As someone in the US it’s so easy to see so many depressing issues from the ravages of capitalism, to war, imperialism, and genocide. How can one care about these issues and hope for change without allowing themselves to be affected mentally?
I’ve been considering this for the past week, connecting it with Buddhist compassion towards the world and a need for mindfulness. But it’s so easy to fall into emotionlessness.
I’ve also thought through the world has always had issues and though some are getting much worse some are getting better.
I have gone to counseling before but they just make it an individual problem when it’s the world.
Edit: doesn’t have to be US centric. Just I’m writing from that pov
I get my news from here. If it is really important it will bleed into the periphery to places like this. My physical disability with social isolation makes this a best self health situation. The news is not real news any more, it does nothing to inform. It was changed to “news as entertainment” long ago.
Communism.
One thing I do — and it sounds like you may have tried a version of this — is take media breaks (social media included). Go camping, read fiction, play video games or whatever floats your boat. You’ll almost always find that nothing major has changed and you were just dwelling on things beyond your control.
I’m not saying stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong. I’m more saying you can keep just as informed without wallowing in the news slop.
It’s indeed very difficult and my take is that the system wants us like this. To be depressed, full of fear and hopeless. Mainly of course through media.
What I considered one solution to fight back this is to discuss current events, solutions etc with a group of similar minded people. I don’t mean join a cult etc. No far from it. But finding people with same concerns by openly discussing them will bond them into bigger groups and this helps a lot. Gives a sense of fulfilment and hope.
Don’t fear. Act.
I’m in love with Stanford Beer and his saying “The purpose of a system is what it does”.
So yes, if most of us are depressed and anxious then that is what the system is for.
How do you find leftist groups? I’ve been to a couple local democrat meetings and I just can’t hang. It’s just older people that are okay with the status quo. And I want to break things.
See comment above. Don’t fall into the trap of lefts and rights.
Don’t fall into the trap of lefts and rights
That is a very important comment, thank you! We are just being played to perfection at the moment, peak divide and conquer. If we can refuse to play these games, maybe we can all learn and evolve.
You raised a very good point that I did not realize until now. In the past 8 years we actually stopped talking about politics to others, because it became so polarizing.
We absolutely need to talk about politics if we want to keep democracy. Hardliners likely won’t be converted, but at least, as you said, we should talk to like minded people.
Also, there’s indeed no point to worry about things outside of our control, and worry about things we can affect. Threat the things that happen, that we can’t control more as an obstacle that we have to deal with. Also support people who might have control and fight (governors, congress people, lawyers, judges, government employees, etc) so they know that aren’t doing it for nothing.
Correct. Also have in mind the all political sides, lefts, rights etc are all the same wearing different masks. True change comes from the base, from people, not from politicians placed by the system for people to vote. The base, the people when discuss and propose the most fit person to represent them , this is true democracy.
Agreed! I get this with my Unitarian Universalist church community. UUs don’t require anyone to believe a certain scripture, but we have a shared set of principles, like valuing democracy, science, and nature. The community aspect and music program are great by themselves, and our minister’s sermons have been a great source of motivation to keep fighting for what we believe in.
I stopped using social media so much, the internet is moved by clicks and panic content gets them but I find it overwhelming.
That’s the neat part, you don’t.
Right? I’ve never believed that depression is a brain chemical issue. It’s an issue of being aware of the true nature of the world and species.
Seriously, you don’t know what you’re talking about. SSRIs saved my life. I was recently barely clinging on to my job as I was on the verge of a panic attack nearly 24/7. I’ve been off and on SSRIs before so I do know they’re very difficult to quit, but I was close to institutionalizing myself from the level of anxiety I was dealing with.
Yes they have downsides and yes they should be used as a last resort, but writing them off entirely is a stupid mentality.
Numb yourself up to it all and live your best life
Yes, I will
I personally am writing them off entirely for personal use, but I am happy they work for you. I’ve been saying the entire time in this thread that it’s a personal decision… I’ll admit I was playing it up for that one user who was super rude to me because it was fun to piss him off, but you are cool.
Thank you, and I do get it. I have a love/hate relationship with SSRIs, but 2024 was really rough for me and they were the only thing that pulled me out of it all.
They are a heavy drug though with withdrawals worse than any other drug I’ve tried. I’ve fought to get off of them before in the past (when my mental health was doing better). I’ve spent entire years slowly tapering while still dealing with brain zaps and mood swings.
Like I said, last resort thing.
Yeah, I was there when a former best friend went through it after her online psychiatrist put her on a cocktail of Adderall, antidepressants, and who knows what else and she was having the brain shocks, withdrawals, vomiting. That’s definitely very real.
It does make me angry when they prescribe it all willy nilly like that without trying other things first.
