I Need a Content Warning for All. The. News.

Photo by Elijah O'Donell on Unsplash


 
I used to have the news playing in the background in the mornings while I got ready for work. I would half pay attention while getting dressed, but mostly I was listening for traffic updates for my trek to Cincinnati through miles of highway traffic. I eventually had to stop this morning ritual because stories about mothers murdering their children and people being assaulted in their homes became too much for me and my anxiety to bear. I won’t even get into what news of President Cheetoface McTwitterThumbs does to my anxiety.

Who am I kidding, yes I will.

I love horror movies. The more it fucks with your head and makes you see monsters in the shadows, the better. But nothing scares me more than children in peril. I’ve heard A Quiet Place is masterful, but there’s no way I could watch it – it’s nothing but children in peril. Sadly, that’s what the news has become. There are stories about mothers drowning their children in the bathtub, children being kidnapped from their front yards, and school shooting after school shooting after school shooting.

I can’t fucking take it.

When I hear these stories, I picture my own children’s faces and empathy makes me feel what I would feel if it were them in those situations. My heart starts to race, tears sting my eyes, and the next thing I know, Anxiety has hold of me and won’t let go. I spend the rest of the day worrying about my babies and the pitiful America they have to live in.

Speaking of a pitiful America… I don’t have the anxieties over our Dictator in Chief that some do. I know many who completely lost it when he was elected. My level of anxiety hasn’t quite reached that point. Mostly I’m annoyed with his childish behavior and appalled that people think it’s okay to act like him – to degrade women and minorities, simply because they’re white men.

This morning I saw that he tweeted “BE CAUTIOUS” to the Iranian president. What the ever-loving fuck?! Why is he still allowed access to social media?! Do you want to start a war, because that’s how you start a war. If this doesn’t cause you anxiety, you’re not paying attention.

And that’s part of the problem. So I try not to pay attention.

My anxiety isn’t going to make the situation better. Yes, I know, I could protest, I could call my congressmen, etc. There are a number of things I could do. But Anxiety won’t let me do those things. That involves peopling, and I don’t do peopling.

So I pretend I live in a happy bubble where our country hasn’t gone to shit. Because when I pay attention, I start to worry about the mayhem this doofus could cause in the next few years. I worry about the refugee children who have been taken from their families (there we go with the children in peril again) and the gays who can’t order a fucking wedding cake without being judged and ridiculed.

Then I end up in the fetal position on the floor, afraid to leave my home. That’s not productive.

So I turn a blind eye, try to ignore the negativity on social media, and hope for the best. I’m a closet optimist. I have to believe it’ll be okay. If I don’t, what’s the point in living?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Respect Street - It's a Two-Way Road that Family Should Travel Together

Image
I've been watching Love, Victor. It's a series on Hulu in the universe of the movie Love, Simon, which is a hit movie about a teenager's journey to coming out as gay.  Love, Victor stars a Latino family with a teenage boy who is trying to figure out his sexual identity. He knows he's attracted to boys, but finds that he is also attracted to girls. His family is very traditional and Catholic, so Victor is afraid they will not accept him.  I love shows/movies like this because not only is queer representation in media so important, but also because I identify with the characters so much. While my parents aren't particularly religious, my grandparents are, and image is very important to them.  In the episode I'm currently watching (season 1, episode 5), Victor's grandparents come to visit for his 16th birthday. His mom is in panic mode because her mother-in-law is always incredibly judgmental of her every move. Victor invites his girlfriend, friends, and the bo
Read more

How To Avoid Your Feelings in Three Easy Steps!

Image
Same, Zooey Deschanel. Same.  Greetings, from your super slacker neighborhood anxiety blogger. Yeah, I know I never post anymore. It seems as though over the last 6 months or so, I’ve resorted to thinking about life (and all my issues) as little as possible, as a way to not freak out over them. It worked for a while. Things seemed to be going relatively well. Sure, my contact with the outside world was slowly diminishing – even texts to my partners were slowing considerably – but surely if I avoided my feelings by any means necessary, everything would be hunky dory, right?  How To Avoid Your Feelings in Three Easy Steps :  Mindlessly play games on your phone Watch Netflix whenever you should be cleaning Focus on literally anything  other than your actual life Yeah, I’m not fooling anyone. In the past few weeks it’s really caught up with me. It’s the two-year anniversary of my husband saying he wanted a divorce. It’s hard not to remember - it was
Read more

I got what I want... why am I crying?

Image
The above picture is an excellent portrayal of how far I’ve gotten with packing. My youngest built a box fort while my eldest played on her phone. Meanwhile, I was going in and out of the house bringing empty boxes in and taking filled boxes to the car. I’m in a weird place today. When my husband said he wanted a divorce over a year ago, I was crushed. For months I felt lost and hopeless. I lost the home I’d lived in for nearly ten years, mine and my childrens’ lives were turned upside down, and I felt like a complete failure. Since then I have worked so hard to improve my situation. I got a new job, I moved several times before renting the trailer I’ve been in for a year (the first place I’ve ever had on my own), I got a new job, and have worked hard to improve my credit score. I’m happy with where my life is right now. I decided I could have lower monthly payments (and SO much more room) if I owned instead of rented, and have worked for months to make that a reality. It’
Read more