At the risk of being ridiculed, as someone with decently severe anxiety, headlines around Russia tend to unsettle me quite a bit these days. Is there any community in the fediverse akin to r/UkraineAnxiety where particularly inflammatory or dramatic-sounding news headlines are put into context and relativized? Appreciate any pointers…
Not ridiculing you, but if you have “decently severe anxiety” over this, what the hell are you doing here?
Seriously, why are you feeding the beast in your head? This information machine is made to continue that trend. Just stop it and look at something else. Go for a walk or something and close the browser or phone. Heres a hint, if you have any excuse other than “oh shit you’re right”, you are an addict to this, and ive heard enough excuses from junkies in my life. Do better for yourself.
I generally like to know what’s going on in the world, it’s just this particular topic where I struggle with how it’s portrayed in media. It’s also not been on my mind a lot recently but with today’s news I just thought I would seek out some other perspective to put these new events into context. I’ve also gotten a lot better over time at not letting it get to me, but I guess in your mind I have to be completely unfazed by everything before I can come back online.
I will not stop occasionally checking the news as I do now, because I do not want to completely isolate myself and become politically apathetic. Nevermind that you are in no place to tell me how often I do and should read them.
I’m not sure why you immediately jumped to calling me a “junkie”, but I suspect that if that is how you feel the need to respond to my message, you aren’t in a very good place either. Maybe you should take your own advice and step away from the internet for a while.
I understand your desire to stay informed but also grounded. I have actually fantasized about a newspaper exactly like that - tells the world as it is, but also helps the readers cope.
My biggest thing is climate change and climate despair. I ended up googling how to deal with climate despair and came across a number of articles that were really helpful.
Hooe you find something similar for Russia/Ukraine.
I think even just a more grounded comment section would be enough for me. I only really look at comments to get different perspectives on what’s happening, but I rarely find actual contextualized discussion, instead usually there’s just highly upvoted fearmongering and making jokes about the world ending. It would be nice if there was a place where the top response is more like “here’s what this means / here’s what this doesn’t mean”.
I don’t know if this will be helpful, but I wrestled a lot with dealing with despair/fear from upheaval as well. Mostly climate like I said, but I used to cry for days thinking about kids starving in Venezuela, for example (that’s a crisis from many many years back).
Studying history actually helped me cope. Just learning about the past like 5000 years of human history and how much upheavals and famine and war and civilization collapses there have been.
I kind of realized that feeling like the world is ending (as we know it) is the NORM rather than the exception for most of human existence.
We’ve been exceptionally lucky in Western countries for the past 300ish years. But that caused us to believe that’s what’s to be expected. It’s not.
It just helped me understand that humans have survived through lots of things. And the turmoil comes with being alive.
Not much in the way of pointers here, but I’m putting out good vibes. I’ve been having trouble with news and how it affects my mental health.
Maybe check out TLDR News on YouTube. They do a sort of tiring amount of Ukraine videos, but it’s usually couched with language like “now, it’s important not to overstate xyz,” and some context why this or that event is probably not world shattering.
Edit: omg I just realized they said theyre on holiday yesterday, so nothing until next week or so. Funny timing on that lol
I enjoy Beau of the Fifth Column on YouTube. He is soft-spoken and respectful, even if opinions don’t agree. His comments are measured, informed and he will take a mea culpa. He’s mostly US politics, but will cover other topic, including Russia.
At the risk of being ridiculed, as someone with decently severe anxiety, headlines around Russia tend to unsettle me quite a bit these days. Is there any community in the fediverse akin to r/UkraineAnxiety where particularly inflammatory or dramatic-sounding news headlines are put into context and relativized? Appreciate any pointers…
Not ridiculing you, but if you have “decently severe anxiety” over this, what the hell are you doing here?
Seriously, why are you feeding the beast in your head? This information machine is made to continue that trend. Just stop it and look at something else. Go for a walk or something and close the browser or phone. Heres a hint, if you have any excuse other than “oh shit you’re right”, you are an addict to this, and ive heard enough excuses from junkies in my life. Do better for yourself.
I generally like to know what’s going on in the world, it’s just this particular topic where I struggle with how it’s portrayed in media. It’s also not been on my mind a lot recently but with today’s news I just thought I would seek out some other perspective to put these new events into context. I’ve also gotten a lot better over time at not letting it get to me, but I guess in your mind I have to be completely unfazed by everything before I can come back online.
I will not stop occasionally checking the news as I do now, because I do not want to completely isolate myself and become politically apathetic. Nevermind that you are in no place to tell me how often I do and should read them.
I’m not sure why you immediately jumped to calling me a “junkie”, but I suspect that if that is how you feel the need to respond to my message, you aren’t in a very good place either. Maybe you should take your own advice and step away from the internet for a while.
I understand your desire to stay informed but also grounded. I have actually fantasized about a newspaper exactly like that - tells the world as it is, but also helps the readers cope. My biggest thing is climate change and climate despair. I ended up googling how to deal with climate despair and came across a number of articles that were really helpful.
Hooe you find something similar for Russia/Ukraine.
Yes thank you! That’s exactly what I mean.
I think even just a more grounded comment section would be enough for me. I only really look at comments to get different perspectives on what’s happening, but I rarely find actual contextualized discussion, instead usually there’s just highly upvoted fearmongering and making jokes about the world ending. It would be nice if there was a place where the top response is more like “here’s what this means / here’s what this doesn’t mean”.
I don’t know if this will be helpful, but I wrestled a lot with dealing with despair/fear from upheaval as well. Mostly climate like I said, but I used to cry for days thinking about kids starving in Venezuela, for example (that’s a crisis from many many years back).
Studying history actually helped me cope. Just learning about the past like 5000 years of human history and how much upheavals and famine and war and civilization collapses there have been.
I kind of realized that feeling like the world is ending (as we know it) is the NORM rather than the exception for most of human existence.
We’ve been exceptionally lucky in Western countries for the past 300ish years. But that caused us to believe that’s what’s to be expected. It’s not.
It just helped me understand that humans have survived through lots of things. And the turmoil comes with being alive.
npr my man, npr.
Not much in the way of pointers here, but I’m putting out good vibes. I’ve been having trouble with news and how it affects my mental health.
Maybe check out TLDR News on YouTube. They do a sort of tiring amount of Ukraine videos, but it’s usually couched with language like “now, it’s important not to overstate xyz,” and some context why this or that event is probably not world shattering.
Edit: omg I just realized they said theyre on holiday yesterday, so nothing until next week or so. Funny timing on that lol
I’ll take a look, thanks!
I enjoy Beau of the Fifth Column on YouTube. He is soft-spoken and respectful, even if opinions don’t agree. His comments are measured, informed and he will take a mea culpa. He’s mostly US politics, but will cover other topic, including Russia.