Wish you the best of luck getting clear of them and living a happy life.
Yeah those symptoms sound accurate. It’s not fun.
Thank you though, you as well!
It’s both.
No other animal suffers from depression. If it were a brain chemical issue, where are all the depressed squirrels and buffalo? It’s a human problem. That brain chemical imbalance shit is a neat way for the pharmaceutical companies to push their expensive poison on us. Break your dick and ruin one of the few good things in life. Happy now? Pass.
Depressed? Congratulations. You’re more intelligent and aware than most.
Of course animals suffer from depression. This isn’t something I need to prove to you. This comment just goes to show that you’re either not very observant in any context or you’ve never been to a zoo. And no dipshit, it doesn’t make zoo animals not depressed because humans cause it in the cases where it’s easiest seen. By virtue of us being human, of course those examples would be seen by us. Jesus Christ some people trip over themselves to hold an insanely wrong viewpoint.
Yeah, I’m sure being held captive by terrifying ape creatures isn’t what causes their mental issues at all just like the conditions that terrifying ape creatures inflict onto us isn’t what causes ours. It’s just a brain chemical imbalance you are born with, you see, and you have to electrocute the brain to solve everything… wait, no, shove this ice pick up your eye… well, that was problematic… take these chemicals! Hmmm… let’s try a dozen more until we find the “right” one.
Fucking hell no.
You seem like the type of person who cannot accept that things are complicated and multiple things can be true at once.
Only thing I need to know in this case is that I don’t trust that industry and find it terrifying that they have been given any credibility and legal power over others. Quacks with degrees in pseudoscience whose book of diagnostics was written by the same people on the pharmaceutical boards. I will have nothing to do with it.
You do you and follow your own beliefs and practices.
No other animal suffers from depression.
Behind a paywall so I unfortunately can’t read it. These are animals being held in captivity and being tested on by their captors? Heh. Pretty apt comparison if that’s the case. I’m sure the solution is to give them pills to numb them rather than free them no doubt.
Unpaywalled
I think they’re 2 different things. being acutely aware of how totally an utterly fucked we all are doesn’t stop me from doing things I like.
I’m curious. Have you always been a complete jackass?
To become this enlightened has taken some time, so fret not. There’s hope for you. Perhaps once you’ve lost a couple of friends to this destructive industry. Until then, I can see you’re quite comfortable in the circle jerk.
So, yes.
I’ll be whatever you all need me to be and I’m quite confident in my beliefs on the matter. I will also continue to be able to achieve an erection and orgasm until my age naturally catches up with me. You do you.
I wanted to say there is some truth in what you’re saying but the more I read, the more clueless you sound. Depression is real, and drugs that fuck your sex life up are probably worse. I have a lot of bad days but good days, good art, and a well placed joint help. Just because a lot of the current understanding of depression is flawed or wrong doesn’t make it a fake made up condition. You probably aren’t depressed if you can say that. Being the kid who was always super sensitive, would cry for hours, and getting really sad just thinking about something briefly are all things I experienced which prove to me that depression is real. No one else in my family was suffering like that. And I could say I was of higher intelligence and that’s why, if I wanted to jerk myself off like you’re doing, but the truth is it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Easy, I was depressed and cynical before the election
Just go to a poor country like Peru. You will start to appreciate what you have.
OP didn’t ask about appreciating what they have. And silencing criticism of bad by contrasting it against worse is never helpful.
That’s some “fiNiSh yOur pLaTe bEcaUsE kiDs aRe sTaRviNg in aFriCa!!1!” shit.
Don’t waste food is a decent general point tho(assuming that the food is decent).
But yeah, dealing criticism, that is meaningful, with ‘lack of appreciation’ doesn’t fix stuff.
100%, but eating food when you’re already full is still wasting it, it’s just doing so in a way that’s damaging to your health; and no part of that is helping starving children in Africa, so that whole line is a pretty good showcase of an asinine kneejerk non-solution to multiple problems. Same energy as “gO to pErU” in response to a complaint about an unrelated problem somewhere better off than Peru.
Heavily filter what you consume. Following all news is not the morally correct thing to do, and you can cut back on it.
I’m fighting against this by staying off all social media other than Lemmy. All my news comes from a small number of curated sources, and only in RSS feeds (so I get them in time order rather than bullshit news site headlines prioritisation). I use a lot of keyword filters on Lemmy and in my RSS news (Covid, Trump, Biden, most American news, anything that is meaningless to me is blocked before it can show up on my screen).
TLDR news is a particularly good YouTube channel. They have really well presented news and pick out a few important events to report on. I find that’s more than enough for me for news consumption.
