I'll grant they were a pain. I don't miss them. They didn't make my life miserable, though.
> got harassed by random strangers when going to the store
Why? Not my experience at all (unless you were refusing to wear a mask).
> had my medical appointments delayed for several months
I can see that being a major problem if you have medical conditions.
> people I knew were dying
Same here. It definitely sucked, but I didn't get depressed by it. I think it comes down to expectations in life. If you go through life thinking "people in their 30s aren't supposed to die", then yes, I can see it being depressing. If you go through life with "one can die any time - be it from disease or a car accident", then a pandemic isn't much of a shock.
To give a different perspective: Long before the pandemic, people I knew died in places like Palestine and Iraq due to conflicts. Yet the whole world lived a happy life despite it. Is this all that different?
> there were shortages of basically everything
I got lucky. We happened to accidentally buy an extra set of Clorox wipes just prior to the pandemic. We were going to return them and then the pandemic hit. I was never short.
Hand sanitizer shortages sucked. We certainly conserved our use, and were fortunate never to run out.
As for everything else, I didn't deal with any serious shortages. Somehow always found paper towels, bathroom rolls, soap, etc. And things like cars/appliance shortages - these are not meaningful quality of life things for me.
> and the news cycle was full of panic and anger
If this caused you depression, I say this with the utmost sincerity: I hope you learned not to waste time with the news. I was a news junkie for many years, and had cured myself of it years before the pandemic hit (and thankfully never jumped on the social media bandwagon). Video news is the worst, and has almost no redeeming value. You can get much, much more from text sources.
> And the pre-existing problems with the Internet somehow got even worse.
I guess I'm fortunate in that my Internet never had problems.
BTW, I'm not claiming it was great for the majority. Merely pointing out that for many - albeit a minority - it was an improvement on life.
Being able to go for walks on days of nice weather in nice neighborhoods during work hours can be a major improvement on one's mood.
As long as we avoided the news.
But being an introvert didn't fix anything else. I had to constantly cycle through masks, got harassed by random strangers when going to the store, had my medical appointments delayed for several months, people I knew were dying, there were shortages of basically everything, and the news cycle was full of panic and anger. And the pre-existing problems with the Internet somehow got even worse.