'PTSD' from the past 2 years?

[PolkaDot456]

PTSD may be an exaggerated description of what I am identifying but reading how angry people are regarding the No.10 drinks party, I feel we're collectively having a moment of reflection.

We're now all thinking about what we were doing in May 2020 and the passage of time since, we have actually come really far but this whole situation I think had made a lot of us begin processing the last two years would you agree?

I do feel as though I've been through something quite traumatic, and I had lockdown super-easy but struggled with anxiety triggered by the pandemic so I followed the rules and then some.

On reflection I feel I've done well - WE'VE done well as a society - to have come this far and kept moving forward in our lives in difficult circumstances.

But I get a heavy feeling when I think back, it's almost overwhelming and I can't seem to go there, its like a mental block. I'm in a good place aside from the pandemic so I'm not sure why I'm struggling to process it!

Reading back on some of the rules, before they came in, I'd never have believed they'd happen(parks locked up away from the kids for one ), at the time we realised it all seemed far fetched and now thinking back, I can't believe we were manipulated into the extreme behaviour and had so much taken away from us!

I realise this may be a bit of a self indulgence post! But I am interested to hear if other people are feeling similar during this collective reflection!?

Does not…

@RichTeaRichTea

Well I’m expressing my viewpoint without swearing and being ableist. Is my point.

Yet the very people on here criticising others for not respecting their viewpoint, are doing EXACTLY that to anyone with a view that contradicts their own! And by swearing/using a ableist language (which I haven’t sunk to yet I hope).

@MarshaBradyo

Exactly!! I’m expressing how I feel, but you don’t want me on here. You are trying to censor me - so how does that fit in with your belief system??? Only those who agree are allowed to speak??

[quote BigMoan]@MarshaBradyo

Exactly!! I’m expressing how I feel, but you don’t want me on here. You are trying to censor me - so how does that fit in with your belief system??? Only those who agree are allowed to speak??[/quote]
Because you can tell your personal story without trying to invalidate other people’s

I don't know what Us4them is.
Surely most people with children felt the impact on them was pretty severe? I have friends who had babies in lockdown who have never seen a single health visitor or midwife or doctor since giving birth.
I have friends with older teenagers who have been severely depressed at having to start college in their rooms, online, and not out and about, meeting new people and getting real world experiences. More than one serious suicide risk among those people.
I am really amazed at the people who continue to cling to the Science and the Rules at any cost, even if it means they have to label completely rational reactions to awful things as being conspiracy nutjobs or anti vaxers. People are allowed to talk, nuance is a real thing and not everyone fits into a neat box with a label. FFS

@MarshaBradyo

Trying to create an echo chamber is not healthy either.

@MarshaBradyo - but I’ve had many posters here trying to invalidate mine. But that’s ok??

[quote BigMoan]@MarshaBradyo

Trying to create an echo chamber is not healthy either.[/quote]
You’re not getting it

You can’t tell someone how they feel is wrong.

By all means argue on other points but try to step back when someone is sharing a personal experience. It’s unique to them and it’s not wrong.

Accusing people of being “us for them” when they share personal and upsetting stories is a silencing tactic

@HepzibahGreen

I don't know what Us4them is. Surely most people with children felt the impact on them was pretty severe? I have friends who had babies in lockdown who have never seen a single health visitor or midwife or doctor since giving birth. I have friends with older teenagers who have been severely depressed at having to start college in their rooms, online, and not out and about, meeting new people and getting real world experiences. More than one serious suicide risk among those people. I am really amazed at the people who continue to cling to the Science and the Rules at any cost, even if it means they have to label completely rational reactions to awful things as being conspiracy nutjobs or anti vaxers. People are allowed to talk, nuance is a real thing and not everyone fits into a neat box with a label. FFS

This is what I mean

@RichTeaRichTea

So being called short sighted over sharing my experience of a loved one almost dying is ok.

Suggesting that the themes of many of these posts sound ‘us for them’ - is not ok??

@MarshaBradyo but!!! You’ve just told me how I feel is wrong.

[quote BigMoan]@RichTeaRichTea

So being called short sighted over sharing my experience of a loved one almost dying is ok.

Suggesting that the themes of many of these posts sound ‘us for them’ - is not ok??[/quote]
Why didn’t you just talk about your hardship without the second line?

Why is it necessary to undermine the real sadness people have shared.

If you had just said your experience it would have be one of many on the thread and fine, possibly responded to with sympathy.

