Politics Are Overwhelming Me

[Horrendous_Hexapod]

I genuinely feel as though I wasn't designed to handle everything that's happening. I hate talking about politics, I hate thinking about it, yet for some reason I force myself to hyper fixate on it. For the last few years, it feels like not a week has gone by where I haven't worried about something political. In a lot of ways, it's starting to feel like politics are designed to trap people like me in this never ending cycle of fear and anxiety, where they constantly guilt me for forming opinions against them.

This constant fighting between both sides of the political spectrum is starting to weigh down on me heavily. It just feels like, no matter what I think, no matter who I interact with, in some way it's always gonna be wrong. I keep being bombarded with these articles about how the side of the political spectrum is the reason we have so many problems in our current world. How we're all miserable, mentally unstable, unintelligent, spoiled, out of touch people that have no empathy for others that isn't purely performative. Some of this stuff is just people's opinions, sure, but other articles use surveys and studies to support what they are saying.

Of course, as this is a hyper fixation of mine, I force myself to slog through as many of these as possible, sometimes finding that these sources either, don't fully support the claims being made, or outright contradict different sources. I honestly don't know which sources are accurate and which aren't, but for some reason I'm always hyper critical of sources that don't cause me anxiety, but then when one does it feels like I subconsciously have to believe it. I can't even choose not to read them, because if I do, I guilt myself into thinking that I'm being wilfully ignorant for not wanting to slog through another article on why [INSERT POLITICAL IDEOLOGY HERE] are a bunch of miserable, whiney narcissists.

It feels like I can't have any opinion about anything without worrying that it's wrong or immoral, or that any deviation from what is supposed to be the "proper path" for a person is guaranteed misery. I'm sick of debating my political positions to myself, of searching up my opinions to check whether or not some study says they're accurate or not. I'm sick of being talked down to about happiness, purpose in life, free will, and compassion by people self righteous, supposedly well adjusted people who talk with a tone that make it seem like they're mere seconds away from strangling their neighbour's dog.

[white knight]

Hi, welcome

Prior to 1988 I had a similar fixation but not near as extreme. So what happened in 1988? This short story might help.

As a local law enforcement officer I issued a few fines to a dog owner that, as it turned out was a State politician. I prided myself that everyone should be treated equal, unemployed, rich, labor, liberal, pensioners... So when I found out it was of no consequence. And I found out when my boss told me not to issue fines to that person again effectively giving him preferential treatment. I was fuming because as a former prison officer and Airforce airman it was the first time I had been compromised. I was also the council union representative at the time.

So I continued to issue fines every week or so when I saw an infringement. Eventually I had a big argument with my boss and got pains in my chest. I was 31yo. I was initially diagnosed as having a heart attack and 3 months later told it was a panic attack instead. Great I thought, time to fight my boss and his bosses for allowing this to happen. I rang my union and they refused to represent me because "that politician lunches with our staff and bosses sorry cant help you". Well eventually I lost my job, a scapegoat and I had to get another job away from that profession. As my therapist said- "You are black and white with law where so many people are grey."

Since then I've studied politics and can see clearly the spin, the game they play and the torment people like you go through when trying to make sense of a non sensical system. I also found out that my issue was the same as several over many years- like the colour TV affair, the Paddington Bear affair where politicians tried to get away with customs duty of those products. One customs officer was so traumatized by doing his job that he ended up psychiatrically damaged and never left his house. All for $80 of fees.

That puts it in perspective, these pollies thrive on power, rarely have morals and I always see a smiling face under grey hair. So what did I do? Well I drifted away from watching the news for 10 years, stopped reading newspapers and refused to debate people that I could predict were one eyed with their politics.

Now I do watch. I quickly assess the topic and know most of the jargon they use is spin. So my judgement upon politics is sceptical and thats healthy. I also plunged myself into hobbies and sports to swing my mind away.

"Democracy isnt perfect but better than the alternative" 

https://forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/suicidal-thoughts-and-self-harm/intrusive-thoughts/td-p/7289

https://forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/anxiety/worry-worry-worry/td-p/87808

Reply anytime. I hope that helps.

TonyWK

[audiology]

ALlow me to chime in and say that not only everything that TonyWK has said is a valuable source of knowledge - but to also remind you that the state of perpetual tension and anxiety you're finding yourself in is EXACTLY where those at the top want you to be - they want us to be so wrapped up in interpersonal discourse that we ignore the real issue at hand - the powers that be, slinking around sewing discourse and mistrust, happily keeping us at each other's throats instead of actually unifying.

Also one piece of advice I'll give about getting caught up in so called 'studies' - take each and every one of them with a grain of salt because these days there can be a study divised and developed to 'prove/show' just about anything - and unless you have a grasp on data analysis or have professional training around how to interpret what makes a study reliable or not - your best bet is to just assume that every study used by these big news corps has been bought and paid for by someone wanting it to say exactly what it does, or the data has been cherry picked to run a certain narrative etc.