Mental Health and Politics

I don't want to sound "whiney" but all this obsession with politics and Trump, etc. is really messing with my mental health. It's taking it's toll and pushing my mental health downhill. I'm just not used to this...type of atmosphere/society. I remember the days when people weren't like this. The days when people just went to work or school every day and there weren't any protests or riots all the time and you didn't hear about politics 24/7. My mental health isn't taking things very well these days. I already have depression and anxiety and everything that's going on and the way people are acting isn't helping any. I don't mean to make anything about myself. I just needed to vent. I don't know how to cope. By the way, I cant talk about any of this with my parents because they're Trump supporters and are therefore easily defensive so IF I try to reach out and it's about the obsession with politics effecting my mental health, I either get a "you don't understand" response or the accusation that I'm anti-Trump. I'm not anti or pro anyone. I just dont like something (Politics) that causes so much hatred and division and meanness. But I also have genuine mental health issues and the obsession with politics IS messing with my mental health. On top of that, I also have difficulty adjusting to change or I have a fear of change. And how everyone is acting nowadays is kinda different than what I'm used to.

 

I studied for decades, then collated the data for another decade, and the simple explanation, is that the mental health system creates its own patients. Academics and the religious oppose each other, and both invent endless gibberish and rhetoric, muddying the waters and suppressing any more genuine salt of the earth politics. In other words, academics often cannot teach a child how to use a stupid dictionary, share their words, and play nice, which is apparently only for Quakers and total losers. Oxford professors even invent their own nonsense words, while forty years of extensive studies concluded the republican party organizes along the lines of a flock of chickens and, in over a century, nobody has ever proven the existence of common sense anywhere in the world. The latest research indicates mental health services have the worst, absolute worst, success rates imaginable in the wealthiest countries.

Nothing to worry about, the workaholic populations of Japan and the white US and EU have been imploding faster than any other on the planet for over half a century, with academics having the lowest reproductive rates of all. The problem is solving itself.

 

I don't know the answer... But I will share my thoughts.

I don't like it either. I used to watch the news - it made me feel like a responsible member of society. I'm a little slow in that department and didn't really take an interest until 2016 or so; maybe earlier. But with the current administration it has become rather monotonous and sensational (though it may have already been that for some).

I feel like the media can paint a picture of the nation - they have the tools, the medium, the means, and the money. The picture they've painted is so acutely focused on demonizing Donald Trump that it's my belief they're un-watchable. I can't watch anything about him; I have made up my mind and nothing they say is going to improve my opinion or change anything short of UBI...

I think it's just become old, and frankly I think the news is due for a major overhaul - Fox included.

 

A life-long student of politics and Trade Unions - I was weaned on them as both my parents were deeply and actively involved, my Paternal Grandmother was a Match girl at Bryant & May, and a Suffragette, she knew both Annie Bessant and Sylvia Pankhurst (Emmaline's daughter). Like my parents and Grandmother I too have been deeply involved in Trade Union activities and activist in political campaigns. Unlike my Parents I became and was for many years a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. I took part in many political and Trade Union demonstrations and pickets and was joint founder of a neighbourhood Law Centre and provided advice and representation at courts and Tribunals for more than 30 years. I live and breathe politics !!!

 

I just don't know how to cope. Its just depressing when I hear about it all the time. I know politics is important. But I don't want to hear about it 24/7 and it becomes obsessive when you turn the TV because someone said something you don't like or when you turn against people because you're obsessed with your candidate of choice or obsessed with the president. I noticed a lot of Trump supporters only sees Trump now; they've even turned against other Republicans like Cruz and Rubio and even Pence. It's just scary to me. Almost like cult-like. I don't understand it. And if they were like this over Biden, I would still be scared and worried. Because it's not normal behavior to be this way over a politician or flesh and blood human being.

 

The entire public has withdrawn from discourse, refusing to discuss religion or any number of subjects anymore, with politics dominating everything, because they refuse to discuss anything. Screw the news, screw the boob tube, screw youtube, just get out there and pay it forward and see how different the world looks.

