Does anybody else feel like they can't care about anything else now?

[kevinbacone]

I'm not sure how else to say it but I feel as though I'm completely overwhelmed with all the things that I care about at the moment.

Not home things, they're alright, but bigger world things. Climate change, Brexit, Covid, HS2, refugees, BLM, shit government, homelessness. I'm finding it all overwhelming and I'm starting to feel drowned in it. Am I the only one?

No, I get this. It's almost so overwhelming it makes you a bit numb. I think it's a self protection mechanism.

I'm finding myself suddenly anxious about the small things I should be able to control. I'm sure it's because there's just so much that feels wrong and is outside my control.

I'm the same op. I go through phases of it. I feel ok for a bit and then it hits me. Trying to get on with my life plans but it's hard to focus.
The talk in the media recently debating if the vaccine should be compulsory has got me thinking of making a bolt for mainland Europe to try to escape it. And yes I know how crackers that sounds. I feel quite trapped by it all.

No, you're not the only one. When I watch the news or think about the state of the world, I feel there's not a lot to be positive about. However I do wonder if this just happens as you get older. When i was a kid, my Nan would despair about the way society was heading, my mum does this as she has got older and I hear myself saying it too now. I wonder if things have actually got worse or it's just human nature, to feel this way as we age.

I felt like that for a long time. I was totally overwhelmed by many things, most of which I had no control over. For me, it was my obsession with social media and 24 hour news. I am an anxious introvert anyway, but the internet makes it worse. I have learned to switch off my tablet and listen to music or do mindfulness exercises. Sometimes your brain needs a rest.

I get it, totally. I'm sick to fucking death about everything. If it wasn't for the fact that I have a wonderful husband, two great kids, and a home I love, I'd be walking slowly into the ocean just to get away from it all.

TV, internet, news, social media. Turn it off. You have no control over these events, you can't let them wreck you

Yes I feel like this too, not constantly but probably at least once a day. They are also putting up houses all over the village where I grew up (my parents live there still and I’m in the village next door) it makes me feel really claustrophobic and helpless. Not the same as worrying about world affairs but it feels like it’s adding to an overall oppressive inescapable atmosphere of unwanted change.

I felt like this before covid as I was looking at other countries and the poor, refugees in tents, even the state of the poorest in this country.
I shouldn't stop caring so the way to work with all of this (not to make myself feel better as I can't barely make a dent myself) is to be supportive.
Things like reducing plastic usage, I've carried on with that. Eating more healthily to help the food cycle in whatever way.
Donating money to 100% donation charities for people here and around the world. I never donate to charities who take a cut for themselves for their own salary. Some charities show you exactly what they are doing eg £1 for a hot meal for an entire family abroad in a very hot country and the showed them giving the cooked food out.
Racism is never a thing in my life. We've always been taught that everyone is equal but good deeds makes a person excel so if a friend or anyone from any ethnic minority, for example, has had a bad experience, be there to listen, support and be the change.
Prayer is a big thing too. Just taking time out of the day and meditating and thinking about my own purpose in life and taking each day at a time.
It is hard but it is doable. I definitely don't watch mainstream media.

Yes, as I’ve gotten older, I can feel I have far less patience being asked to care about whatever it is splashed across the media and Facebook. Although I do worry about Brexit and Climate change, and always feel upset if anything happens to children.
I think this happened for me when they started giving oxygen to non problems (the nonbinary persons heartbreaking poem about getting a haircut), and how it seems like a massive race to become the most oppressed group ever. And then that changes the next week without resolving any of the issues brought up from previously.
I do think that when your bombarded at all sides with this stuff, compassion fatigue can come into play.

As others have said, turn off the news, deactivate your social media. The feeling is the result of being so much more aware of everything that is going on all the time, of every injustice that every human is feeling everywhere in the world. It's totally overwhelming and too much for any one person to take.

