Has everything always been this depressing

[Newbabynewhouse]

Just watching the news and realised that everything is so depressing.. gl0bal warning, floods, gangs, covid, racism..social care tax rise.. I could go on..and on.. Has life always been like this or is getting worse!? I don't seem to remember the world being this bad when j was younger but maybe I was oblivious to it as I wasn't an adult?..

I know it's a bit of a first world issue and there are way worse things going on in other countries but it's really getting me down that everywhere has shortages,:shops restaurants etc never have what you want to order, the quality is awful, people just seem to be so miserable and life just doesn't seem to be enjoyable anymore... is it just me that feels this way?

YANBU OP, things are particularly iffy at the moment. Bear up, it's probably not as bad as we think it is though. Have a cake and cup of tea.

I agree in part. I think the last 18 months has been more turbulent. The internet also condenses the misery.. But I also remember the late 70s and 80s being dark and divided times. Internationally there have been and always will be events which are cruel and disturbing. Sometimes I do switch off the tv and net because I don’t want to witness more inhumanity and greed.

I would hugely recommend this book OP www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Hans-Rosling/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AHans+Rosling&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Gives loads of 'good news' examples as above but also explains why we see (or are lead to see) the negative rather than the positive. Really changed my way of thinking.

I have to distance myself from the news.. especially at the moment with covid, afghanistan and the taliban, global warming. It’s just way too much! I feel guilty about forgetting my bags for life and having to buy a plastic bag in the shops for fear it will get stuck round a birds beak. Honestly I’m sure I’m going a bit loopy.. I’m also in fear of an imminent terrorist attack thanks to the news. It’s not for the faint hearted and unfortunately I think that’s me..

For me, the end of the actual planet due to climate change is the issue I can't shake off. It's happening in a very tangible way now and if I think about it too much I get very tearful and panicky for my children.

It's not the same kind of thing as covid, Afghanistan, etc. It's literally the end of the world. Terrifying.

I don't think there were less bad things happening when we were kids. In the 70s/80s/90s, there were the troubles in Northern Ireland, Miners strikes, poll taxes, the Manchester bombing in the 90s, the cold war etc.

I think there is far more access and exposure to news now though. It used to be on the TV at set times didn't it - 6pm, 10pm etc. Now, you can watch 24/7 if you want. Internet news sites,people sharing on social media.

Can you avoid the news as much as possible for a bit? Don't watch/listen to it and try to avoid internet news (not always possible I know).

While I'm not suggesting we should just live in ignorance, sometimes,taking a break from it helps.

I can remember my parents in the early/mid 90's saying how depressing the news was and then watching it religiously at tea time and last thing at night
I barely noticed, blissful youthful ignorance I think as we age we loose our natural optimism and realism starts to creep in instead!
When you are young you have a whole life to look forward to, I'd say once middle age sets in and a lot of your 'firsts' are behind you it's all much less appealing and therefore the bad news resonates more.

I'm nearer 70 than 60 and it's always been this depressing. During the Cuban Missile Crisis we expected World War 3 to start any day.

@LukeEvansWife

To be fair, when I was growing up in the 80s, the Cold War was very much in the foreground and we lived in terror of the four minute warning. Oh and AIDS was something that terrified us too.

My theory is that it SEEMS worse now because there is rolling news and the internet, and every detail of every crappy event is analysed in minute detail.

My mental health is always better when I avoid the news!

Yes I remember being terrified in the eighties as a teenager. the worry of nuclear war, those Aids adverts making us think we were all going to die. I was involved in anti-vivesection marches and was exposed to all kinds of horrors from a young age because my mum was into fighting all sorts of causes, but I have shielded my own kids from this sort of thing.

@DerAlteMann

I'm nearer 70 than 60 and it's always been this depressing. During the Cuban Missile Crisis we expected World War 3 to start any day.

Yes, whenever someone starts a thread like this, and I do get where OP is coming from, I always think how glad I am I didn’t have to live through the Cuban missile crisis. DH did, he’s 70, I’m 50 and I don’t think anything I’ve lived through comes near to that.

There has always been bad news, wars, famines, poverty. As others have said we now have rolling bews so are aware of so much more.

But we are also in the middle of a global pandemic which is an exceptional crisis.

But global warming is now having a massive effect on our climate 5 x as many weather crises in last decade said Met Office this week. Fires, floods and heatwaves smashing all records. For me this is THE issue and because it requires international cooperation to tackle effectively, not one I'm confident the powers that be will get a handle on before we have a very damaging degree of warming causing sea level rise, crop failure and water shortages. So on balance I'd say as a society we are facing a massive crisis, an international one at a level not seen for centuries since an event like the black death which reduced global population by 25%

Tbh the last 3 or so generations in West has been a historical anomaly. Largely peaceful and prosperous. Most peoples lives have been shit throughout history. We're seeing our comfortable lives threatened by viruses and climate change, but I really think we have simply got too used to life being easy - it's been great but we've been lucky, most of the world haven't had this.

