'I've lost ninety percent of my income and am cut off from my isolated mother.'

This is John's story. He lives in the province of Munster in the Republic of Ireland.

My story is not extreme. It will not bring anyone to tears, nor will it make any headlines. I share it only as an example of the insanity we’re all going through, in all its minute, specific, banal detail.

I live in Ireland and my partner works in England, as a paramedic. During the lockdown, we were apart for three months; in recent months, he has been able to return once every three weeks, for about three or four nights. Otherwise, I’ve been alone for most of the year. In the initial period of this insane overreaction, I immediately lost all of my work, which I don’t see returning. I am self-employed and my sources of work have largely accepted the idea that ‘things will never be the same again’. Without going into the details of my job, that basically takes away 90% of my income.

My mother is also alone. A fortnight ago, she fell over and fractured her wrist. I have not been able to help her as I am here in Ireland. Even if I was back in England I wouldn’t be able to do very much with all the restrictions. This year has been a nightmare for her as her social contact has rapidly shrunk and all I can do is daily texts and Skype calls. I feel like a failure as a son. She is scared of Covid, largely believing the inflated ‘casedemic’ figures, and I can’t seem to put her mind at ease. The force of the media is astonishing.

Every time I try to talk to friends about the real statistics I am accused of ’not taking this seriously’ — as if the definition of ’taking things seriously’ is not doing rigorous research and ignoring thousands of reputable dissenting scientists and instead blindly panicking. 

I always ask small business owners when I go out to the shop how their trade is; nearly all are convinced that this is a plague. The other day I got this response from one: ‘well, we’re going to have another lockdown because of all these mask-dodgers, and another ten thousand people will die’. I was about to point out the HSE statistics for Covid deaths in Ireland (only just over 100 for ‘deaths from’, and under 2000 for ‘’deaths with’) but I took one look at his face and realised that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

We have all gone mad.

Thank you for setting up this blog. 

You can email your story to lockdownsdestroylives@gmail.com. 

Please limit your story to a maximum of 1200 words. If you want to remain anonymous that's fine but please include what town/city and region of Britain or Ireland/Northern Ireland in which you are resident. I will do my best to respond to every email. However, it will depend on the volume I receive. I endeavour to publish as many stories as I can and while I appreciate and respect people sharing their stories it may not be possible to publish every submission.