Anybody else find the news too depressing?

The news makes me cry nearly every time I watch it! Especially now I'm pregnant again... The recent murder and abduction thing sets me off every time it's mentioned...

Zebra, I don't EVER watch tv news and only read a paper once a week for the same reasons as you, I just can't face it tbh. I get my news from that one paper on Sunday and from mumsnet and that's it since I don't often listen to the radio either and if I do it's usually radio 3 or 4 (as long as it's not a news prog). how awful about the little boy. I think Abigail Witchell case has moved a lot of us tbh, it was partic grim and tragic.

It takes a rare person to know deep down that they are not the right face at the door at times like these Zebra, how wise you are not to turn up if your instincts are telling you she may not welcome your visit. I am so sad for them and for you.
I am not surprised you are profoundly affected by this tragic death, I think many of us would be in the circumstances. And if such a thing happens at a time when there are especially grim stories in the news, then we can really feel emotionally shredded.
About the time Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered I suffered a stillbirth. I was not as quick with the remote button as I would have been normally and ds knew two little girls had disappeared. We told him they had wandered off and got lost, he was only three and there was no way I could think of not to lie. All that Autumn he kept asking if they had found their way home yet.
Zebra, I think puddle may have a point. Are you OK?

Oh Zebra that's really awful, that poor family. My ds is the same age and I had a 'heartstop' when I read your post.

Agree with all those who have said a card is a good idea.

I don't know you at all Zebra but while agreeing that many of us have been far more affected by bad news/ terrible events post children than before we have them it does sound worrying to me that you are regularly losing sleep over this sort of thing - it sounds as though these morbid thoughts are affecting your health? It reminds me a bit of PND. Is there anyone in RL you talk to about it?

Zebra crying with someone can be a really cleansing and caring experience, don't feel scared of seeing her....the card's a lovely idea too.. poor sweetheart

in my experience the bulletins when children are likely to be around are somewhat sanitised (certainly at the front of my mind when i was writing material for bulletins), and have led to interesting discussions re: why some people don't like each other (eg Iraq)

Hi there, I'm a mumsnet virgin . like to join in discussion, agree about depressing news. I'm also unhappy about the degree of graphic detail used on tv/radio news. I find myself muting news sometimes rather than my 3 yr old daughter hearing something really gruesome.

agree a card would be nice, put your number on there and ask them to call if they need anything practical doing.

marina, i totally agree re: some events affecting me much more than others, the leneghan story is appalling, i keep imagining her as a little girl, growing up into a vulnerable young woman and then being brutally murdered, it leaves me choked (and this, from "hard-headed" journo type who once covered 3 funerals in a week, quite dispassionately - apart from one which really got to me, the murder of an aid worker in somalia, meeting his calm, kind and wise father just hours after the news made the whole thing seem much more "real" iykwim)

I think the card is a good idea - she may not be ready to face people yet - or it may be too difficult to talk about at the moment

how about sending her a card - say something like you don't want to intrude, but if she would like a friendly face then you are there ....

Zebra - go see the mother - she is probably feeling that everyone is avoiding her because they all feel as you do. I think it is ok to cry in that situation - it shows you care.

Gosh that is terrible, Zebra, like you say too close to home.
Even when a child in dd's class got complications from c/pox 2 yaers ago and had weeks off school with a sort of enchaphilitis which made him very ill for a time, I got compeletly paranoid when dd went down with c/pox a year ago and watched her like a hawk for any problems.
Totally relate to the book thing Marina, when I read Julie Myerson's Something Might Happen, I burst into tears at the point where the girl (similar age to dd) is found dead. I've never cried at book before and am not burster-into-tears person. In my head it all became how I would feel about dd.

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I am really glad that I read this as I ofen feel the same. Since becoming a mother any bad story on the news affects me 100 time more than before. Especially ones regarding children. Dh thinks that I am very over sensitive but after reading this I think that it seems natural.

I'm the same, I know how you feel, I try not to watch the news at all. When there was the tsunami and I watched a news report about a mother who had a 5 yr old an 2 yr old and she was caught in the flood and couldn't keep them all above water she had to chose which child to let go off!!!!!!!!!!!! she was on the report saying that she could only think that if she let go of the 2 yr old he would certainly die but the 5 yr old MIGHT make it!!!! I was crying my eyes out. I could feel her pain and the awfulnees of the decision. It turned out that the 5 yr old that she let go of was found alive and as well as could be expected 2 hours later hanging onto a branch. It still makes me feel awful typing it now, it makes me want to go and see that my little ones are ok and kiss them!!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah puddle, comic relief - thanks for that, if they have been adopted then at least they won't be all alone.

Dahlia - that was comic relief wasn't it? I was the same - one of the saddest things I have ever seen. I think I read somewhere those two children have been adopted and are now being cared for altho don't know the details.

I read something Richard Curtis wrote in the Guardian on World Poverty Day talking about those children (he had made the films for comic relief) and saying that those cases were so easy to find - you would like to think that they are so heartrending because they are rare.

I don't avoid the news but things do upset me far more than they would have pre-children. I found it hard to stop thinking about Beslan after it happened - it really affected me.

I don't think it's a bad thing. It means you have more empathy and humanity than you did pre-children. You care more because you identify more.

On a more trivial note I have had to give up ER. Just can't watch children dying, even in fiction.

Yeah, I feel the same, the things you see on the news just play on your mind for ages. I still get really choked thinking about Jamie Bulger, it really really freaked me out at the time. And not so long ago I saw a clip of a documentary called The Orphans of Nkandla or something like that - 2 siblings who had lost their parents to aids, and the little one was just sobbing while the older one tried in vain to comfort her while crying at the same time. It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever seen, and I just went to pieces. I wanted to pick up the phone and say "I will have them, I will adopt them, I want to help them." To my dying day I will never forget them. There's just so much heartbreak in the world. And I know its a cliche, but you really don't know how lucky you are.

i think its normal to feel like this, especially when you have children, you put yourself in the parents posistion and imagine how you would feel if it were your child, the jamie bulger thing horrified me and still does, my dd1 was around the same age and i tried to imagine 2 young boys doing the same thing to my helpless little toddler and i felt grief stricken if that doesnt sound daft, dunblane affected me too, i could almost hear those poor children screaming. when the holly andjessica hunt was on i couldnt beleive it when they charged ian huntley, my dd started in the sept and we had gone along to the induction eve, he had been on the door handing out leaflets, i rember, he smiled at me, afterwards i felt sick to the stomache when i found out what hed done, dd's best friends sister used to chat to him a lot and on the day of the murders she and her friend were going to call by his house, which he encouraged(they were15 at the time) but changed their minds at the last min, apparently she had nightmares for months thinking it could have been her. i torture myself over anything like that, when you have children yourself you think, it could so easily have been my child.