My Life So Far In Lockdown

TW // alcohol and drug abuse, depression, anxiety, grief, eating disorders.

The following is just my own (very brutally honest) account of my own experience in the last year in lockdown.

I still remember the day we first went into national lockdown last March. It was really sunny and we had just done our event for uni. All of my roommates had moved back home knowing we were going into lockdown so I was living totally alone, but I quite liked that because I enjoy being in the house alone; I can sing loudly, play music loud, make food whenever I want. What followed in the first few weeks of lockdown was this big anxiety. Back then we didn’t know what it was, how long things were going to be like that (until things eased), and the fear of getting COVID was on an all time high. I'd have these little panic attacks if I spent too much time looking on Twitter and the news and reading everything the government was saying. It never made any sense and didn’t put anyone's minds at rest.

There was actually a brief time last year at the start where I was really positive. Pre-lockdown my grandad had died so I was grieving, I was on high medication which made me overly tired all the time, and because of my grandad dying I soon ran out of money and was basically helpless. I've spent the good part of the last year broke, occasionally starving myself because I couldn’t afford food. Lockdown has for sure gotten me exhibiting some of the symptoms I had when I had an eating disorder. There was a time in the beginning of lockdown where it was really sunny, we'd had our uni work extended by a month so I had time to calmly do my work, I was getting up and exercising in the house, I started properly making my own food. I just had time to do things I'd struggled to do before lockdown. I used to have classes three times a week and because of my medication and mental state I would come home from uni at 1-2pm and go to sleep because I was always exhausted. That's something I felt happy about at the start of lockdown. I had the time to do things for myself because I wasn't going into uni or work or doing anything out of the house.

Something else that was obvious to me before lockdown was my drinking problem. Every time I'd drink after my grandad died I could just feel this guilt and that I wasn’t doing it for fun, there was a reason behind it. I fell into a deep depression, not able to get out of bed, letting my room pile up, not showering, so I went out and drank a lot. In lockdown, around April-May, my drinking was its worst. I was drinking daily and I couldn’t just have one glass. If I had a bottle it would all go. And I would order alcohol to my flat which made it cost double the amount if I just bought from the shop. And yes I was broke but any time I got a little bit of money for food shopping I would spend it on alcohol first. This resulted in a fucked up sleeping pattern when I wasn’t drinking. Its almost been a year and I still can’t sleep before 3am at the earliest. At this time I was up until 6-7am every morning even when I had uni or an appointment. There were times where I did drugs during my alcohol binges (alone in my room). I can’t even really say how I got out of this hole, but when I moved home in June to me and my grandads home I just stopped needing to drink, although whenever I do I still can’t stop at one or two glasses, but I'm not doing it on my own anymore.

The best part of lockdown for sure was the summer last year. The sun just made the time feel nicer. I've realised how much I want that back since these last few months of cold and snow. When I was back home I'd sit in my garden where next doors cat would come through this little hole in our fence and sunbathe on our grass. I wasn’t drinking all the time so I would get up at a fairly good time and make my own food. I had my dad to take me places. It was weird being home and not going out with my friends though. That time in 2019 I was going to a different festival every month, going to bars and clubs with my friends, going to concerts and drag shows. It's been a year since I've seen my friends and usually whenever I go home its to go out, but I didn’t see anyone over summer or Christmas. I grew a lot last summer as a person. I became more confident with my stomach. I experienced having feelings for a girl for the first time and realising that I'm pansexual. I've now deleted all of my dating apps because I just felt like I wasn't valuing myself how I should, it felt like I just wanted to be with someone and I would act lesser than my true self around people I like. I couldn’t remember the last time my life wasn’t about finding someone and that’s really sad. I feel much freer now.

Lockdown was considerably harder during this winter. Lowering my meds has completely been the best thing I have done for myself and I feel so much better now that I can feel things. But with that has been learning how to feel again and how to deal with lower moods which I have not felt for a year and a half. I now have responsibilities and jobs to do all the time because of uni, which I love because I hate having nothing to do, but it is challenging. The coldness of the weather here has been troubling too and very unmotivating. But the suns coming out again and I feel that lockdown is going to be much more manageable soon.

Most of this has been accounts of very negative things that I have experienced due to lockdown, but there has been a lot of good from it too. I have more time for myself, self care, my music as well as my uni work and side projects. I talk to my friends more than I did before. I've watched lots of films I never had the time to before, listened to different music, read more books, educated myself in areas I hadn't before. I've started painting and going on weekly walks. When gyms were open I would make much more of an effort to go to the gym 2-3 times a week. I eat much better and have recently became pescatarian. I have met more people through apps and instagram or twitter than I would have bothered before because I want to meet more people. Having a lot of time can be overwhelming and unmotivating, but it can also give us the space to do things we wouldn't have done in normal life before the pandemic.

I hope something in this account of my experience in the last year is relatable or helps someone, just to know that someone else has experienced the same thing. I know that we don’t talk about the fact people have been drinking more or not eating properly because we're always bombarded with problems that seem bigger than ours. I constantly see comments under posts about real struggles with people saying how much worst it is for them because they're a health worker or they’ve lost their job to COVID or they’ve lost someone to COVID. People have stopped making space for other struggles or issues. But it shouldn’t be like that.

-S x