'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!?

I’ve been a lockdown sceptic since April 2020 and got a few kickings on these boards (name changed since) especially when I said how badly lock downs were affecting the clients I work with and my SEND child. Enjoying the Mumsnet cope. Most people on these boards were loving it, now they feel foolish.

I gave birth in a fucking mask, my husband saw me and the baby for 45 minutes after, I was on a ward with appalling care, so bad I was ambulances back to hospital. I’ve never seen a HV. My three year old has speech delay. My six year old had suicidal ideation and we were a family that tried to go out and minimise lock down as much as possible. No TV news, daily woodland walks etc. My 88 year old grandmother discharged herself from hospital with a broken shoulder and cheekbone as she’s been isolated for two weeks in there as a covid risk and started to have flashbacks to childhood abuse.
One of my clients had children removed after a parenting assessment was done over WhatsApp video call. I’m angry, but not with the government. I’m angry with everyone who accepted these rules, complied with them to the letter when the humane way to work would have been to facilitate alternatives (I’m looking at a lot of health and social care professionals here) and pilloried anyone questioning them.

@Mycatsgoldtooth The experiences you describe are terrible. I am so sorry. I too have been a lockdown sceptic since the beginning. I felt it was obvious that the damage to children and to the poorest in society would be catastrophic.

Like you I feel angry that so many people swallowed the manipulated figures and followed the senseless rules without questioning what damage was likely to follow.

@Flyonawalk sceptics on the anti- dementor threads and general covid threads here helped with my sanity

@Mycatsgoldtooth

I gave birth in a fucking mask, my husband saw me and the baby for 45 minutes after, I was on a ward with appalling care, so bad I was ambulances back to hospital. I’ve never seen a HV. My three year old has speech delay. My six year old had suicidal ideation and we were a family that tried to go out and minimise lock down as much as possible. No TV news, daily woodland walks etc. My 88 year old grandmother discharged herself from hospital with a broken shoulder and cheekbone as she’s been isolated for two weeks in there as a covid risk and started to have flashbacks to childhood abuse. One of my clients had children removed after a parenting assessment was done over WhatsApp video call. I’m angry, but not with the government. I’m angry with everyone who accepted these rules, complied with them to the letter when the humane way to work would have been to facilitate alternatives (I’m looking at a lot of health and social care professionals here) and pilloried anyone questioning them.

Absolutely appalling. I'm so very sorry.

I’ve appreciated the few talking about impact on children and people at lower income end, otherwise it’s been a lot of kicking from posters not wanting to hear it.

I'm not the same person I was before all of this. It has definitely changed me and not all for the better.
I've less patience and really struggle to feel empathy. I'm angry and bitter about the time and loved ones I've lost and I haven't grieved any of those losses properly so I'm worried that I'm just going to lose it one day.
I constantly feel on edge and have some very 'low' periods of time when I just don't seem to be able to find joy in anything.
I've seriously considered seeing the dr or seeking counselling but it seems pointless as I know exactly why I feel this way.
I have periods when I feel distanced from my family.
I've put on a shit load of weight because I've a tendency to eat my emotions and I sabotaged all of the good work I'd been doing up to the first lockdown.
I don't know if any of this constitutes PTSD or not but it's shit, whatever it is.

I have always been a lockdown sceptic (not a covid denier!) but hearing about people having to say their last goodbye to dying family members through a fucking iPad made me so upset.

What happened to everyone's sense of proportion?

@MarshaBradyo

I’ve appreciated the few talking about impact on children and people at lower income end, otherwise it’s been a lot of kicking from posters not wanting to hear it.

Yep!

Exactly! Our kids couldn't go to school, play in parks, meet up with their friends for months on end and that tosser has the audacity to say he wasn't aware he was breaking the rules. I couldn't even watch him. They don't even believe in their own rules. I guess they were reluctantly doing what the medical officers and scientists advised. It is scary how manipulated we have been.

I had some significant stresses in my life during the pandemic.

Very soon after the first lockdown happened I had a kidney ultrasound that identified an ovarian mass. It was explained to me as not showing any reassuring signs. I was referred to gyne. It was months and months before I saw the gynecologist who sent me for more tests and scheduled surgery.

The surgery was not until December 2020 (day surgery). Both my ovaries were removed. Then I got an infection and was admitted to hospital in a 5 bed ward for a week. All before vaccination. No ventilation at all. Beds very close together with only curtains. Sadly, one of the nurses was a bully and made my stay miserable, no matter how hard I tried to be a "good patient." My husband could only visit for a short time everyday, although that was better than nothing.

When I was discharged I had to go to an outpatient clinic 30 minutes away for dressing changes, even Christmas Day.

I came out of all that terrified of getting sick again and still not knowing iffI had ovarian cancer. It was early Feb. before the pathologists decided it was a rare but mostly benign tumour.

During all of this I was considered CEV because of immunosuppressive meds I take for colitis. I am also quite wary of flu because both my parents died of it.

To top off my surgery experience I have now been informed a fake nurse cared for me during surgery. It is kind of a joke, really. She has managed to lie her way into several nursing jobs.

I have tried very hard to be resilient through it all and mostly succeeded. But I have gained weight and lost fitness to a huge degree, and I am finding it hard to get motivated. I frankly wonder if I ever will.

The whole thing has made me very wary of health professionals.

The fact that our politicians seem to have avoided the worst of the lockdowns feels unfair in the extreme.

Sorry for the long post. Something got triggered I think.

