hated it, and they absolutely did grumble and break The Rules and criticise the government, and that “Keep Calm and Carry On” slogan didn’t get used because people found it condescending and ridiculous.

This is shit, too. It is shit and it feels endless and miserable. And I think the lack of a language to express it and the lack of much creative response does make it hard. It’s this dystopian dullness, this idea that we’ve gone from being people to being managed units who only matter in terms of carrying or getting ill from the virus, nothing else matters, and the dread suspicion that far too many people think this is just fine.