Covid. The big shift

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid turned into a hermit. Anxiety about getting COVID was high. This pandemic affected their learning and social development.

We had to play catch up getting them prepared to move away to college. Even then, there were gaps. They’d never used a debit card for instance. They rarely went out and, when they did, used our credit card.

The learned to drive “late.” Once they did, that helped to accelerate their growth.

They caught COVID finally and felt pretty sick. In a sense, it was probably good to finally catch it and get that over with.

Zoom and telehealth have saved me hours.

We missed saying goodbye to a dying parent due to hospital COVID protocols. Still hard to believe that.



Long COVID is a disease of inflammation, a doctor told me. I hope you feel better every day, OP.

How do teens end up with anxiety about covid? I truly don’t understand that

One read the news and when our aunt died of Covid, it galvanized into anxiety.

DP. You can't understand why telling kids and adults that reopening schools (even after vaccines) would cause mass sickness, disability, and death might spark anxiety about COVID?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

So you are happy that people are having trouble rebuilding their lives because they tried to control and shame others.

NP here
Fixed it for you.

And yes, I for one am very happy at ANY misery brought upon those who tried to force others into isolation, unwanted vaccinations, and other horrors. They fully deserve it.

This is exactly why it's hard to move on. People who are angry about COVID restrictions believe that anyone who followed them is equally as responsible for the measures and their consequences as those who made the decisions. Yes, every single person who tried to avoid contracting and spreading COVID was actively policing the activities of others, reporting them to authorities, lobbying for more and longer restrictions, and otherwise trying to make your life miserable. ALL OF US. We did nothing but try to ruin your life for more than two years. We deserve to suffer.

What exactly do you want here? If it’s sympathy and empathy you’re going about it the wrong way. You’re making things even worse for yourself.

[Anonymous]

I posted a thread some weeks ago about how I still don't feel back to normal since the pandemic started and how I just feel stuck and burned out after the stress of parenting and trying to take care of myself and my family through Covid. A lot of people told me to get over and that it doesn't matter anymore. I still feel like Covid was a "big shift" that I still haven't acclimated to, but that thread taught me that a lot of people don't view it that way at all and it was kind of a blip for them. Or there were people like in this thread, saying that Covid actually was good for them and made their life better.

I don't know how to reconcile it. I still mourn the loss of my pre-Covid life, and feel like the life I had been working towards just kind of slipped through my fingers during that lost year and the subsequent aftermath, and I still don't know what to do instead. I feel lost. But a lot of people think that's dumb. But I'm posting here to tell OP and anyone else who feels as I do: you aren't alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

"Common sense" was restored when we had vaccines.

Your lust for punishing people who "took COVID seriously" is noted. I get psychopathy vibes from you.

The self-appointed covid police were still loudly shaming well past vaccines being out and the only reason anyone went back to school was laws were passed (in VA at least) and our kids still spent part of that year wearing masks (aka chin straps/napkins/tissues). Please note I am not anti-mask I am anti-useless masks worn improperly by young children as virtue signaling. Always have been.

It wasn't common sense. You got forced and outnumbered eventually.

Not sure I understand your whines.

Unvaccinated are still 2.5x more likely to die and 1.7x more likely to be hospitalized in September 2023 (for age 65+ relative to someone vaccinated + at least one booster).

The vaccines still work to keep you relatively safer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid turned into a hermit. Anxiety about getting COVID was high. This pandemic affected their learning and social development.

We had to play catch up getting them prepared to move away to college. Even then, there were gaps. They’d never used a debit card for instance. They rarely went out and, when they did, used our credit card.

The learned to drive “late.” Once they did, that helped to accelerate their growth.

They caught COVID finally and felt pretty sick. In a sense, it was probably good to finally catch it and get that over with.

Zoom and telehealth have saved me hours.

We missed saying goodbye to a dying parent due to hospital COVID protocols. Still hard to believe that.



Long COVID is a disease of inflammation, a doctor told me. I hope you feel better every day, OP.

How do teens end up with anxiety about covid? I truly don’t understand that

One read the news and when our aunt died of Covid, it galvanized into anxiety.

DP. You can't understand why telling kids and adults that reopening schools (even after vaccines) would cause mass sickness, disability, and death might spark anxiety about COVID?

OMG you are all so soft. My dad has PTSD from the Battle of the Bulge (he was there underage - and still alive!) and Korea. Other relatives survived (barely) or didn't the Holocaust. I've personally seen the starvation and misery caused by Mao in China. Forty to eighty million dead from Mao's communism alone. Put the covid two years in perspective folks!

[Anonymous]

A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

"Common sense" was restored when we had vaccines.

Your lust for punishing people who "took COVID seriously" is noted. I get psychopathy vibes from you.

The self-appointed covid police were still loudly shaming well past vaccines being out and the only reason anyone went back to school was laws were passed (in VA at least) and our kids still spent part of that year wearing masks (aka chin straps/napkins/tissues). Please note I am not anti-mask I am anti-useless masks worn improperly by young children as virtue signaling. Always have been.

It wasn't common sense. You got forced and outnumbered eventually.

Not sure I understand your whines.

