Really struggling this week emotionally. Since Christmas eve I've just been burnt out emotionally. Christmas eve was a stressful day. Took a trip to Aldi, most shelves were empty and I had an asthma attack which triggered a panic attack in my daughter which in turn lead to her being like an emotional volcano for the rest of the day and me worn out. Then during the night our Christmas tree randomly fell (no idea how) broken bauble shards everywhere, nightmare to clean up. Had to improvise many things. Christmas day the oven decided to play silly buggers and we were frustrated inside so took Christmas buffet style snack dinner to the garden for a Christmas picnic, saw some neighbours which was nice. And went back in for restful evening. I cried myself to sleep Christmas day and I've felt dulled since. It wasn't a bad day I'm just worn out and hopeless. Bin men coming tomorrow and I can't be arsed sorting all the rubbish out. I will, always do, but just can't see the point. Next year isn't gonna be any better. This year's been rough but next year will be worse. Cos benefits get cut, the vaccine means poorer families will be made examples off if we don't buck up. For more well off families, they've got more wiggle room to adjust to new situations, it's harder when you've less money cos less too look forward too, less opportunities, less options, less motivation. My daughters birthday in a couple months, two pay days tween then and now, so I'm trying to prep for that (she's happy to keep it simple and I have found bouncy castle at a discount so all under budget but still hard to get excited). Tomorrow I get paid. We had planned to visit the local town, get some bits for her birthday in the Christmas sales. But she saw the news today, our local hospital half the beds are covid patients. Half the whole hospital. Our local Dr's are messaging online begging people to be more careful, more thoughtful, etc. My daughter saw some of this and said to me today "I'd rather risk having nothing for my birthday than us catching the virus." which, big super proud mummy, but its so sad that she's thinking in such mature ways at such a young age. So we've agreed to stay home and see what we can get online for her. I just feel so hopeless. People today in Facebook were saying how 2021 will be better than 2020 and I had to laugh. I said that nothings gonna feel normal again until 2023 at least. Cos once the virus threat is sufficiently minimised, which won't be fully until 2022 cos vaccines take time to get around everyone enough to make a impactful difference, but that once the risk of death is gone we're gonna be a nation in grief. Grieving our lost loved ones. Grieving the lost health of the millions who now have new complications to add to their daily stresses. And we're gonna be angry. The anger we've seen from people this year is nothing compared to the anger we'll see when fear stops holding half of us back and grief fuels vengeance and social unrest. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. I'm not sure how we'll, as in me and my family and other low income families, will be able to cope through those rocky angry years. We already get the spiky end of the stick, how much worse will it get for us before we're actually treated like legitimate members of society regardless of our income or work status. When will we stop being punished for mistake those with money make.
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Covid Realities
is a collaboration between the Universities of
York and Birmingham, and
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