How were the lockdowns for you?

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looking back

Positive. I was in a role I still had to go to work for (HCW) and probably more stressful with the first than the second. Taking off all my 'outside' clothes before I got in the house, straight to the laundry and the shower initially not sure what I would bring home- then realising that if wearing appropriate PPE that wouldn't happen, I enjoyed the time spent at home with family, not needing to do anything except the home schooling, which he didn't find difficult and used as structure. I also accept I am fortunate I felt this way, and many didn't. I also don't. Assume everyone e had my experience, but it's a very mixed bag between those who didn't find it stressful or difficult and those who did.

Awful. Had to go to work and hated people who were just sat in their gardens for months on end and being paid for it. Terrified I’d being Covid home to my vulnerable DH.

Wish I’d been furloughed (wasn’t an option in my industry) as I’d have saved loads on petrol and could have sat in my garden like others.

Hard & something I never want to do again. We both worked from home very busy roles. Failed completely at home schooling. Eldest got very isolated and struggled with missing out on contact (that rare teenager who struggles with communicating online) she still now struggles with friendships. My youngest was very bored.

We don’t live near any family, I missed them.

My husband is a very social person, he has really struggled and still does (as most people he works with wfh) he misses actual people interaction. He had gone through depression and mental health issues the past year. Madness to think it was 2020 but the legacy and impact for us is still there.

I couldn't tell you. Some things mustn't be said.

First one was like a long holiday. Furloughed for 12 weeks, longest time I've had off work in 30 years. I really needed that rest actually and I got to spend some proper quality time with my ds.
The long one where my son's school was shut for 5 months, not so much. He'd was just 12 and had just start high school. He was home alone for 6 hours a day for 5 months as I work out of the home. That was tough. He's a total trooper though, studied the whole time whilst half his pals were slacking off/gaming. Had to grow up fast though.

Horrific. We were stuck in a flat with no outside space, we went on daily walks but this was the times where you couldn't even sit in the park and had to keep constantly moving. I was made redundant, we had a neighbour from hell who played drum and bass 24/7 and stunk out our flat with the smell of weed. I basically had a breakdown.

We have now moved to an amazing house, if another lockdown were to happen we would have a much easier time. Nice neighbours, a nice garden and a cul de sac so the kids can cycle and play out the front. I am in a more secure job (which got busier with covid) as well but there would be no furlough or anything as it would be all on us for policies.

Incredibly helpful.

We were dealing with a horrendous amount of trauma at home - my DSDs mum being arrested for sexually abusing them and the resulting police investigation, and the loss of my 22 week pregnancy and resulting medical issues.

Both the girls, my DH and myself were absolute messes, and we only saw the police, social services, medical teams, my parents and our close friends (neighbours). I remember saying to one of our designated officers when they turned up after a disclosure made by one of the girls 'I don't know how I'm going to get through this all without my mum' and she said she'd look the other way if mum came to support us. I've never been more grateful to an officer than in that moment.

If we have had to have dealt with school, social situations, work etc as well we'd all have collapsed - the people we saw were either immediately close or trained professionals and they carried us through. By the time we came out of lockdown we were managing a little better, and then when the shit hit the fan again with trials etc, we went back in! Was actually really bloody handy for us!

I think we were probably some of the only people who look back and thank fuck for the lockdowns, we wouldn't have coped under normal circumstances.

I worked in retail from the beginning of lockdown. The shocking behaviour of people. We should have put a ring of steel around older people who we always knew were more vulnerable. Instead my store manager opened the store for an hour earlier and they still came in every day especially couples. One told me no one was going to tell them what to do. Manager went to retirement complex behind us to ask that people didn’t come in every day and still they ignored. A few complained about the instore cafe being closed and one suggested we could give out free coffee whilst they were queuing.

Dont get me started on people hanging around the store waiting for hand sanitizer delivery. Least said about toilet roll gate the better….

Kids were sent home and they did have a certain amount of online classes because they attended a private school. My two nieces state school had very very little. Teachers just disappeared and the answerphone at the school wasn’t taking any messages because it was full.

Never want to go through that again because it brought out the most selfish behaviour in a lot of people.

Rant over!

I know it was an horrible time for many, but apart from being worried about family members, I have good memories of lockdown, especially the first part.
Dd was only 5 months old at the time, we had weeks of warm ,dry & sunny weather, spent lots of time in the garden & had breakfast & lunch outside every day. I enjoyed going for long walks with dd in the carrier. We discovered new parks and a nature reserve 20 mins from our house we never knew existed. Dh started working from home, he got to see all of dds ‘firsts’ sitting up, crawling, first words, involved in weaning. We spent more time together as a family, just us. He looks back at it fondly too. Silver linings.

My introverted husband loved the lockdowns but for gregarious me they were hell. I felt so separate from the world and the loneliness (despite DH, 2 x DS and a dog) was palpable. There were days I would just cry with my head in a cupboard so the kids didn’t see me. Homeschooling was a nightmare with younger DS who was year 2 at first lockdown and his fussy eating worsened and he only ate raw carrots and boiled rice for a couple of months, lost a load of weight and regressed a lot in his development. Older DS was ok but missed a lot of the basics taught in yr 7 which took a while to address.

The most horrendous time. 2020 was just an awful year for me in many ways anyway. Both me and my husband had to work from home whilst looking after our toddler due to nursery being shut. In hindsight, I really should have been furloghed. It really affected my mental health and only now just recovering from it all.
I don't look back on it being a special time spending it with my family, I look back on it being a very dark and stressful time of my life, one I wish to never repeat.

I'm a nurse so I worked through them which I was thankful for, I still had that social outlet of meeting lots of new people face to face and I became closer to my colleagues. My husband worked from home and did his postgrad from home for almost 2 years, he's an even more social person than I am so I definitely think he had it worse.

