Membury services in the M4, April 2023. “Do you remember when we were here during lockdown?” asks my husband. It’s probably the only loo stop that is etched on my memory forever. We all had a moment at the start of the pandemic where we looked round and thought “hang on, is this the apocalypse?”, and mine happened in that car park in May 2020. We pulled off the empty motorway and found we were the only car parked at the normally rammed services. The automatic doors pulled apart and I stepped into semi-darkness, all the shops and cafes shuttered. It was creepy as hell, and seemed more likely I’d see a zombie stagger out from behind the arcade games than a friendly face. I was so scared of catching covid from the toilet door handle that I just went to the loo with the door open - who was going to see me?
Even the drive itself - an escape to my parents’ house in wales, felt (and probably was) illegal. “What if the police stop us?” my husband asked. Let them, I thought. Let them come and arrest me if they fancy. I was completely past caring.
It’s only with hindsight that I can see just how nuts I was during the various lockdowns, so I find it interesting that as a society we’ve pretty much dusted the experience under the carpet. Understandably, everyone just wants to forget and move on. Or, when we do discuss lockdown, it’s a bit jokey - remember when we all made banana bread and did zoom quizzes?! LOL.
Then again, we don’t have the time or resources to all sit around analysing our trauma, so it does sort of make sense to just march on merrily (those who are not still living under the thumb of covid, that is). But when I allow myself some retrospection, I’ll admit that lockdown - and the fact it occurred around the same time I had my first baby, making the experiences inextricably linked in my psyche - left a big scar.
I struggled a lot with early motherhood. My daughter was born 12 weeks before the first lockdown, and many people assured me that around the 12 week mark babies start to get easier. Unfortunately, we had the opposite experience. In hindsight, I reckon my daughter probably had silent reflux or some other digestive issue, but when I took her to the GP during the first throes of covid the doctor came out in full PPE and would barely examine her. “Babies cry a lot” seemed to be the general advice - but why was mine crying all the time? And how could my NCT friends join zoom calls with their babies sitting quietly on their laps, while I had to send her with my husband to the other end of the flat in order to muffle her screams while I tried to chat normally?
Having a baby that screams all the time is a form of psychological torture (fun fact - apparently it’s used to train Navy SEALS!) It felt impossible to admit I was struggling at the time, because you know - people were working in care homes and hospitals, and/or dying. But competition over who is having the crappest time doesn’t really help anyone, and trying to put a brave face on things and tell everyone I was fine didn’t help me. I remember standing in the shower (the only place I could find some quiet) and fantasising about packing a bag, leaving the house, and getting on pretty much any train or a plane to run away from all of it. Obviously I’d never have done this, but I almost needed a physical way to express how mad I was feeling, because I struggled to find the right words.
Only towards the end of 2021, when things were semi back to normal, did I really start to address what I’d been burying. This was prompted by a weird new habit where I’d walk past a cafe, see a bunch of new mums enjoying maternity leave together and immediately burst into tears. Now I’m no psychologist, but there was clearly some squashed down *feelings* about the “new mum experience” I’d been expecting to have and didn’t. I was also, I realised, absolutely fuming about the support that had been taken away: the weekly baby check-ups at the GP practice where I could’ve got some medical help, the baby classes that are mundane as hell but feel like a lifeline when you’ve been at home on your own being screamed at all day. It was indescribably cruel how certain groups of vulnerable people were complete thrown under the bus, and I was raging.
At the beginning of 2022, I went for a GP appointment which was actually for my daughter, but when the doctor asked how I was, I just cried and cried and cried. She tried to prescribe me antidepressants but I knew I wasn’t clinically depressed; I was just sad about a situation that was really sad. It did lead me, however, to find a great therapist (I’m a female millennial in London, of course I’ve had a therapist), which helped me unpack a lot of the feelings I’d locked up in a big black box marked “do not touch”. And then I felt much better.
There was a tweet from the BBC that went viral last month: “Mental-health crisis from pandemic was minimal, study suggests”. The collective response was basically “HA! Yeah right”. I’m sure my friends who were living alone during covid, or gave birth by themselves in hospital, or had existing conditions like OCD and anxiety would be inclined to disagree with the study. In fact, most people had their struggles to bear, and while we’d largely like to forget about that whole crappy time, it’s also okay to give yourself a little pat on the back for getting through it. Or, as I did, treat yourself to a croissant and posh apple juice from Waitrose in Membury services, just because you can.
❤️❤️