I (23M) am becoming increasingly aware that my regular exposure to political content seems to be incompatible with my own mental well-being.
I was raised by two narcissistic parents, one of whom was violent. I have very few positive or loving memories. My trauma turned my brain into a 24/7 threat detector. I’m constantly thinking about everything and everyone that could kill me or take everything I have.
The Internet has taught me that the world is less awful than the hellish place I came from. But I’ve hit a wall where I can’t get better because I am constantly being reminded by well-meaning people that everything in the U.S. is going to shit.
My trauma narrative eats this stuff up. It sees fascists on the streets, impending financial and ecological crises, the dangers of cars, widespread hyperindividualism, the decline of third spaces, and constant phone and social media use. Then it says, “Nobody can be trusted because capitalism makes everyone shallow and selfish. Going outside is dangerous because of cars and fascists. Most people don’t want to socialize because they are too busy. There are no good places to meet anyone. Everyone who does socialize is just a fair-weather friend because support is outsourced to paid therapy and the eroding welfare system. I’ll never be good enough for a partner because I can’t build a stable life and dating apps are designed to not work. Any job I get won’t last long because of the collapsing economy. Going to college is too financially risky. There is no stability. Nothing good ever lasts. My progress will be wiped out by systemic forces far beyond my control.”
It seems like U.S. politics is about instability and collapse at this point, and because I have so few positive memories, it feels like life itself is about instability and collapse. Your money, your job, your social circle, your health, everything you’ve worked for – all of it could just go up in smoke tomorrow. I can’t take anything for granted or have any confidence in the future. I can’t fully enjoy anything because I’m too busy thinking about how I’ll cope with its inevitable loss.
Is this really what life is? Just watching every good thing disappear? Being born into a mostly-functioning society just to watch it fall apart? Knowing you’ll have to weather every struggle alone because people only care about themselves? Being promised a stable life and career all throughout school only for the rug to be pulled at the last minute?
There has to be more to life than this.
Is staying on the Internet really worth it?
(Also yes I go to therapy, I’m working on myself but that shit is hard af sometimes)
Yes and no.
Yes, in that it does and will affect you, and you do need to take an interest. You need to vote in every election you can, you need to stay involved, you need to make a stand. Without that we will lose everything we care about. Those in power have shown that they are happy to chip away at things, but as soon as any opposition is shown they start backing down.
No, in that your life is your own, and you can’t let politics dictate your life. As someone with a ton of anxiety, I cannot read the news daily, I do not subscribe to the news communities, I have to stay away from it. I choose to live my life and make the most of it, living day to day. My family and friends are the most important to me, and I spend my time enjoying them. I came very close to crumpling into a deep depression due to the news, and then got help. It was a hard lesson in learning I cannot personally change everything, and I cannot hold myself responsible for everything that has happened.
Confused? Good. It’s a personal journey, you have to pick and choose yourself, and draw your own lines and figure out where your responsibility is and when you’ve done your part. I stay educated, I know what’s happening, I know who I’m voting for, I know when to stand up. That does not mean I need to stay glued to my computer and doomscroll. You’ll have to draw your own line.
Just a note about voting in some places, it may not matter anymore. I’m not saying don’t vote, most people still should but how shall I put this…
Billionaires and private equity bought Dominion and all the other voting machine manufacturers. The “changes” to election integrity departments of the government are also… Notable.
Yah. I don’t have a solution but chances of voting our way out drop by the day
I’d say if you are able to maintain steady income, friends, interests, don’t live in an active war zone or other disaster area, and have a few other lucky circumstances like that, you can (at least for now) have a reasonably happy existence. You don’t have to ignore or deny the terrible stuff going on elsewhere. There have always been wars and poverty happening, but it’s ok to respond more to your sense of your immediate surroundings (where things are going ok) than to your sense of bad stuff happening in remote times and places.
The internet and political news reminds us that bad times may be coming for everyone due to global warming, AI propaganda from encroaching dictatorships, and all that stuff. Don’t ignore that. Oppose it if you can. But, don’t let it overcome your hopefully-reasonably-good existence in the present.
Certainly, if spending all day on the internet makes you neurotic, then try to cut back on it. Some people choose to eliminate it completely from their lives, at least for a while. I haven’t done that so don’t know if it helps.
Don’t forget being straight and white, otherwise you’re persecuted by religion and the government
It all depends on what kinds of privilege you have access to. If you’re a cishet (or at least bi and in a straight-passing relationship) white dude with a decent job, you’re probably doing just fine right now, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Barring some major catastrophe like war, there’s very little that politicians will do to disrupt the day-to-day lives of someone in that kind of demographic. It’s important to remember that “being able to disengage from politics because no policies will target you regardless of who is in power” is a form of privilege, and a rather large one at that.
As an American who has had to flee states due to political persecution, my saying of late has been:
“You can ignore politics. Politics will not ignore you.”
No, life is both. Within it is the most grandiose beauty you could ever imagine, alongside unspeakable horrors. Both heaven and hell take their inspiration from the mortal plane.
That last line is pure poetry.
I feel much the same as you. I’m quite a bit older too. I’ve lost all faith in our systems and actively hate most of the people around me. The only thing keeping me sane is my small group of best friends. Without them, I’d have snapped a long time ago. Things definitely look bleak and if they don’t change quickly and dramatically I doubt we’ll make it. I wish I could help more, but I know misery loves company.
You would probably appreciate developing direct personal connections. Could be irl or on the internet, just not super anonymous text based stuff like Lemmy.
