I can't bear to read the news

[MerryMarigold]

Is it me? With Ukraine it was awful but I followed it. With the Libya flooding it was so intensely sad but I still managed to read the news.

With this, I can't bear to even read about it. I have no affiliation to Palestine or Israel. I just can't bear it. Why does it feel so much 'worse'? Or is it an accumulation? There is suffering all the time, everywhere. Does anyone else feel like this?

I agree, OP.

I stopped watching and reading the news in 2020 because of the ridiculousness of the COVID reporting.

I've dipped in and out since then but in a very hands-off kind of way.

When things get particularly awful in the world (like at the minute), I just switch off completely and ignore it all.

I feel like an ostrich. I don't like it. But I don't know what else to do.

I agree, OP, and have been questioning why I need to know all this stuff about other countries I'll never visit when there is so much going on right here that doesn't get covered.

Someone put it better than me:

"I realized that after decades of diligently keeping up with the news, there was not even one situation where I had to know something that only came from the news headlines in order to protect my own safety or improve my life. Nor was there even one situation where knowing about how bad things were for others helped me to save anyone. The times I had first hand knowledge of something in the news, I saw how skewed the reporting was.

As I don't believe politicians sincerely care about my point of view, I don't feel it necessary to develop a personal opinion about all crises so I can instruct politicians on what to do about them.

As I don't believe that spreading how awful horrific things are is a powerful way to make society better, and as I've learned more about the psychological hooks and addictive nature of emotional-amplifying, mind-controlling social media algorithms, I've stopped taking their recommendations of what I must know about next".

Me too. I don't look at or listen to things I've got absolutely no control over. There are terrible things going on all over the world. It does no good to get upset about it. Nothing will change.

I remember feeling like this a few years back during a peak of awfulness in Syria.

The up-closeness of the terrible news coverage makes it feel as if we all ought to be doing something productive to directly help. It's horrifying to confront the fact that most of us can't and unspeakable things will go on happening hour after hour.

And as a backdrop to the ordinary challenges of life it's destabilising because it simultaneously makes your everyday worries seem trivial, so that you berate yourself for minding them, but heaps on the general stress and misery so that you're less equipped to cope with them.

You don’t have to read/watch the news. I stopped in Covid, still know what is going on overall in the world but I don’t need the details.

I don't watch news about things like Ukraine or Israel/Gaza, instead I read measured amounts of quality analysis.

You don't have to traumatise yourself by watching upsetting video or 24hr news in order to remain informed.

There's a middle ground between ostrich and emotional wreck. I suggest picking a good, middle ground journalist and reading just their summary every other day or so.

I agree OP but I reached this stage years ago. Probably around the time there were a lot of child abuse death cases being reported. The news made me so upset and yet my knowing the awful details did nothing to help anyone.

There is a basic level of following the news required not to be ignorant and to be able to vote in an informed way, but anything beyond that is helping no-one. Indeed I believe that the endless coverage of disasters, wars, stabbings and abuse can lead to compassion fatigue.

If someone can follow this stuff without getting upset then maybe they have got compassion fatigue. If it is upsetting and is adding to your worry and stress then you have to ask yourself what benefit is there in knowing this information and does it outweigh the negative effect on your own life.

I literally cried seeing a tiktok of the guy who's daughter was confirmed killed by Hamas. When he heard she had definitely vern killed he said "Good, good" and smiled - because at least he knew that she hadn't been tortured and abused for a long period of time, she'd just been killed outright and hadn't suffered, and he was absolutely breaking down. It was just the most heartbreaking thing ever but you could also understand why he felt the way he did.

She was only eight.

I've watched the Israel coverage after hearing about the abduction and rape of the German tattooist girl. Which of course is just yet one more example of men raping women, this time somewhere else in the world from the UK.

Seeing the rapist of the 13-year-old girl go free in Scotland today was also another doozy.

I do most definitely limit what I read and take breaks because it's just sole destroying to read, the same things over and over again. I think for me it's the fact that it just never ends. It's the same stuff - violence against women and children, corrupt governments, the rich getting richer, the poor being squeezed harder and harder, on and on and on it goes.

I think it’s worse because the worst pogrom of all time, the Holocaust, was so recent you can reach back and touch it and yet here we are again - another pogrom, with thousands of Jewish civilians murdered and injured and then blamed for it.

I don't have children but the news of the babies being murdered put me over the edge. I'm scrolling past a lot now.

