When you wake each day to the scent of collapse, it seeps into your soul. Each headline lands like a dagger beneath your armor, sharp and unavoidable. You try to steady your breathing, to gain control over the pain and defend yourself, but every day is the same, and you don’t know how much more you can take.
All the headlines blur together now, another cruelty, another failure to act. Everyone swears they know how to fix it, how to stop the cruelty, how to bring kindness back to the world. But the hill they are climbing is so steep, and the enemy fortifications feel insurmountable. Sure, everyone has solutions, but no one is able to hold their ground long enough for those solutions to stick.
So what can we do, what can you do, to make things better, or at least regain some control over the mental and emotional toll this chaos keeps taking? You’re scared that if you cut off social media, you’ll miss something important, that you’ll be too late to make a difference.
Now, you might be right. You could possibly miss something important if you stop trying to keep up with every current event. But if staying informed is damaging your mental health, is it really worth the cost?
When I think about my own mental health, the answer for me is simple, it’s not worth it. And yet here I am, day after day, still trying to keep up as best I can. Consistently spending hours doom scrolling, searching for anyone with an idea I can rally behind. Always looking for someone with a stronger voice than my own to attach to, someone to be my flicker of hope in such bleak times.
I know it’s not worth the toll it’s taking on my mental state, but I can’t seem to stop. This feels like the part in every story I've ever read where authoritarians forcefully take control of everything. We’re at the point in the story where either the oppressed rise up, or the oppressors finish tightening their grip. We’re at a moment in time that will define the direction of this country for generations, and yet my brain feels ready to explode.
So where do we go from here? What can those of us struggling mentally to process all of this, possibly do to not collapse under the massive weight of history happening in real time?
Well for starters, we need to admit that we can’t do it all. I know we want to, and that our urge to fix things tells us that we can, but we need to accept that we are grossly overestimating our own mental strength. If you’re like me, just a "regular joe" with no wealth or power to speak of, then for now, we must stop trying to fix anything beyond our own small bubble of reality.
Do me a favor right now, go and make a list for yourself. Make a list of all the things in your life that you actually have control over. Notice how none of them extend into the realm of local, national, or global politics? Sure, we can vote, and we can speak up about what we do and don't believe in, but beyond that, how much actual sway do we have over things that we aren't directly a part of? Little to none is the only answer, and that answer is what's hardest to accept for those of us who struggle with our mental health.
Now, that list you just made, that's what you need to focus on. It's what will get you through these tough times. Focusing on the needs within your own personal bubble of reality, rather than the needs of the world at large, will prepare you for the day when you’re needed on a grander scale. We can’t fix the outside world if our inside world is still in shambles. Without a strong mental and emotional base to stand on, the moment we are finally called to do more, you're likely to falter. If you can’t carry the weight of your own life, how can you expect to carry the weight of anything beyond?
I know it’s all too much, and more often than not it feels like there’s no hope. I know that what I’m asking you to do is so much easier said than done. Hell, I’m the one writing it and asking it of you, and even I struggle with it every moment of every day. Yet the more of us who focus on caring for our own mental health, the stronger we’ll all be when the time comes to change the world.
You can do this, I can do this, we can all do this, I believe in us. Because remember, even though you may feel like it,
You're Not SO Alone!