Unvaccinated are still 2.5x more likely to die and 1.7x more likely to be hospitalized in September 2023 (for age 65+ relative to someone vaccinated + at least one booster).

The vaccines still work to keep you relatively safer.

For age 65+. So not the young parents who were disproportionately impacted by the insanity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted a thread some weeks ago about how I still don't feel back to normal since the pandemic started and how I just feel stuck and burned out after the stress of parenting and trying to take care of myself and my family through Covid. A lot of people told me to get over and that it doesn't matter anymore. I still feel like Covid was a "big shift" that I still haven't acclimated to, but that thread taught me that a lot of people don't view it that way at all and it was kind of a blip for them. Or there were people like in this thread, saying that Covid actually was good for them and made their life better.

I don't know how to reconcile it. I still mourn the loss of my pre-Covid life, and feel like the life I had been working towards just kind of slipped through my fingers during that lost year and the subsequent aftermath, and I still don't know what to do instead. I feel lost. But a lot of people think that's dumb. But I'm posting here to tell OP and anyone else who feels as I do: you aren't alone.

Yep me too.
The lack of empathy on this thread is startling.
I lost several family members and close friends. I have two close relatives with long covid. I'm so happy that much of life is back to normal, but I still feel something like a loss of innocence or security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I’m sorry. That sucks. Hopefully at some point things will get back to normal for you.

We are fully back and have been for at least a year but we moved out of the DC area during covid. Kids school and field trips and 100% back. Our 7th and 8th grade trips (private school) involve flying and those are back as well. All social events are back as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

Agreed. Businesses cut services and raised price.

Every single daycare we've experienced in the greater DC area has not resumed their pre-COVID operating hours. Our current daycare was previously 730am to 6pm prior to COVID. Now? They are 8am to 530pm and will likely never go back to the pre-COVID hours.

The labor shortage due to COVID deaths, Boomer retirements, and astronomical cost of real estate is very real. It's affecting all frontline employers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid turned into a hermit. Anxiety about getting COVID was high. This pandemic affected their learning and social development.

We had to play catch up getting them prepared to move away to college. Even then, there were gaps. They’d never used a debit card for instance. They rarely went out and, when they did, used our credit card.

The learned to drive “late.” Once they did, that helped to accelerate their growth.

They caught COVID finally and felt pretty sick. In a sense, it was probably good to finally catch it and get that over with.

Zoom and telehealth have saved me hours.

We missed saying goodbye to a dying parent due to hospital COVID protocols. Still hard to believe that.



Long COVID is a disease of inflammation, a doctor told me. I hope you feel better every day, OP.

How do teens end up with anxiety about covid? I truly don’t understand that

One read the news and when our aunt died of Covid, it galvanized into anxiety.

DP. You can't understand why telling kids and adults that reopening schools (even after vaccines) would cause mass sickness, disability, and death might spark anxiety about COVID?

OMG you are all so soft. My dad has PTSD from the Battle of the Bulge (he was there underage - and still alive!) and Korea. Other relatives survived (barely) or didn't the Holocaust. I've personally seen the starvation and misery caused by Mao in China. Forty to eighty million dead from Mao's communism alone. Put the covid two years in perspective folks!

I hate these ridiculous over the top tragedy Olympics arguments. People lost businesses, jobs, homes, their mental health, and kids lost two years of education and socialization. It doesn’t have to be a large scale historic tragedy for people to have suffered. So stop guilt tripping people and calling them “soft.” You probably don’t know a damn thing about what some people in this country went through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted a thread some weeks ago about how I still don't feel back to normal since the pandemic started and how I just feel stuck and burned out after the stress of parenting and trying to take care of myself and my family through Covid. A lot of people told me to get over and that it doesn't matter anymore. I still feel like Covid was a "big shift" that I still haven't acclimated to, but that thread taught me that a lot of people don't view it that way at all and it was kind of a blip for them. Or there were people like in this thread, saying that Covid actually was good for them and made their life better.

I don't know how to reconcile it. I still mourn the loss of my pre-Covid life, and feel like the life I had been working towards just kind of slipped through my fingers during that lost year and the subsequent aftermath, and I still don't know what to do instead. I feel lost. But a lot of people think that's dumb. But I'm posting here to tell OP and anyone else who feels as I do: you aren't alone.

Yep me too.
The lack of empathy on this thread is startling.
I lost several family members and close friends. I have two close relatives with long covid. I'm so happy that much of life is back to normal, but I still feel something like a loss of innocence or security.

It’s hard to feel empathy for people who are still acting self righteous and holier than thou. Life moved and this people are just now realizing they’ve been left behind. Further insulting people who made different choices isn't going to get them the empathy they want. You get what you give.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

This. People replaced human interactions with dogs and social media. So boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no issue with government or institutions. They did the best they could with the information that they had and I doubt most or any of you could have done better.

I am sincerely affected in how I view my fellow Americans. The selfish disdain for others. The ignorance. Questioning experts based on their keyboard searches. I have little faith in people, their community concern, their kindness. And this manifests itself more and more every day, since COVID.

I’m affected by realizing how weak and neurotic so many of my fellow Americans are.

History will show that all these concerns are justified. Just because someone pays attention and thinks doesn’t mean they’re neurotic.

That’s not what I’m referring to.