We are lucky enough that we live in a house with a decent size garden. We did a massive diy project on the garden during the first lockdown, dug up everything and put down new paving slabs on the patio, did a lot of planting and built a pergola. It was impossible to buy garden furniture that time because everyone was doing up the garden so we made our own out of pallets which came out better than imagined. It was a really fun project that kept us busy. For the 2nd lockdown we did a campervan conversion and had an amazing summer in 2021 traveling all over Ireland in it.

We had 2 massive trips cancelled, the first one in August 2020 we were booked to go to Peru, Brazil and Mexico. Second one in October 2020 to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Though we kept a positive attitude and counted our blessings during lockdown that was the biggest bummer for us. We did get refunded most of the money. We've had children since so I don't know when we'll be able to take those trips now.

So, while a shit time, it wasn't nearly as bad for me as others. I feel for anyone who lived alone and worked from home during it.

OK. DH and I were both working from home and our three DC were home schooling, which was tricky at times but could have been worse - they were old enough to get on with it fairly independently, and too young to be doing GCSEs or A levels. We have a garden. DC3 found it hardest (as he's the most extroverted of us and really missed his friends and activities), but no lasting harm.

Longer term, DH is still wfh 3 days a week which is a positive thing (nice to have him around more and saving money on commuting).

So it wasn't too bad for us, but I personally think it was the wrong decision in terms of the overall costs to society.

Kids were sent home and they did have a certain amount of online classes because they attended a private school. My two nieces state school had very very little

Sounds more like an individual school thing rather than state v private. My ds had a full 6 hours a day of online classes at his state schools (first lockdown primary, then high school).

Well, to be fair, some of us lived in countries where not so many people were dying.

Loved them. Went to work as normal in the NHS. It was great coming home knowing I had no other commitments.

Lockdown itself? First one, I managed. I went for as many walks as I wanted to secure in the knowledge I had decent neighbours who didn't care, we had a system that if one person was ill neighbours would shop for them. I did get VERY fed up of the people trilling about how much time they had in the garden with their children thanks to WFH because WFH for me was a shit show. No decent equipment and a manager who thought I should be able to do as good a job with a crappy laptop as I was with proper office equipment. I worked 12 hour days to try and keep up and still couldn't manage it. I was furloughed for 3 months and couldn't get back to the office first enough the minute I was allowed.

On the bright side, it gave me the impetus to get out of a toxic swamp of an office, but if anything illustrated the saying 'when people show you who they are, believe them,' and not just my employer and management, it was lockdown.

Awful - we were in the Middle East slap bang in the middle of summer. Couldn't even go out for a walk as it was too hot. No garden either. We put on an appalling amount of weight (I could cry when I look back at photos of us then ) and it affected my mine and my sons mental health and his attitude to school. My daughter is quite introverted so she was ok. We've since left and we are starting to repair the damage but it's taking time.

It was fine for me.

My son had a total ASD burnout 2 years before covid and had been out of school or on a part time timetable for that time. He wouldnt really leave the house and barely slept so i couldnt do things like pop to the shops, or go for a walk or eat out anyway. My husband was working abroad so it was a stressful time.

Then covid struck. My DH was furloughed and I had some help at home.

I still remember the feeling of liberation that I could go out for a walk whenever I liked! It was such a novelty just saying 'im off for a walk' and heading out.

No garden, either. Luckily I live in a place with a lot of parks and green space.

I liked the more relaxed pace of life. I enjoyed going for walks as a family at the weekend. I quite liked being inventive with Zoom meet ups and activities.

The homeschooling for my ASD child was horrendous. Her education and mental health has fallen apart now. I'm not sure if it is related to the lockdowns or if it would have happened anyway.

I felt very stressed about us getting ill and worried for older family members. We did all get Covid just before the vaccinations were rolled out as DH caught it through his work. It was awful. We were ill for weeks and took several months to properly recover. We did recover though and I think if we'd caught it earlier in the pandemic then I'd have coped better.

Awful. Three teenage children in the house getting absolutely nothing in the way of online learning from school and studying things like advanced chemistry which adults in the house couldn't help with.

Elderly parents struggling on with their own health concerns who refused to let us near them because they were so scared of what their neighbours would say.

The pointing and name calling and sheer NASTINESS from people around "stay the fuck at home" and "wear a fucking mask" and the shopping their neighbours to the police.

Local businesses desperately trying everything to keep afloat.

And now dealing with the ongoing economic shit show.

First one was probably one of the best times of my life- had come out of a horrendous breakup after my ex suffered a serious brain injury in 2019 and my daughter and I moved back in with my parents while we were selling our house, I felt like I'd lost everything and was struggling to cope. Lockdown came at just the right time, my younger brothers moved in too and we all got along so well. BBQs everyday, lost weight, walked, chatted, played games and most importantly my daughter and I found our new normal.

The ones after that were up there with my darkest ever days. Horrific.

Win some you lose some!

To continue we had a period where we couldn't leave the house for 20 days , when that lifted there were strict curfews in place. Supermarket visits were restricted to once a week and you had to book in advance - you couldn't just turn up. Police patrolling the streets. No clothes shops open only food. It was awful and something I never want to have to repeat. My kids spent the whole of the 20/21 school year online.

Thought it would be dreadful bc DD came home from uni with an ED (which we knew about - wasn't a surprise). And we weren't sure how we'd handle it. But weirdly my regime of one online shop with all the meals planned for the week really helped her. I'd been expecting meltdowns over wanting to go to Tesco for must-have items. But no. She just cracked on.

On the other hand we had caring responsibilities for my parents - dad had severe dementia. And that wasn't good at all. Heart breaking at how extra isolated they became :(