Everybody is entitled to their thoughts and feelings. Should we now live in a world where people can’t also question those thoughts? Or it’s ok for only certain groups of people can be questioned about them and not others?? And it’s ok for some people to be sworn at over their thoughts but not others?

Can’t you see the hypocrisy in that?

@MarshaBradyo

I experienced extreme sadness over my loved one in and out of hospital and finding it extremely difficult to get to her through lockdown. But you are saying my experience isn’t real or valid? Or it’s fine for my experience to be undermined and questioned - but not others.

[quote BigMoan]@MarshaBradyo

I experienced extreme sadness over my loved one in and out of hospital and finding it extremely difficult to get to her through lockdown. But you are saying my experience isn’t real or valid? Or it’s fine for my experience to be undermined and questioned - but not others.[/quote]
I think I’ve pretty clear that of course you are welcome to share as others have, and it’s real and valid

• fine for you to share your own experience and you’ll be in the company of the thread and maybe people will post sympathy to you rather than what’s happened (which is likely when someone says you can’t feel this way)

• not ok to undermine other people with the political / lobbying slurs and so on as pp said it’s a silencing tactic

There was another thread similar to this that a pp tried pretty hard to shut down by telling people their emotions were wrong, it’s a shame as it’s quite therapeutic to share after a hard time.

I think there will be a generational trauma that manifests a bit differently across age groups. The elderly people I know have become very insular and aged rapidly from the loss of independence, activity, socialisation and access to healthcare through 2020 into 2021. My children still have not seen their elderly relatives since 2019. One is in another country and was in residential care at the point of our 2021 visit so that was banned. The other has just become too insular to really care much beyond her cluster of friends and has no desire to see them anymore.

I'm wondering if DS2 has some SENs but having lost 6.5 months of schooling and even longer on social skills at the age of 7 (across y2/3) it makes it very difficult to establish what is lost experience and what is actually and underlying issue. DS1 has diagnoses and his issues emerged beyond age expectations at this age range.
By June 2020 he was depressed, lethargic and had spells of being rude and angry. Other than his autistic brother, he barely played with another child for 6 months. His friends were special keyworker children and allowed to go to school. He found it very hard to make friends again in the autumn because they'd carried on developing without him while he'd regressed at home. It was bloody tough trying to arrange meaningful social contact. Most were too busy or too paranoid.
Things eased a bit with the July opening and at least we could get out and do stimulating things, but he was still deprived of relationships.

DS1 was OK with lockdowns other than the total failure of "home learning". With his autism he can ace "staying the fuck at home" and doesn't greatly miss people. But that's not healthy. Age will play a factor, but it's getting harder and harder getting him to have a healthy balance of engagement in the wider world. He needs some sports for his physical health. He needs some structured skills/ social activities like Scouting. He does still get a healthy balance to zone out on youtube and warhammer, but doing that all his non-school waking hours is not healthy.

I got my anger in early. I remember quietly raging to myself in June 2020 at the awful sound of those bastard keyworker children being allowed to play together on the school field that carried on the wind into my garden and conservatory. I never have been angry with the actual children, but the divisive policy and the government and school for implimenting it, and being unable to escape from that noise of that division forcibly reminding me while trapped at home with a lonely, depressed child was fucking awful. Then last January, two further months of meltdowns from DS1 and DS2 sobbin on my knees at having to do fucking Teams lessons and getting no daylight in January. I tried finding somewhere for them to exercise that wasn't a road, muddy swamp or padlocked up and ended up on an old abandonded rec strewn with brambles, dog shit and broken glass.

DH had an easier time. He comandeered the spare room with a giant desk and called for quiet during meetings while his voice echoed through the house.

It was only the knowledge that this was temporary and normal emotional reactions to ongoing, unescapable, barely distractable stress and imbalance that has kept me off anti-depressants. Last winter the anger faded to numbness which only really wore off to a more normal emotional range in August.

And on paper we're lucky. DH's income was stable. We have a good home (gilded prison that it felt like at times), nobody ill or dying or abused but it's still been a relentless barrel of shit. I don't know how people kept going through the other life shit at the same time because I cope by being busy and distraction and all that was stolen from us, in some cases solidly for 18 months.

What's been interesting is DH's blind spot that he can't see how my life was more affected than his. He was allowed to keep working which gave mental stimulation. My routines of volunteering and fitness activities were removed. My existance was reduced to feeding the household, futile attempts to cajole children into learning (amazed I didn't tear up my PGCE certificate) and listening to endless monologues about pokemon or minecraft by way of social interaction. (It would traumatise anyone other tha Grian or Mumbo Jumbo )

The best cure is normality.

