Covid, Brexit ... can life get any worse?

DEAR BEL,

ADD me to the long list of struggling people. I’m not sure I even care about getting Covid or really anything much any more.

I’ve been in lockdown virtually alone since March. My relationship broke up around then and I had to move to my current location, where I didn’t know anyone (I’d moved jobs just before the first lockdown).

I live in a low-risk area, mainly countryside. It’s been purgatory for many weeks and I cry each day from loneliness, boredom, frustration and anger. Various organisations can help but only so far and volunteer work has also been put on hold.

I’m now officially unemployed, living off £616 a month for everything, including my mortgage. I’m nearly 60, not able to retire, applying for jobs every day, but realising there may not be anything for me out there. This is one of the worst aspects: no hope.

We are in Tier 2, but where can I go outside? I can’t afford a pub meal or even a takeaway coffee. A walk round the park in the cold and rain?

I would like to visit my adult children over Christmas, but they are in the North-West and the South-East, both in Tier 3 and both working from their homes for months.

But why would I when there would be no hugging, no pubs/clubs/theatres etc open, and restaurants operating on reduced space and bookings?

And how would we distance in their small-ish residences, which they share with other tenants? Ditto them coming to me — I have even less space.

This is all so very hopeless. There is no one in government or in high places going through all this alone every day, with insufficient funds. And with no real hope that it will be better even when Covid passes on. Just the insecurity of Brexit to come. Could life get any worse?

NAOMI

EveN when I can easily understand why somebody sees no hope on the horizon, I always find it hard to agree with total negativity. As you say, you are not the only one struggling with the perfect storm of this awful year. Apart from Covid and the current uncertainty over Brexit, you moved home and lost both your relationship and your job.

Living in isolation has clearly taken you to the brink and I feel so much sympathy for you, feeling so lost, hard-up and full of despair (remember, you can always call the Samaritans day or night for free on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org).

And, yes, I think you are right when you suggest the powers- that- be haven’t a clue what it’s like to live like that. Personally, I have never in my life felt so disillusioned with our ruling class, from the Prime Minister down to all the quangocrats and cronies and virtue- signalling ‘ stars’ who wouldn’t survive two days in real life with real problems like yours.

But I said I will not give in to negativity — and let us not. It seems to me that your unwillingness to make any plans to be with family at Christmas is a great pity — and indicative of a depressed state of mind.

You ask, ‘ Why would I?’ and my answer is simple: ‘To spend time with people whom you (I hope) care about.’ If the alternative is staying at home all alone, then I urge you to contact your adult children and make a plan.

even if you pledge to wear a wretched mask indoors in one of their homes, and make a real effort to stay two metres away (surely that is possible?), you can then work out a short visit.

I believe it could do you the world of good. Why won’t you even think about it? Because you are miserable. Will staying home alone make you much, much more miserable? Of course it will. So phone one or other of them and make a plan today.

You see a future that is irredeemably worse even than what we know today. I do not.

Recently, I was standing in the street with my 96-year-old mother (we go out and about because we choose to take responsibility for our own lives), when she sighed and said: ‘Isn’t it strange, hundreds of years ago people suffered plagues and things like that.’

Yes, the human race has suffered and survived and gradually life improves, despite despair, despite war, despite every setback. Surely it’s vital to remember that whatever Brexit delivers, it will still be nothing like the aftermath of World War II?

So plan a Christmas outing. even if you tell your family you don’t need a present, just a ticket — please gO!