 

Politics don't worry me. I'm old enough, I've seen reps. and dems. and the same old shit. On the other hand covid does. It has been close to a year this shit has been going on. Staying home is getting old. At first I didn't mind it, because I don't want to get sick. can't wait for warmer weather to get outside and do things in yard and garden.

 

Sounds like you need a greenhouse in your garden. A little bent PVC pipe, some plastic, and you are set to go.

 

Yes I would love one. I had big plans for raised beds, until lumber prices went so high. Didn't even do that last fall. Hope things get better.

 

I totally relate to the OP... Recently I have decided to reduce the amount of news and politics I take in - not because I don't care (I do care massively, and used to follow in detail very closely every day) but because its just not healthy for me personally.

I decided that although awareness and understanding is important, there is a limit to what I can affect out there - but I can make myself happier by putting that worry and effort into self improvement and my own situation. I think of it as self care, and puts me in a better position to be positive in the world too. That's my thoughts atm.

 

Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge, but only if you are honest and have personal integrity. Stop looking to other people for the truth, when you know damned well they are all liars. Blow up your TV as a public health service, tell the teachers of all these liars they are killing themselves and their own students, and see just how deeply in denial they are for yourself.

 

In 2016, 46.9% of eligible voters couldn't be bothered to perform the one and only task required of a free citizen in a representative democracy; vote. As a result, we got infants in cages in kiddie concentration camps, Nazis ("very fine people", according to the president) reenacting the Nuremberg Rallies, a 20% increase in hate crimes, the highest in 16 years, including the highest number of hate-motivated murders in 28 years, largely committed by white supremacists, unparalleled corruption and nepotism, the highest income inequality since the Gilded Age, an uncontrolled pandemic which has cost at least 466,376 lives (25% of the global total, from a country that comprises only 4.8% of the global population), and of course an attempted coup d'état.
Bismark once remarked that those who love sausages and the law shouldn't ever see either being made. Yes, politics can be frightening, depressing, and discouraging, but the consequences of indifference and inaction can be profoundly harmful to millions.

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
Plato

 

Forty percent of the damned country is demanding a dictator, but you can call them apathetic and everyone else losers all you want.

 

I'd also point out that checking out of politics is the epitome of privilege. Nobody's trying to invalidate your marriage, deny you reproductive freedom, deport you, or shoot you over a broken taillight. It's a tacit admission that if it's not a problem for you personally, you don't consider it a problem at all.

 

Forty percent of the population demanding a dictator is not called politics, nor is civil war called politics. Americans have been voting for whoever advertises the most for over twenty years, and a twenty year study concluded no matter who was elected to congress, only the top 10% ever got anything they wanted. Its just not called fucking politics, unless you own Wall Street or believe a word that the same assholes who are voting say. A quarter of them insist the sun revolves around the earth, a majority insists that majority rule, or mob rule, is indistinguishable from a democracy.

They are a fucking culture of compulsive liars, who even teach children to lie, insisting the English language only has one grammar and anyone can argue over the definition of stupid. Donald Duck has anywhere from 4,000-25,000 lies attributed to him alone. Instead of calling him a compulsive liar and a lowlife con-artist, the insist he is suffering from dementia.

 

A Webmaster’s Tips for Staying Sane Online | Plum Village

 

Webmasters are a dime a dozen, as are Buddhists, who often spout what is demonstrably meaningless nonsense. He might as well say put a flower on your desk, to drive away the evil smells.

 

I know what you mean PoeticP---I'm sick of it too, however I've been around from FDR to the present and I HAVE--HAVE to keep an eye and ear on the recent foolishness simply because I and my family have deep roots in our country. There has been nothing like the past 4 or 5 years and I think --hope--that it's going to normalize with the new administration. I hope you are not subjected to Fox on TV constantly---that would drive any thinking person to madness!! I can't help you except to suggest you find other things to do with your time and try to ignore the constant ruckus.

 

I'm in Oregon and I see that you are far away. . Were you close to me, I would come and get you and take you for lunch or to a park or a museum---or somewhere relaxing/ interesting. Alas----it is not to be, but hopefully there is someone in your life to provide such as I mentioned.