Simple: I’m just naturally deeply depressed and cynical, so there isn’t a big difference
born of it, moulded by it…
Not for everyone but political activism is a good outlet, be it protests or volunteering to help the election campaign of the opposition when it comes round again. Make sure everyone you know lays the blame in the correct place when shit inevitably hits the fan.
Other than that, get off corporate social media, rage bait is the most effective content for driving interaction, corporate social media algorithms are designed to maximise interaction. You will always be shown the worst of everything on social media.
Similarly identify where your news is coming from and if it’s coming from somewhere with a tendency to sensationalise. Cut anything like that out too.
It’s important to be informed yes, but it’s not essential to be aware of absolutely everything for most people, and if that’s better for your mental health, you should prioritise reduction in consumption.
I literally don’t understand people having kids in this “climate”. That’s how cynical and hopeless I feel about humanity’s future.
I wouldn’t want to inflict that… The heat, the natural disasters, the risk of nuclear wars. The genocides considering multiple were or are active at any point (Palestine, Syria…). The fall of journalism…
Many things I discuss with my friends but nobody could ever dream to fix. So all this shit stays with you. And seeing how our politics are reacting to climate change, this is lost. Because everything else is pointless if you don’t have a place to live.
You are brainwashed
Yeah! Can’t understand why they believe checks comment…oh… climate change? Umm, sure. You got them, glad you gave them that mental check and brought them back to reality…weren’t just being insulting or anything.
Fuck off
Just had one, my only social media is lemmy which really helps
How old are they now? :) mine is 10m
2 weeks, fresh out of the oven :)
Without knowing which you are, let the wife get some extra sleep and cook or takeout extra for them. I regret not doing that more! They deserve the world. Also, if you don’t have help from family it’s worth asking for a night nanny. It’s so hard on everyone
Congratulations! How have the past two weeks been? W
Pretty nice, I’m on morning duty plus cleaning, diapers and general support. It’s been nice so far except I’m worried the wife doesn’t get enough sleep.
The neat part is, you don’t.
We are each just one person. We can’t save the world, and it would be unreasonable to carry that burden.
But we each can save a small piece of it. A kind word here, a forgiving of slights there, and work in some patience & understanding for others.
Little things can make waves. And if Six Degrees of Separation remains true, your little deeds affect more people than you realize.
I have a personal petty war against the corposlop extortions in my life, I know it won’t stop them or bring about a revolution or smth, but at least I can be an example to others that they need us more than we need them and it makes me at least feel that I have some control, some things that I can take back from being corrupted.
So far I have:
- Stopped buying all fast fashion and buy far fewer clothes in general mostly off Etsy back in the day or indie online retailers
- Cancelled my subscription to Netflix for me and my gf, replaced with Jellyfin
- Cancelled Amazon Prime and stopped shopping at Amazon altogether alongside getting my friends off Wish, Temu etc.
- Stopped using all food delivery and ride-sharing apps
- Stopped eating fast food and at big chains
- Moved most my grocery shopping to Co-Op
- Eliminated all corporate and/or algorithm driven social media from my life (Insta, FB, Reddit, Discord, LinkedIn, YT (only via self-hosted proxies/ublock/sponsorblock/dearrow).
- Stopped using corpo LLMs, using only my homebrew refine of Mistral 7B sometimes
- Stopped using Chrome, cancelled Google one and my sub to GDrive
- Almost stopped using Windows
- Replaced almost all daily use software with FOSS alternatives
- Almost entirely stopped buying any tech that isn’t used and/or refurbished and/or old/junkyard material
Next steps are:
- Replace ISP router with junkyard rescue gear with FOSS software, mite b getting some from work soon
- Cancel Spotify as my last remaining subscription service (I have personal playlists I need to backup)
- Get rid of Google accs and host my own email
- Ascend past smartphones (already use only old flagships for less than a hundred bucks)
I feel like it’s still all just in the consumption framework and highly individualistic, but it helps me cope, it’s an outlet for anger that has bettered me as a person in every way imaginable.
This is an excellent list, that proves that as an individual there are things you can do to feel right about the world surrendering us. I’ll add, tho I’m pretty sure you are probably doing it already, that I don’t buy anything from Nestlé, Coca Cola, etc like you’re avoiding amazon. Not buying from megacorps goes hand-to-hand to not using meta/google/apple/microsoft services I think.
Yeee. I try my best to avoid both Nestle and Coca-Cola (drink of the death squads is too good a song to not at least try to) but it’s tough with how sneaky those bastards can get with all the brands they own.
Idk if I feel right exactly, I just feel more powerful, I can simply say “No” to being a victim of - or a participant in - what to me is an abuse of people, of lives on a scale beyond comprehension by the corporations. I can deny them the power they want so desperately to hold.
My only wish is more people were motivated to do this, whatever their expertise and possibilities and abilities, we could share so much if we shared the same goals.
