People who haven’t really resumed socializing at levels they used to, people who lost the capacity to regulate during interpersonal interactions, people who lost trust in others… I encounter lots of partial returners out there
I’m in this post and I don’t like it. I used to be social as hell, now I’m almost a hermit.
Same, and honestly it eats me away inside
Were you in any particular transition during that period? Like high school to college or 20s to 30s? I wonder if that worsened the impact for people, if the social isolation happened to time with important life transitions
I miss the pandemic. Socially isolating meant I got to spend more time with my kids and extended family than I had in decades due to limited sports and other activities. And even work, while it didn’t stop (luckily), provided more valance - especialy more than now.
It’s amazing to see a perspective from such a different place on the spectrum. Spending more time with the kids is fine but watching them stagnate with little social life was really hard. I think it’s highly dependent on their age. Under 3: pure bonus for the kid because the parents are home more. 3-5: terrible for the kid because this is the time they’re supposed to be developing socialization with friends at preschool/school. 5-10: bummer but they got through it. My son got hit right in the 3-5 period. His social skills and life have still not fully cleared the cloud this put over him. Daughter was in the 5-10 and was able to get something out of remote school and limited access to her friends. Son got a raw deal.
It was also just physically so trying. You know how your day just goes differently when the kids are sick and don’t go to school? You have to attend to them the whole day through to make sure they are okay and not just stagnating on the couch and you can’t necessarily leave the house or do errands etc during the day like you normally would. It was like that, but for over a year, with lots of added stresses involved from the pandemic itself.
A scarring time. My job gave me something to focus on from home. But my wife, who is a full time parent, says she has never recovered.
I’ve had bad anxiety my entire life, but I never felt like I really had social anxiety before the pandemic. Now I have a hard time talking to pretty much anyone unless they talk to me first.
…hi.
…and that’s enough social interaction for today.
COVerts?
Intcoverts?
That’s pretty good, actually
When talking about people with ASD that’s called unmasking and is one of the main goals of therapy.
Assuming ASD stands for antisocial disorder, I didn’t realize there was therapy for it. I thought it was essentially just “I don’t like those people, and I don’t like THOSE people either…actually, I don’t like most people. I’m just going to keep to myself.”
Now, maybe I’m wrong, and ASD stands for something else.
Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
We don’t have a natural ability to infer emotions from body language, for a start. We have to learn to actively pay attention to it. Replacing natural instinct that a neurotypical person has with an active thought process is tiring, for a start.
Add to that most ASD people have trouble with emotional control, need to actively think about their own facial expressions, and often have social quirks that are unacceptable like nail biting which must be actively repressed… and being around others for hours on end is exhausting.
On top of this, most ASD people also have ADHD, and in the modern open office environment between the social aspect and never ending barrage of distraction, and the workplace is hostile, actively hostile to folks with ASD.
This combination of factors leads to having no where to unmask and relax until they get home. When they do, they are so exhausted from being something they are not for 10 hours (commute has to be included as its all public space) that when they get home they just shut down. They don’t call family or friends usually, they don’t get things around the house done. They have to turn off and try to re-energize themselves for doing it all again tomorrow.
I know all this as I am ASD and ADHD
Being able to work from home has brought actual balance to our lives as we can unmask the moment the camera goes off, we have rooms at home where we can close the door and remove distractions (well except mandatory work chats, but its a matter of muting that for focus) and at the end of the day we still have energy for our actual lives. In other words, this is the true work-life balance that I had always heard of but never truly felt I had.
Well, working from home it still requires discipline to optimize distractions, but it’s at least possible.
Absolutely, especially with ADHD in the mix. When demand aversion kicks in, your brain literally tries to undermine any attempt to focus unless you can force it to cooperate. Music usually helps me with this.
If it makes you feel better, they aren’t hostile to you for your conditions. They’re hostile to EVERYBODY. The world is just filled with shitty people, who enjoy making others lives awful. It’s also full of people who are just looking for every easy advantage and scheme the system has to be taken advantage of…even at the expense of others. They aren’t hostile because of ADHD and ASD. They’re hostile because you exist, and therefore maybe can be taken advantage of. And if you can’t be taken advantage of, then you’re of no use to them.
Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
That would be ASPD.