I go through phases of feeling more or less overwhelmed. To me, the single most important issue, that I permit myself to prioritise above all others, is the climate emergency. As long as I feel like I am doing what I can in this area, and am satisfied that my livelihood and lifestyle are not contributing to making matters much worse, I manage to keep my head above water. This is the only area where I get upset when I see people do less than they could; I sort of understand if people don't share my concerns for other issues I'm involved with, but the climate will impact us all universally. The hugeness of the climate emergency puts all else into perspective in a macabre way.

Completely OP; it’s overwhelming.

One of the things that has got to me recently is seeing people losing it about the economic ramifications of Covid and the fact that life might not go on as usual.
Our planet is fucked (even if we all slow down, we’re fucked) and I am struggling with the cognitive dissonance.

I read The Uninhabitable Earth last year and have been reading ever since and I wish I hadn’t. The majority of (perfectly decent) people will not become aware that we’re living on borrowed time.
Until last year, it was an uncomfortable and guilty feeling in the background for me too. I can’t unsee the situation now and I can’t see a way forward.

I have questioned the point of going on, through so much loss and degradation, but I would never leave my children.
I’m sorry this is a completely depressing reply, but sympathy from me.

My Gran used to say if it’s raining you need to close your windows. Of course you need a basic awareness of what’s happening in the world, but there’s no point drowning in all these upsetting things that are out of your control. If you’re getting too wet you need to close your windows and stop letting the rain in.

It's big and overwhelming. And sometimes it feels the pressure to care correctly is immense.

It feels like you're constantly told you don't care enough, you're not doing enough.

Forget your reusable bag...you might as just strangle a seagull now...but your reusable bag is the wrong sort anyway. It still has plastic in, you should use a linen one. But not a cheap one from primark.

You didn't post a black square, you haven't had a clap, you didn't post a rainbow.

You did the race for life but what about the starving children. You give to Water aid...but charity starts at home you know?

You eat free range eggs but you're not vegan...all your veg is in plastic though....

Sometimes it feels too much responsibility to change is put on the individual, not on the society as a whole. An individual can make a difference but not to all things at once. It's so overwhelming as the burden of caring and changing is placed on everyone individually not as group. It's hard to explain....

Its overwhelming and numbing. To care about everything feels like not caring at all.

I forget my bags, buy my cheap chicken and fashion. My difference feels so ineffective I don't make any at all.

Honestly I think that one of the reasons we are more anxious nowadays is knowing too much about what is happening elsewhere. Most of the time there is very little we can do and that lack of control is upsetting for us. It's probably awful to say but I can only concentrate on me and those I love. I can't bear the worlds problems on my shoulders. Covid has made that much more apparent to me. I feel a lot more insular now.

As our lives slowed down the news got louder. Before it was being drowned out by needing to do XYZ things that we don’t have to do at the moment.

I would add China and Russia to your list too.

I compartmentalize stuff, so I just get on with things.

Wow thanks for these replies. I'm equally heartened and saddened that so many others feel similarly. There's some good advice here re: social media that I need to follow. Thanks for replying. It's good to now I'm not the only one.

Me too.
But for me it’s the futility of it all. The fact that absolutely nothing I do can help or do anything to make any of it better.

The Harry Dunn case, the Violet Grace case, the zero pay rise for nurses.
It’s all fundamentally wrong, people do these things, actual walking, breathing, talking people do these things that have immeasurable devastating life crushing impacts on the lives of other people and then more people help it to be so.
These things happen over and over and over and over, time and time again.

I cannot comprehend it. It’s so useless and hopeless. What’s the point in anything?

I am a bit worried about all of you.

• Climate change is being addressed. Probably not as fast as it should be but people are trying.

• The Harry Dunn case had a breakthrough yesterday.

• The Government is being held to account as to whether its reaction to the covid crisis was good enough (enquiry planned).

• Nurses had a pay rise on 1st April

• We have free speech (ok that means that twats get to talk shit but that's the price you pay for living in a civilised society) and can criticise our government openly without fear of repercussions.

