[shmel]

Do you not find that your self-righteous comment about lockdowns is just about tone deaf as "I had covid, it wasn't that bad"? First of all, here are a couple more countries on the planet except the US.

Second, yes, great, you improved your marriage, I am really happy for you. But many people had it really bad. I can tell you what my life was in 2020-2021. In the first lockdown I watched my gf at the time going into a full-scale psychiatric meltdown and slowly losing grip on reality. I believe it was mostly caused by the stress of lockdowns. It completely destroyed our relationship because I didn't have experience nor expertise nor resources to be a full-time mental health nurse on top of everything else. All energy I had at that time I spent on trying to keep her from suicide (luckily I succeeded).

There were also periods when I was alone, totally alone, not seeing anyone IRL for weeks. This soul-crushing loneliness (together with lack of understanding from literally everyone) was the worst that I experienced in my entire life. If I could swap this horrific time for having covid five times in a row, I'd have done it without hesitation. If you told me that would mean 10% chance to die, I'd have done anyway. The only contact I had was occasional video chats with friends. Many of them were having more quality time with their partners and couldn't really relate why I was so miserable. Almost all of them recommended me more netflix to deal with this. It built up an awful lot of resentment. I lost some friends over this. Getting over a good friend telling you with a straight face "it is your fault you were unprepared for a global pandemic, if you started a family and had kids, you would have had it a lot easier" was pretty hard, believe me.

So for me lockdowns were devastating. Covid? YMMV, of course, but for me it was just a bad cold.

[michaelmrose]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Different people had different experience and I didn't understand people who are able to be together having such a challenging time. That is very illuminating.

On the other hand angry people like the prior poster comparing covid to flu usually leads one way. We start with it was just like a flu to ME to it IS a flu and all the doctors and scientists are lying to us and we can no longer trust science and if we believe people died at all either they all died of normal causes and were just labeled covid or as likely we pretend they were killed by the vaccine. Hey maybe we weren't going that way but we probably were.

Conspiracy theories aside nobody became a fat friendless alcoholic because of covid and I would in fact not hesitate to predict the alcohol was a factor in literally every other issue. User will not experience any kind of positive movement on any front until they take responsibility for putting the bottle down.

[shmel]

Look, I don't want to engage into discussions of statistics, flu comparisons and implications. It all boils down to an observation that most people are ready to make _some_ sacrifices for others, but also not too much, sort of "don't burn yourself trying to warm others". Some people didn't suffer too much during lockdowns and they perceived it as a minor sacrifice for the sake of society, old people and so on. Some even found it positive, they chilled out on furlough, they got new hobbies, they spent quality time with family and they don't understand why anyone is upset.

Some had it pretty bad and breached this altruism threshold. I personally flew past it very early. My life turned from "the best period of my life" in early 2020 into my worst nightmare pretty much overnight.

In early 2020 I barely drank at all. I had perhaps a glass of wine once a month or two. I remember I was horrified when I read a BBC article "try to have at least one sober day a week" early into the first lockdown. By the end of the third lockdown I realized I drank every single night for the last 3 weeks. While I feel hundred times better now than back then, I still find it difficult to not drink at all for a week. Alcohol isn't a cause of any problem, it is one of the most accessible coping mechanisms. It numbs emotional pain and distracts you from constantly thinking how much your existence sucks.