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I was never really social to begin with, so I just resumed being my normal introverted self.
Partial returners seems like a good name for it.
I know a person that had been in hospital most of their life so basically a 20 year covid-type of situation but for their own health. They are 24 now, and trying to socialize still even when they didn’t learn as a child-teen. I’m trying to help him but don’t know what to do since he’s such a unique case
Social Long-Covid?
Some lost their ability to regulate from everybody else being critically stupid, some see everybody still being dumb about it and aren’t gonna play such a transparently stupid game. Some got long covid, the worst outcome of all, the thing you wear a mask to stop.
Multiple causes.
those left behind
No…he means the ones just staying at home. Not the ones covid killed.
"he means the ones just staying at home. Not the ones covid killed. "
as far as I can tell, yes.
you call people killed by covid “those left behind”?
Do you not? Or is this like the sixth sense sort of thing, where they just kinda hang around for you?
…wait, am I bruce willis?
judging by your username, you share certain similarities with Bruce Willis.
and he seems to forget who he is these days, so yeah you might actually be Bruce Willis.
no, I’ve never heard covid victims called “those left behind”, that is a rather morbid bit of prose from your part of the world.
Avari.
The unwilling elves who refused the great journey!
Hermits
I feel like the weird one out because lockdown was absolute hell for me. I need my community and my people. I go crazy being stuck inside a small apartment with nothing to do. I’m not fully an extrovert, I do need my alone time, but I also need to be with people I love.
Yeah, I can tell that I get a little weird if I’m alone too long. And the time it takes is shorter since covid. I’m assuming from too much time alone during the peak period
Informed? Did the infection rates start dropping lately?
Yes, it started dropping years ago and is now less than 1% of peak infection rate. It is endemic now and treated like the flu. Keep living in a bubble for the rest of your life if you want, I guess.
Fun fact(s): The COVID strains that were active at the beginning of last year were actually more infectious and deadlier than the original COVID strains. The only reason we didn’t hear much about them is because, despite RFK Jr’s beliefs, the vaccines work. 443 people died from COVID in the US during the first week of November, even with the vaccines. There were about 15 deaths from the flu in that same week.
There are plenty of immunocompromised people who can’t get vaccinated who can no longer be in public without risking death now that COVID is endemic.
This is dumb.
I’ll be honest, the lockdowns were awesome for me. “Now you bitches get to see how I live.”
And the mad increase of online ordering, no contact pickup, and how people aren’t crawling up your ass in line at the grocery store anymore? I could not have hoped for better.
😌 It truly was the good old days when we just had a global pandemic to worry about.
I go out but I do most of my big shopping as delivery. I just can’t bring myself to go to Walmart very often. Most of my little shopping is at dollar stores. You know, the little things we used to get at what we used to call “milk stores.”
The impostor syndrome and such are crazy though, when working remotely from my dust and cockroaches box.
Gods do I miss social distance lines
I miss having free time without the impending pressure to do things.
I’m health wise OK but my wife isn’t for the rest of her life so I have to take precautions everywhere. I don’t mind because I really don’t like dealing with people anyway.
I do grocery pickup and go inside the store maybe four or five times a year now.
I haven’t been to the inside of a restaurant in over three years, we use patios and sidewalk tables outdoors.
I specifically only ever use gas stations where you pay at the pump.
I haven’t been to a mall or indoor space with people in years now.
I order everything else to my door.
I really don’t miss dealing with people and now find it completely weird and disorienting to deal with people in public now.
now find it completely weird and disorienting to deal with people in public now.
This is what I’ve been hearing (and experienced). And that it’s not a preference, it’s more that the nervous system has struggled to recalibrate; or there was not enough opportunity for it to do so and that has led to a feedback loop
Yeah it was certainly a net positive for some. Of course this post isn’t a criticism of those that enjoyed it, or were unaffected by it. But there is a sort of lost generation group, so to speak, too. That includes younger people who feel maladroit or disconnected in a way that they tie to that period. People who already struggled to socialize and the period made it worse enough that they never recovered
Yeah my youngest kid was on the middle of her second school year when the lockdown started. She was so anxious around people when in person school started again. She’s gotten somewhat better in the past couple years, but still not quite the same.
Yes some kids I know, it just sort of became how they identify: shy, more anxious
