Traumatised by the news

Maybe you could borrow some of her empathy, give it a test drive.

I am quite hardened against the news. What gets to me are horribly aggressive posts on Mumsnet as well as on large what's app group like parent ones from school. People are just so entitled and selfish today and everyone is venting about their perceived little insjtices. At the same time overall aggression has gone up. So les bothered by news but very bothered by the anger and rudeness on social media as well as in real life. People have become very aggressive.

Seriously @StrangePineapple you need to stop navel gazing

How fo you 3ven come up with an expression of hyper empathy??

I turned all the news apps off on my phone 5 years ago. I have no idea what’s going on in the world anymore and it’s great.

I stopped listening to/watching the news anything like as much during the Brexit campaign. I just couldn’t bear to hear the B word any more! And now, it’s nearly all so bloody depressing.

I still catch up via the Beeb website and a flick through the paper (we still have one) and the TV/radio news now and then (like recently, Makerfield!)

But I have a news obsessed dh who apparently has to watch/listen to it for much of the day. When we’re in the car, I’ve been known to put my foot down when he wants it on - there’s no escape!

Seriously??
Seriously??

Hyper empathy.......really??

Agree with pp talking about the child abduction in the 90s. She's not named it so I won't either in case there's a reason for that. I was a child myself at the time and I didn't know about it then.

But the perpetrators/the case occasionally appear on the news in the years since, and now having a toddler I just feel like my brain/empathy can't bear to see the last picture taken, it feels like a physical pain.

If you never saw another news paper or news programme ever again, you would probably be just about fine. Just stop.

Ignore the dramatic comments. Everyone interprets the world around them differently, its an individual experience.

What activates your stress response might not activate someone else's. The news is clearly activating yours.

That's not to say it cant be helped or worked on - a good awareness of what's happening to you means you can learn your triggers and some new strategies to manage or overcome.

Have a look into vicarious trauma.

I felt like this a few years ago when I read some awful news about a young person in a country where my relations who were close in age lived. I stopped reading the news as I was ruminating and getting upset when it popped into my mind.

It helped massively, also catching yourself and stopping your brain from thinking about the sad events is hard work but the gaps between the thoughts widen and you begin to recover. I think it's a normal response to be upset and to empathise when awful things happen but we need to protect our own mental health.

Give yourself a set time to be sad, like the shower or a drive you do daily. Once it's done, that's it. Also build in time to challenge yourself to see positives in your own life. Get too busy to worry and repeat a mantra of how great things are or how lucky you are a couple of times a day. Wishing you well Op.

Balance what you’re reading and digesting. There’s lots of good news stories out there. Mainstream media doesn’t like to broadcast positive news stories as much!!!

Like a PP, I have started following a few positive news accounts and it has been surprisingly how much difference it makes to your mood. Its all progress in science, ecology and tech and a focus on how people are helping each other. It genuinely feels like a weight I didn't realise I have been carrying has lifted when I read them.

Idk your DC age but you mentioned having DC up thread, I do think that if you have a little one it's harder to switch off

...like I can't do anything but wait for the fear to subside, I think it might be maternal instinct maybe that our cave(wo)man brains "know" there's a threat in the "tribe" and so your amygdala is like right, here's some cortisol and adrenaline just in case that threat is something that might affect my baby and I need to protect them

Does that make sense?

I don’t watch the news. It’s mentally easier. I half keep abreast of what’s happening on here and normal conversations, I don’t want to know the rest.

I feel like there used to be disclaimers of distressing content on the news and it was rare and now they put the most horrific footage on at any time of day. I guess that there is a sense that a lot of people are desensitised to things and need a shock to get them to understand the gravity of a situation, whereas some of us have even slight things seared on our brains for eternity.

I don’t watch the news, I rarely read the news, I don’t listen to the radio and I still know far too many horrific things that are happening in the world that I can do nothing about and me being informed about those things changes nothing except the inside of my own head. I hate when you are in a hotel or I was in macdonalds and they have the 24 hour news on - who wants to be watching people being blown up whilst they eat their nuggets. Who needs to be watching that at all?

Stop reading it then? I cherry pick the stories I read now. I follow politics but I try not to read ghastly stories too much. I came off X a few years ago because of the constant images of Palestinian children I didn’t ask to see on my feed. It all gets a bit too much.

About a week after my eldest was born there was a very famous abduction case on the news. Two older boys took a little one. Everyone knows the case.

I cried and cried in front of the tv and lost sleep (the little i would be getting with a new born!).

I think the hormones and the new parent aspect and the pure horror of it made a perfect storm. I've never forgotten how badly that affected me. I felt almost out of control.

So many horrific things go on. You have to build a shell around yourself - empathising too hard will drive you mad.

💐💐💐

I’m not sure if you mean it’s affecting you to this extent but if you’re ruminating and traumatised it’s going to be more an internal issue you’re experiencing, like anxiety, not the news’ fault- you’re not experiencing a proportional response.

what detail do you think is too much? Do you have an example?

OP, Sorry to be saying possibly silly things but do you have any lightness in amongst the dark? Do you have friends, interests, nice times?