The best thing you can do is just not reading about it on the internet if it upsets you too much.

I agree, horrific things are always happening and always have. Makes me unspeakably grateful for our peace and the health of loved ones through medical advances.

I cannot stand it when people/media/social media screech about life not being perfect. For example there isn't the usual 23 types of white bread on the supermarket shelves. I genuinely feel sorry for people who are so consumed by material possessions or appearances. It's not important.

We can eat. We have an abundance of everything, too much really.

I choose to be happy. I am lucky.

This helps to absorb the constant bad news in a healthier way.

Basically yes. But also no.

If you look back the ancient Greeks were always shaking their heads and gloomily pronouncing that the world was going to hell. And if you look at all the wars, plagues, famines, invasions, etc, people have always lived in fear of death.

BUT, throughout all this, millions of people have lived happy and fulfilled lives, fallen in love, raised families, built cities, written classics, painted masterpieces, eaten, drunk and been merry. None of which would have happened if the sat in a corner ruminating about the world going to hell.

Btw in my day it was nuclear war, and yet here we still are.

Well, we haven't had a pandemic like this for 100 years, so that is exceptional. Otherwise, I'm not sure that things are more depressing now; I think that we have access to the bad news 24/7, whereas in the past you had regular news programmes, but it wasn't constant. When I was young, I really thought it was about 50/50 whether the entire world was going to be blown up in the near future due to some crazy action by Reagan or Brezhnev or even someone accidentally setting off the nukes! And even wjth Covid, the life expectancy now is much higher than then - worldwide, not just in the UK. And shortages here have been an issue in the past; I remember in my childhood (70s), the 3-day week, doing homework by candlelight due to power cuts, and a big shortage at one point of - guess what- loo paper! History does sometimes repeat itself. Though Brexit and Covid at the same time aren't helping.

Actually we did have a terrifying pandemic starting in the 80s: HIV/Aids. Still do, but at least now it's treatable, at least in the developed world. Locally, we had many years of terrorism and near-civil-war within the UK, in Northern Ireland. Worldwide, although absolute poverty, hunger and child deaths from preventable disease are still a terrible problem and Covid hasn't helped, there was a higher proportion of people living and dying in absolute poverty then than now.

I think when I get bogged down with the news I look back and think that at least I work in the public sector and have tried to make a difference. (I’ve worked in child protection for example ). So perhaps doing something like volunteering would make a difference? Go and work at a food bank or homeless shelter then at least you can feel like you’re part of the solution.

"We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe". 8 Oct 2018.

There are a lot of people with their heads in the sand

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

Yeah. I'm 37 and have been alive for:

Chernobyl
Thatcher
The Hillsbrough disaster
Rwanda genocide
The Gulf War
Mad cow disease
9/11
Iraq war
The Boxing Day tsunami
Hurricane Katrina
The financial crash
The start and end of the Afghanistan mess
Haitian earthquake
Brexit
and Covid-19.

Alongside some truly awful serial murders, child cruelty cases and extremely violent crimes. Something shitty is always happening somewhere.

Lebanon, Hungary, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Cold War and AIDS epidemics, as PP have said, annual monsoons in India, famine in Africa Etc. - all were part of growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Social media makes it seem worse now, but it’s always been this way...

There is so much fucking news that I think stuff is under-reported these days, to be honest.

How many people know about the famine in Yemen?

Yes. The key is not to watch the news too much or worry about things you have no control over.

I think it has always been bad in terms of events.

What is worse for me currently is having such a lying and openly corrupt government.

The ridiculousness of Brexit damage being self-inflicted is depressing, plus the NHS contracts going to local pub landlords and party donors.

There's a visible lack of humanity that scares me, amongst the more privileged.

[quote colouringindoors]"We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe". 8 Oct 2018.

There are a lot of people with their heads in the sand

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report[/quote]
This.

Everything else is pretty insignificant in comparison, and that's saying something.

@anewchapterishere

For me, the end of the actual planet due to climate change is the issue I can't shake off. It's happening in a very tangible way now and if I think about it too much I get very tearful and panicky for my children.

It's not the same kind of thing as covid, Afghanistan, etc. It's literally the end of the world. Terrifying.

I can't see it being the end of the world. I think we'll end up with a much reduced population while the world keeps turning. It's scary for us as individuals as we're wired to keep our babies safe. There are always people and their babies in immediate danger somewhere in the world though.