• We have a national health service, an old age pension and social security.

• We are not at war.

• Women have more freedom and equality than they have ever had.

I appreciate there is a bad economic situation and Brexit is looming.

Supposing your lifespan is 80 years . . . can you think of another 80 year period in history anywhere in the world you would prefer to live?

Have all of you got very young DC? These sorts of feelings are common when you are pregnant or have small babies (I had a toddler and was pregnant when 911 happened, I thought there would be world war 3).

Sorry if this seems patronising and not in the spirit of the thread. I nearly deleted it and will probably wish I had when you all pile on.

When I feel a bit overwhelmed about things I listen to music. For me that’s the absolute best therapy. I then also think ‘I’m thankful (not exactly happy ) that mum and dad both passed away recently before having to know about all of this on top of everything else’.
Strange times.
One problem with music is I just don’t know when I’ll have the joy of live music/gigs again.
Then start to think of all of the amazing stuff I’ve seen. Hope those thoughts are enough to keep me going.

I think for me my world has shrunk so much since the covid restrictions. It is making me rather callous about anything that doesn't affect me. The way some of these things are dividing us is scary though.

For me, it’s climate change particularly - before bloody Covid, we had Aussie wildfires and gorgeous creatures obliterated, floods all over UK and now the polar bear is threatened with extinction and there’s a bee virus 😶 I think it’s a natural human reaction to fear and be anxious about this stuff and it’s compounded by self serving governments like those of Brazil, China and the USA particularly.

I think being selective about social media platforms and not watching the News too much helps - also, connecting with the natural environment as much as possible and pets are a massive tonic.

I am taking up Reiki this year - I want to focus on my spiritual side more 🌸

Because we are being preached at in such a big way (with more lies creeping out of the woodwork), and you can’t go anywhere without it being thrown in your face, it makes me less inclined to conform to all the other “demands”. I’m voting with my wallet as much as I can: going by car, and now online shopping rather than in person, to make a point about the compulsory muzzles: my last shopping trip is today. After that, goodbye high street, it was nice knowing you. If the original line was “we don’t know if masks work or not”, i might have more respect for them now; but as Boris chose the original “masks are useless” line, he made a rod for his own back.

And all those discarded muzzles which are now littering pavements everywhere, and ending up in landfill or the sea must be working wonders for the environment.

This post is the most horrendously selfish thing I've ever written, but I'm actually starting to resent it all.

I've been involved in political and environmental activism since I was in the womb (you could say it's a family hobby) so I've always been pretty well informed and aware, and I'm doing all I personally can to live in an earth friendly way - it's been frankly hilarious to hear friends tell me solemnly that I need to stop using disposable cleaning products, sanitary towels, and plastic, when I've been doing all this for decades.

But my long awaited (after infertility) child is two. The day I came out of hospital, the twelve years to turn it around climate report came out, and it really sent me into panic. During mat leave I had to get a union involved as work were fucking me around atrociously. Since then it's just been one thing after another.

I work in a vocational role, which requires me to be fairly read up on current issues which may impact our service users, and I volunteer, so I like to think I care/give back to society in those ways too.

It possibly is something to do with having a small child, but, frankly, I want to be left alone to focus on my family for just a little while.

The last few years since the arrival of DC have been blissful, but I feel like I've not just been left alone to savour it, between having to go back to work early, Brexit hysteria having run wild in my family/friendship group and my workplace, massive expectations being put on me just after having DC, then just as things seemed to be calming down, I dropped a day at work after Christmas, was starting to enjoy baby groups etc, fucking Covid happened!

I feel very 50s housewife but I just want to switch the world off and enjoy my child. I have done to an extent, but unfortunately as I said due to my family/friendship/work circles I can never escape solemn conversations and lively debates about the issue of the day, all of which inevitably end up with everyone deciding the world is fucked