Something my 6th Form Philosophy teacher once said to me has always stuck with me:

"If you don't cry watching the news, then you haven't understood it."

I have to distance myself from it for my own mental wellbeing. Although, like you, I have no tie to the most recent atrocities, I can't think of it without feeling physically sick.

I read that Hamas have already slaughtered at least 10 times more Jews than were killed during Kristallnacht in WWII, and I just can't do it.

I will never understand how humans can behave so abominably to one another.

I agree OP , for some reason I am finding what’s going on in Gaza even more upsetting than usual. I think it’s partly that the coverage seems physically even closer than ever, into people’s homes . I’ve also heard some pretty shocking reports of Hamas ’ actions . At the end of the day we are all human beings, and to think of going through what they are is horrific.
I don’t watch the news endlessly but I’ve read a bit to try to understand the politics of what’s going on .Although on a human level I really don’t understand how people can behave like this towards others.

Our brains are not designed to cope with this much information all the time, particularly when so much of it is very distressing. It’s not surprising so many people get broken by it. It’s fine to switch off for your own sanity.

The images and videos coming out of Isreal and Gaza are shocking, and because of TikTok they are everywhere. I don’t think we have ever seen this level of graphic content so readily available 24/7 with any other war.

For Hamas to openly post the horrible details of their attack for the world to see is absolutely disgusting, and the fact they have targetted women and children specifically makes it all so so much worse.

I agree with PP, switching off the news can be very beneficial for your mental wellbeing.

It's because in most scenarios, you sort of know who you are rooting for and know there will be an end to it, eventually. Even with Ukraine - the conflict won't go on forever, even if it does last a decade or more.

Obviously the actions of Hamas are terrible and it's an abomination. I can't feel that cutting off energy and water etc to Palestine is the right thing to do either. And I don't know how it will ever end.

To avoid overload, I try to avoid the pictures, which give a strong emotional response that can get exhausting. Reading actual books or in-depth pieces like long form articles or podcasts that provide more of the background is better than just constant horrible news.

Our brains see horrible images and it gives us an emotional and chemical response as if we were personally in danger. That's not useful. We need to find a way to understand what is going on without it becoming overwhelming and making us feel the world is a hopeless place.

I have always tried to keep up with what’s going on in the world but I’m struggling lately, it’s just all so upsetting. I don’t know if it’s because I’m heavily pregnant but everything that’s been in the news lately has made me feel physically ill, I’ve been struggling to sleep because of it so I’ve stopped reading/watching the news, at least for the time being.

I'm with you OP. My nervous system is still fried from Covid I think and it just makes me depressed and I struggle to function if I'm really engaging with terrible acts of violence and senseless war...

I was ashamed for a while but now I feel that it's a helpful boundary for me and I'm ok with it.

Fit your own life mask first!

I am an avid news watcher and have become a political person since covid.
But I am starting to think I need to cut down a bit because it is starting to effect my mental health as absolutely everything is broken and awful things are happening in every possible way.
That said I was appalled when I spoke to someone yesterday who hadn’t even heard anything about Israel and Gaza.
A while ago I was talking to someone else and she hadn’t heard of Stephen Lawrence. That shocked me too

You could also try reading positive news - they do a what went right this week column

https://www.positive.news/society/good-news-stories-from-week-40-of-2023/

I actually haven't watched the news since 9/11 – I saw so much TV coverage of that awful day and actually had nightmares after it for a few months. I don't like not being informed about what's going on, so I make a point of at least reading the headlines daily. Just enough to inform myself but not getting into the gory details. I just don't need to know everything horrible going on in the world and I think always focusing on all that's negative means we don't notice all the good things. And we aren't going to build a better world by scaring ourselves with the daily news.

Thank you midnight. Great advice. Do you know how I read a particular journalist? I'm not on twitter or whatever x thing is referred to now.

Yes, this is all very wise. I think you're right in that there is no obvious 'baddie' like Russia or the Nazis. It's heartbreaking to see 2 nations who are both so hurt, perpetuating that hurt onto innocent people. If hell is a lack of love, then this is hell. Even here on MN, I see it and it makes me despair.

Also, yes I haven't seen any moving images at all but I can't even click on newspapers as there will be at least one picture and headline popping up. I'll try some more of the 'comment' sections. Thank you.

It's the children. It's when they go after children I can't engage any more.

I cannot bear to look at any pictures coming out of Gaza, too horrific