Has this summer felt particularly bleak with so many tragic news stories?

[2ndNatureTime]

I feel like this summer has been doom and gloom! Lots of young people dying from celebrities to boys in cars! Stories of kids dying from abuse seem more common too. I know it's probably not more than usual but everything seems quite bleak. I think im going to stop reading the news as its so bleak.

I think with the heat it probably hasn’t helped- we all wanted heat but not necessarily to always be boiling unable to sleep etc. I get that people aren’t loving this summer but then at the same time this year has gone so fast I guess it feels like we’ve wished too much away so everyone’s a bit off! Am
personally trying to salvage the last while on my days off so the kids will come out of it thinking it wasn’t a bad one!!!

No, but then again I tend to not read the news and just enjoy the day to day.

No, but then again I don’t pay any attention to the news.

It’s not what you want to hear, but life is full of suffering and is quite bleak. We will all suffer, get old and die. You’re just seeing the truth and I think it’s better to find some acceptance of that truth rather than just turn away and then get the shock of our life when it happens to us and our loved ones. But I realise this is not how everyone wants to see it!

I think the only way to be happy amongst it is to use it to have compassion for others and realise happiness can’t come from outside yourself, because this world is fucked. We can only be happy by working on ourselves.

I agree. I sometimes wonder about this world we are living in.

The murder of baby Preston Davey and then the murder of Anne Widdecombe certainly shook me to my core.

So don’t wonder!

Just enjoy your own family, friends and day to day life

I don't think life is any more bleak. The reporting of the awful stuff is ever increasing, but if you put your mind to it (and I don't suggest that you do) then you will be reminded that really quite awful things have always happened. Take breaks from news. Personally, at the moment I only go to the BBC webpage and scroll the headlines so I know what's going on, but so that I don't hear and see tales of suffering and distress. I want to know what's going on, but I don't need the details, especially audio and visual ones.

No, I haven't got any sense that it's worse than usual. The news always miserable!

I did hear a threay about celeb deaths - that since 60s more ordinary people have got famous or a form of it every decade and as time passes they'll hit ages where deaths start to hit more frequently - so we will from now on be hearing more death announcements as part of news and news is more celb orienetated as well I feel.

I think sadly there have always been children dying of abuse but cuts to servcies won't have prevention in that field.

Hot weather and young men and teens dying in water isn't new either but so much hot weather meant more. We used to live near brick ponds - old floody mid quarries supepr deadly every few years despite signs a young man would go in and die - never hit more than the local press.

Wild fires are new and potical murders in mainland UK seem to be on the up - I think every thing else is probably at normal background levels.

Covid was awful for doom and gloom and reporting but there a lot of grim stuff from wars and conflicts that we're not routinely hearing about as they fall off the news cycle.

You need to listen to The Great Crime Mystery on Radio4. I attach a screenshot, don’t know how to do a link