Traumatised by the news

[StrangePineapple]

This week I’ve been struggling immensely with rumination on current events.
I literally feel traumatised with the darkness of it all and will have to take a break from the news for a while to recover I think 😞
AIBU to think that news stories these days include too much detail on certain cases and it’s just not necessary, like they could easily express the weight of the story without going into such detail?
I’ve seen a few posts on here where people have expressed distress over horrible news stories and people reply with even more detail or talking about similar cases, why add to their sorrow?

You googled it! So of course it is correct - defence mechanism for what??

I voted YABU, because you could have just refused to listen, read, watch.

@ithappenstootherfamilies I know im a bit too trusting of google! Apparently if we keep ourselves informed of anything that goes wrong it's a way of trying to prevent it from happening to us which makes sense as to why it's so easy to fixate on bad news stories

I've lost a fair bit of sleep over news of the last fortnight op.

I don't even follow it avidly, just the 6 o'clock news on the telly, it's not on my feeds, aside from MN I'm not on socials....

And aside from the utterly disgusting things that have happened - the body cam footage, the real-time videos filmed on peoples phones...it adds another layer of horrificness (Nowak, and the poor man in NI) is broadcast...as well as the awful events themselves I think those images seer themselves into my minds eye. I don't know that the BBC would have broadcast those images 15 years ago.

I don't know if I'm making a coherent point here, I know what I am trying to say. Its the level of details that we are given these days idk.

I am very distraught over the two little ones in the media this week and have been turning the news off.

I think the algorithms of our news apps don't help. As well as click bait headlines.

I stopped watching the news in 2020 because the Covid stuff affected my mental health. I feel happier not watching it.

Many people are choosing to avoid the news now.

https://theconversation.com/why-40-per-cent-of-people-are-avoiding-the-news-according-to-a-psychologist-282023

It's always been doom and gloom! Tell your social media to show you less of this, unfollow any news you don't want and focus on that which you do.

On the other hand its a good time to be alive. We are richer, healthier, better fed, better educated, than ever before. Bad shit is always happening somewhere.

when I first had children I found it very hard to read about child abuse cases. But not now, though of course they are awful. I think if something relates to a personal experience (for example a plane crash when you have a fear of flying and are about to go in holiday) it can be distressing. Otherwise it’s how news works - they will report about two trains hitting each other, they are not going to report the thousands of daily train journeys that are without incident!

I have trouble with rumination and hyper fixation generally, as well as intrusive thoughts since my first pregnancy. So 100% I am someone who just shouldn’t be watching/reading news, I just (perhaps wrongly?) felt a responsibility to stay informed about current events.
I have been crying a lot lately about specific stories, my empathy has been off the charts since becoming a parent and sometimes I wish I could just switch it off 😞
But I promise I will be switching off the news for the foreseeable future!

This week has been particularly bad.

World new is always bad but this week there has been at least two major stories coming from the UK that involve children.

It's quite harrowing.

I was watching a history documentary and they mentioned in passing that people (?1940s) would watch the Pathé news once a week at the cinema.

That sounds so nice. Imagine news only once a week*

*No..I'm not saying the 40s was a great time to be alive. No pile on. I'm specifically talking about the news being once a week.

And yes you can try and avoid the news but it is bloody everywhere. If you have the radio on for the travel on the school run, if you walk past the papers at the petrol station etc

I'm feeling the same way. I don't engage with upsetting news at all but any time I go online I'm handed headlines that make me feel physically weak. I try not to read them but it's only a few words and usually a picture and the information is in my head before I can stop it.

I've been wanting to explore a way to block certain types of news stories from making their way to me but I don't think that's possible beyond just not engaging with them. It's awful though. If I have to keep hearing about terrible things happening to children I'm going to have to go live in a cave.

I NEVER watch news on the TV - never ever.

Headlines from BBC on my phone - that is enough.

Our lives are so media-led - you only have to look at the current political "crisis" - this is media constructed/contrived.

They head for the most eye-catching and gut-wrenching images as they are competing for ratings. Unfortunately many children are exposed to all this in households where the TV is on all the time.

It’s been surprisingly helpful to hear that others are going through the same thing as me right now, which I logically knew but it’s different to actually interact about it. I don’t really have anyone to talk to about this sort of thing IRL so this is cathartic.

Why is it silly to be so affected? We should be affected by the suffering of others; if we aren't, nothing changes. It's easier to go the other way and become desensitised by seeing so much suffering that we recalibrate it in our minds as less serious. I agree with others though, lay off the news for a while, or don't click on a headline you know will upset you too much.

OP, Sorry to be saying possibly silly things but do you have any lightness in amongst the dark? Do you have friends, interests, nice times?

I don’t really do social media, i just watch TV news really.
Yes there has always been bad/horrific news but it just feels like they need to consider the way they report it, so as not to cause secondary trauma.
I wonder if any studies have been done on this 🤔

I’m not sure if you mean it’s affecting you to this extent but if you’re ruminating and traumatised it’s going to be more an internal issue you’re experiencing, like anxiety, not the news’ fault- you’re not experiencing a proportional response.

what detail do you think is too much? Do you have an example?

About a week after my eldest was born there was a very famous abduction case on the news. Two older boys took a little one. Everyone knows the case.

I cried and cried in front of the tv and lost sleep (the little i would be getting with a new born!).

I think the hormones and the new parent aspect and the pure horror of it made a perfect storm. I've never forgotten how badly that affected me. I felt almost out of control.

So many horrific things go on. You have to build a shell around yourself - empathising too hard will drive you mad.

💐💐💐

Can I ask how it doesn’t affect you so much anymore? Please tell me this hyper-empathy caused by parenthood will ease with time 😣 I’m 5 years in and it’s not letting up.

Stop reading it then? I cherry pick the stories I read now. I follow politics but I try not to read ghastly stories too much. I came off X a few years ago because of the constant images of Palestinian children I didn’t ask to see on my feed. It all gets a bit too much.

I feel like there used to be disclaimers of distressing content on the news and it was rare and now they put the most horrific footage on at any time of day. I guess that there is a sense that a lot of people are desensitised to things and need a shock to get them to understand the gravity of a situation, whereas some of us have even slight things seared on our brains for eternity.

I don’t watch the news, I rarely read the news, I don’t listen to the radio and I still know far too many horrific things that are happening in the world that I can do nothing about and me being informed about those things changes nothing except the inside of my own head. I hate when you are in a hotel or I was in macdonalds and they have the 24 hour news on - who wants to be watching people being blown up whilst they eat their nuggets. Who needs to be watching that at all?

I don’t watch the news. It’s mentally easier. I half keep abreast of what’s happening on here and normal conversations, I don’t want to know the rest.