@Mycatsgoldtooth

Appalling. I’m so sorry for you and your family.

But I also hear your roar, and have faith you’ll bring it all back to goodness

@LoveFall

I have skim read this as I try not to think too much about it

I was against lockdown from the beginning, live alone and was in the darkest of places for a long while.

Friendships have fallen and I'm so damaged I am not even sure about trying to make new ones.

As Mycatsgoldtooth says "I’m angry with everyone who accepted these rules, complied with them to the letter when the humane way to work would have been to facilitate alternatives (I’m looking at a lot of health and social care professionals here) and pilloried anyone questioning them."

I can't believe anyone thought any of this was okay. It makes me think there's no point bothering with people.

I have tried very hard to be resilient through it all and mostly succeeded. But I have gained weight and lost fitness to a huge degree, and I am finding it hard to get motivated. I frankly wonder if I ever will.

I think it's hard to call at the mo because covid still isn't over so a lot of people are still in batten down the hatches mode. You're probably still thinking survival, especially as it sounds like you were retraumatised with the fake nurse discovery which I expect set you back. It makes sense that you might lack motivation, because you need all your resilience to get by.

@VikingOnTheFridge

Thank you so much for your post. I think you have captured it. I did feel retraumatized by the fake nurse thing, which has been all over our media, always with a picture of her that frankly creeps me out.

I work hard at resilience and with the fake nurse I am quite sure she had nothing to do with my post op infection. Still, it niggles at me and I can't believe she got away with it. She has been charged. I am staying well away from any of the others who were treated by her as I think it would do me more harm than good.

Thanks also to the other posters who responded. I don't usually go off on tangents like that. I think omicron has got to me. My DGD just recovered and DS (her Dad) probably has it. My DH is not easy to keep home. He is a very active senior who loves socializing so I worry about him.

So many heartbreaking stories honestly, nobody should be hard on herself for feeling wounded by these past two years.

I think even if you didn’t experience anything recognisable as a major trauma, the little things we all lost were the things that raise life above a slog to the grave, the wee interactions, connections that give life extra dimensions and depth. A lot of people seem to think that being alone, not being able to see friends or family, not having normal interactions with people on a daily basis is no big deal. But it is. Any psychiatric discipline, any philosophy, any religion etc will tell you that you need these things.

I think what gets me now is the risk that this put my children under. The only contact they had was with myself and my DH, no extended family, no friends, no HV, no volunteers at groups. My mental health went down the toilet in 2020 and I keep thinking what would have happened if we'd both deteriorated to a point where we couldn't have looked after them because no one would have noticed anything. I remember thinking how we could be starving them or beating them or locking them in cupboards and no one would notice a thing.

Little children need to have other adults in their life even if on a very casual basis, it's too risky leaving it 100% to parents.

[quote BigMoan]@elliejjtiny

But that’s what I don’t get -why are some people ‘allowed’ express their experiences and not others? I’ve just been slammed by various posters for sharing my experience and told I’m short sighted? Why should you father in law not be allowed to express without you wanting to throttle him? Surely it works both ways - and this is what we need to be accepting of - perhaps.[/quote]
Because it is tactless, dismissive and uncaring to wang on about what a great time YOU’VE had when other people are telling you that they’ve suffered horribly. Surely this is obvious?

to everyone on this thread who’s suffered.

[quote Mycatsgoldtooth]@Flyonawalk sceptics on the anti- dementor threads and general covid threads here helped with my sanity [/quote]
Me too - thanks to anybody who posted during that time as I really had started to think I was completely alone in finding the 'new normal' a dystopian horrorshow. Sending love and positive thoughts to anyone struggling out there. Xx

The madness is still going on - by which I mean refusal to debate and to share actual information.

A thread has just been deleted by Mumsnet, titled ‘This Can’t Be True?’ The OP asked about a high court challenge which failed last week - a mother asked the high court to unseal data about vaccine injuries with specific reference to teenagers. Mr Justice Jonathan Swift refused. Beverley Turner is invoiced and publicising. All this is true and easily verified.

Yet this forum deleted a threat about it! This kind of censorship is why so many people accepted punitive restrictions and lockdowns. People were not allowed to debate. Discussion is not the same as disinformation. Why don’t we allow intelligent people to have information and to interpret it?

One of the most terrible legacies of the last two years in my view - the silencing of any unorthodox option. So dangerous.

@Flyonawalk

The madness is still going on - by which I mean refusal to debate and to share actual information.

A thread has just been deleted by Mumsnet, titled ‘This Can’t Be True?’ The OP asked about a high court challenge which failed last week - a mother asked the high court to unseal data about vaccine injuries with specific reference to teenagers. Mr Justice Jonathan Swift refused. Beverley Turner is invoiced and publicising. All this is true and easily verified.

Yet this forum deleted a threat about it! This kind of censorship is why so many people accepted punitive restrictions and lockdowns. People were not allowed to debate. Discussion is not the same as disinformation. Why don’t we allow intelligent people to have information and to interpret it?

One of the most terrible legacies of the last two years in my view - the silencing of any unorthodox option. So dangerous.

I agree. And you can't be seen to be questioning why that is happening either

@Flyonawalk I was not aware of this. This is disgraceful and makes me think it's time I left Mumsnet, and I've been on here since 2009! I've no time for this censorship of reporting of facts and that's what this is. Shame on Mumsnet 😔

@Lilifer I know what you mean!

@TheChip That is so true - people are not allowed to question why they can’t question! It is disturbing.