I think where you run into trouble is the point where you decide other people's suffering was worth it, particularly when the particular suffering being discussed was objectively pointless and unnecessary. Obviously you have every right to name and validate your own experiences in whatever way you wish, but several of the comments have gone beyond that.

I don't have school aged kids. I don't have anyone who's been ill or died of Covid. I haven't suffered financially. I don't have any particular health issues.

However I live alone, my marriage failed in 2018, I'd had a bereavement, and have generally had not a very happy decade. At the start of 2020 things were looking very very much more optimistic and rosy for me and I was loving life for the first time in a very long time. Then Covid.

So while I appreciate that so many people have had things very much harder, I refuse to apologise for the fact that I'm now suffering from the most awful anxiety about things I love being taken away from me. Plans having to be abandoned. Hobbies and socialising having to stop (I am self employed so daily contact with colleagues isn't my reality either). Friends retreating into their own family units and not needing/wanting a single friend "making demands" on their time. It being forbidden for me to go and see my sister and her children, and my mum (all of whom live far away). Days and weeks spent completely alone at the start of it all before bubbling was allowed. Tramping the same walks with people (always families and couples) flinching away if we passed on a footpath.

Now that these things have mainly returned, I have panic attacks about them disappearing again and people I love leaving me, and things I need and want to do being forbidden.

This is caused by the restrictions we were under. Another non specific non measurable result, along with many others which are "minor" in the scheme of things, but doesn't mean they're not causing distress.

Now that these things have mainly returned, I have panic attacks about them disappearing again and people I love leaving me, and things I need and want to do being forbidden.

This raises an important point, which is that one of the medium term impacts of lockdown and restrictions is people's fear of their return. I hope that won't still be an issue in decades to come, but it could be something that's still common at least until it becomes clear the pandemic is well and truly over. That could easily be a couple more years. We could see this impacting on the need for mental health support.

@BigMoan sorry, I probably wasn't clear enough (was typing and having a conversation about star wars with my isolating 11 year-old at the same time). It's fine for him to think and say that lockdown is great for him. He just says it in a lecturing kind of way and sighs and shakes his head at the idea that other people might find it hard as if he sees himself as a shining example to the rest of the world who are clearly not trying hard enough.

I think younger people who lived alone were absolutely forgotten @HesterShaw1 - and was hell for a lot of people.

I remember being banned from seeing my boyfriend of 8 years. I mean ffs. I went anyway. The one very big rule of lockdown I broke. And I remain glad I did.

@hamstersarse

I think younger people who lived alone were absolutely forgotten *@HesterShaw1* - and was hell for a lot of people.

I remember being banned from seeing my boyfriend of 8 years. I mean ffs. I went anyway. The one very big rule of lockdown I broke. And I remain glad I did.

People of all ages who live alone. I'm not young by any stretch of the imagination.

At the start of Covid I was three months into a new relationship. This hasn't been able to progress as it normally would have done due to social restrictions and the resultant stress and depression on both sides, and now it's withering and dying. I feel worse now than I did this time last year when we were in the middle of the winter lockdown.

The best cure is normality

Isn’t it just. We went to a musical on the weekend and the singing and full theatre really got to me and I leaked tears pretty much the whole way - in a my goodness I need this collective humanity. Others would not go of course due to cases as is their right but to me each piece of normality is healing.

@HesterShaw1

I don't have school aged kids. I don't have anyone who's been ill or died of Covid. I haven't suffered financially. I don't have any particular health issues.

However I live alone, my marriage failed in 2018, I'd had a bereavement, and have generally had not a very happy decade. At the start of 2020 things were looking very very much more optimistic and rosy for me and I was loving life for the first time in a very long time. Then Covid.

So while I appreciate that so many people have had things very much harder, I refuse to apologise for the fact that I'm now suffering from the most awful anxiety about things I love being taken away from me. Plans having to be abandoned. Hobbies and socialising having to stop (I am self employed so daily contact with colleagues isn't my reality either). Friends retreating into their own family units and not needing/wanting a single friend "making demands" on their time. It being forbidden for me to go and see my sister and her children, and my mum (all of whom live far away). Days and weeks spent completely alone at the start of it all before bubbling was allowed. Tramping the same walks with people (always families and couples) flinching away if we passed on a footpath.

Now that these things have mainly returned, I have panic attacks about them disappearing again and people I love leaving me, and things I need and want to do being forbidden.

This is caused by the restrictions we were under. Another non specific non measurable result, along with many others which are "minor" in the scheme of things, but doesn't mean they're not causing distress.

Absolutely