Emotionally drained by the news in the world.

[Illbeok]

I feel like the world is going crazy and I am getting so anxious about everything. I've always had anxiety and managing my depression at the bay. And the news tells me there are wars, bad politicians doing unthinkable things, AI is taking over, a market crash is coming, and so on. (The biggest is the climate change and these bushfire news makes me cry and feel powerless.) I feel like these issues are my own and keep donating money and feel financial stress at the same time (by the way some donations are not even tax deductible). I worry that we will become unemployed and Australia will become like these countries with high unemployment rates or the climate change will cause food shortage, the US will take over these key geopolitical locations by force and the world is divided into 3. I watch Eckhart Tolle or do mindfulness practice to stay in the "Now" but it is very hard not to worry about the future for me and everybody else's. I don't have friends so I cannot talk about it to anyone. The problem is that I cannot just shut it out. I need to look at the news and pay attention to politics because I have to manage someone else's finances, so I need to pay close attention to macroeconomics and geopolitics, do research. How does everybody cope with the current affairs in the world?

[Illbeok]

Hi Psychdiaries2, it is nice to know my problem is not uncommon, and it seems like many people try to limit viewing news. I feel like the world is changing so fast (in a bad way unfortunately) and sometimes feel like I'm the only one struggling. Thank you for your kind words and reminding me that I'm no alone.

[audiology]

Hi Illbeok - sorry to hear you're struggling with your anxiety so much! After reading your posts, I'd be wondering if you'd be open to trying an activity with me? It's simple - all you need to do is tell me up to 3 main reasons why you feel you absolutely 'need' to watch the news. Feel free to reply whenever you get the chance, should you want to that is 🙂 

[randomxx]

Hi there op.

l've struggled with the news and what's going on in the world, especially of where it's headed that's pretty clear but as well as everything happening. Then especially again too even with our own country right here and which instead of avoiding the issues to they actually still to this day keep throwing fuel onto the fire in every way possible instead of fixing it all , they have no clue, just to ice the cake.

l gave up the news a few yrs back, it was unbearable , think l even have a thread here myself somewhere on the same thing.

l hate the head in sand avoidance but for me just being an everyday person with no power to do anything about any of it, l 've have to go that way of late just to save my own sanity and at least attempt to just enjoy life as much as poss.

l still watch bits and pieces but usually with remote in hand and finger on mute or off button ready for any horror that's for sure gonna be coming.

lt's disgusting to the way our media seem to thrive on all the worst to here where as in a lot of countries, l've watched news from all over the world, they don't even cover 99 percent of that sort of thing.

So yeah, there is sooooo much happening as you've said but as concerned as l am, wellllll. !

[Illbeok]

Hi Audiology, that is an interesting activity... let's see... I can only find one reason for why I "need" to look at news. I need to look at anything that is related to finance to manage people's portfolios (sad thing is that it's not my money). So i start to research / fact checking / check market and current positions etc. Then viewing another article online  and my mind goes "OMG what happened!" and I click that and find more shocking news along the way...

[Illbeok]

Hi randomxx, "lt's disgusting to the way our media seem to thrive on all the worst..." YES, exactly! I absolutely loathe fear mongering media outlets yet I'm the one being capitalized by them... How cleverly written these click-bate headlines. I wish I could just move to a remote island with no internet, when I was young I just needed to read a single source of information, called "newspaper".  I miss it. Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts, I feel supported and less alone...

[smallwolf]

hello,

I know a lot of people have replied to you already, but I want to add that I do not watch the news. On any channel. You might want to call me uninformed. Today, there are also many other places in which news creeps in and these are your social media platforms. I have learnt to ignore these as well - nothing will have really changed between the now, and say, 3 hours ago when they were talking on the same topic. It is just filler and otherwise a waste of internet space. With that said,if you want to remove yourtself from watching all this it can be hard. On the flip side, my mental health is more important - at least to me.

[Illbeok]

Hi smallwolf, thank you for sharing your experience and it sounds like your strategy is working very well. I laughed when you said "nothing will have changed between now and 3 hrs ago"! And yes, you are right about my mental health is more important than being "informed". Thank you for your insight!

[audiology]

Hi again Illbeok - apologies for the late response! Ok so that is a relatively understandable 'need' to look at the news - at least in some part. I'm wondering if it might be possible to configure your news app to solely feed you news based on finance? Or if you currently are just watching the primary news 'channels' - perhaps an idea could be to stop doing so and move to an app based delivery service of the news and configuring it to only feed you finance based news? Just a thought that could be worth looking into? 🙂 

[Picture]

Hello - in relation to your comment do you have any criteria for what you can and can’t do in relation to small actions. An example is I just do things locally. Rather than focusing on the destruction of forests, I plant a range of trees in my yard, participate in the local councils tree planting, rather than writing letters to politicians etc. I understand that the world needs big picture thinkers and actions but at this stage it is necessary for me to take more limited steps for my own wellbeing. 

[smallwolf]

hello,

Not sure what news services you watch, but I tend to find that all commercial ones are as good or bad as each other. I'm also cooking dinner when the ABC news is on so don't watch that. World news is reddit is about as good as it gets and I am only scrolling and not looking at the detail ... if I do read it, I'll likely get frustrated, but I'm not one to let it out and just stews up inside me. But if really want to find out then something like the ABC website is as good as any other. And that way I get it on my terms,