Humans are a product of their circumstances, they can change over time, there is diversity within a community. Overly broad brushing can lead to a despair like you’re describing and it’s good to remember it’s not accurate. At the same time it is good to be aware of tendencies and patterns because the risks you mention are real in various pockets and subsets of society. The best protection against them is relationships with everyone else, and particularly those who are opposed to and organize against, for example, fascists.
I’m 48. Grew up without Internet, without cell phones, without fox news.
When 9/11 happened fox became one of the hottest news outlets. I started watching it all the time. Then I started listening to Rush, Glenn Beck, And Michael savage. It was literally changing my thought process. To the point I didn’t recognize myself. With that self realization and some friends and family commenting that I turned into a asshole.
I shut that shit off permanently and it took awhile but I finally recognized myself and vowed to do better.
Fight for the causes you believe in. Everything else tune out as much as possible it’s the only thing that has kept me sane since Trump’s second term. I limit myself to 30 minutes of world news a day.
Don’t click or read anything that outrages you, you can always find a summary on reddit or here without giving the right wing media views.
20 plus years of fox News has destroyed this country. And nobody seems to remember a time when most headlines weren’t rage bait or just fkn gossip
I’ve read enough in my life to know that I’d rather be alive now than any other time in human history. I also acknowledge that I’d rather be living where I am than a pretty decent chunk of the rest of the world.
But I also acknowledge that with all the advancements in science and technology things should be a whole hell of a lot better/easier than they are, but they aren’t because of the greed of a relatively small percentage of our species preventing us from accessing those advancements and preventing us from achieving further social progress. Things really don’t need to be this much of a struggle in the 21st century.
There’s no such thing as utopia, but we absolutely have the means to be lot closer to it than we are and that’s supremely frustrating. Especially if you’re like me and accept that you’re not going anywhere other than the permanent void after you take your last breath.
It feels like we’re 2 feet from the finish line but our feet have been nailed to the asphalt by assholes who’ve placed bets against us crossing it.
The bottom line is you have to do what’s best for your mental health so you don’t suffer every minute of every day. The strategy for that is different for everyone. For me it’s keeping close tabs about what’s going on in the country/world during the work week when I’m stressed/pissed about being at work anyway, then totally checking out completely on weekends. No social media. No news. Nada.
Personally, I don’t think it’s right to bury your head in the sand completely. The truth is that if you live in the U.S. we ARE going backwards. Our rights ARE being infringed. Our quality of life WILL decline if we remain on the path we are currently on. But everyone checking out will only accelerate the decline and push us past a point of no return.
Find your strategy. Force yourself to unplug on some sort of recurring schedule so you get the framework of the awful shit happening but maybe not the non-stop gory details. You don’t necessarily need every detail in order to maintain your moral compass. And you certainly don’t need every detail if you want to keep your sanity.
Get a hobby. Find people in your area that share that hobby. Form social groups around that.
You do realize that, as an adult, you can just start a club, right? Why do you think your high school had all those clubs and activities in it? The hope was that you could keep doing things like that as an adult. Every aspect of schooling is meant to serve as practice for adulthood.
Hell, you could start a “third places” club. Get a number of people together. Every Saturday afternoon, on a rotating basis, someone’s home becomes a “coffee shop” that everyone goes and hangs out at. Don’t even need to plan a lot of programming. You don’t need to worry about any kind of business license, as you’re not running a business. It’s just a friend group that holds rotating social gatherings.
The Universe gave you an imagination for a reason. USE IT. Find something that interests you or some need in your community. Find others with that passion or interest. Find something that brings you joy and meaning, something within the limits of your talents and resources. If it doesn’t exist, will it into being.
Build the world you want to see. The labor will buy your sanity.
No it isn’t. It is fucking great.
Life is good, if you work hard at it.
That’s just not a fact.
You can bust your ass forever and end up with nothing.
Well, I sure didn’t mean owned possessions, but I imagine there are a few exceptions to every rule (or gut feeling, or hunch).
If you think there is something wrong with the world then try to change it. Life is worth living when it’s meaningful.
There are lots of things going on at once and all of them are valid. I struggle, too. My life is pretty good, from a global standard, while many, many others’ lives are much worse. Happiness is wildly unevenly distributed.
As people have stated, some things are good, some are bad.
The most important factor for anyone answering you is are they even aware of their privilege or lack thereof.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned, is the fact that based on the wealth and progress of the world, basically none of the issues that remain, should.
This is the absolutely unbelievably infuriating part, and it’s made worse because people will come into forums like this, and say “bruh I have a mini computer that does everything and the 60s didn’t even have civil rights”. That’s a complete false equivalence that means NOTHING.
Unfortunately, right now oligarchy is rampant, fascism is categorically and indisputably on the rise, and a few billionaires are actively deploying all the money and losers they can to keep shit shifting wealth, and power in their direction.
If we do not stop them soon, they will quite literally burn the world down for a fucking dollar.
It’s great to take advice here and exist in a bubble, but society is not a bubble.
In other words “I don’t care about politics” or “I can’t look at it because of X reason” are really great thoughts, but politics absolutely gives a shit about you and it will decide your future with or without your input.
Stay away and don’t support right wing states, corps, people and life is pretty great.
Example spend your money in NY instead of Florida etc
Don’t go to places that are anti “some minority” becuase they are filled with angry shitty people
A lot of what you see online is people making the perfect the enemy of the good, intentionally divisive foreign propaganda, and extremists trying to get you mad about their thing. Houses really are a lot more expensive than they were in the middle of the 20th century but compared to the rest of human history that period was the outlier, now things are just returning to ‘normal’.
