Edit:
Fuck. I don’t want to downplay your suffering if you’re American, Arab or Ukrainian, an oppressed minority and/or female (I’m neither) but sometimes I feel like empathy is taking a toll on me. It’s a huge weight to add to my mental problems. Thanks for the advice, I’m trying to get my parents on board with the “winding down” on the project while I try to get my mind off things and establish a schedule by trying to work in a help call center (I would have preferred manual labor but they are the only company hiring around that is large and evil enough I don’t mind them losing money through my incompetence in the presumably short time I last).
Original comment content below.
I’m European but after doomscrolling on Lemmy, watching Last Week Tonight etc. I can’t keep my calm over the US election, which is not helping my existing depression and suspected ADHD. The only good thing I did today was not eat much (I’m overweight) and 15 minutes of gardening. I can’t keep todo lists because I’m really depressed over not having completing any meaningful item for weeks, and not even my long-abandoned passion projects spark joy anymore.
I’m afraid things will go very wrong for my mental state if Trump wins. I have two psychologists and a psychiatrist but I’m only meeting them next week. Please help me get my mind off this and maybe even get something done.
Were you fine when Trump got elected as president few years ago? If yes, then I promise you, you’ll be fine.
ESPECIALLY if you’re not American (with the exception of Ukraine probably)
Whatever it is, I think it’s better if you sign out from Lemmy for a while
The rest of Lemmy has had a meeting and decided that you no longer need to save the world. It was wrong of us to put that burden on you. Stop, rest save yourself first. We would love for you to volunteer to help when you are better.
Your garden looks wonderful 😊
You haven’t seen my garden and it’s quite barren now that the vegetation period has ended for everything outside greenhouses.
Anyway, you deserve a pic so here is one from earlier this year.
(My phone is from 2013 and full of dust)That looks like a whole bunch of potential for next season!
I sure hope so, vegetables were fine but we barely got any fruit this year. Trees bloomed early and suffered frostbite.
That’s a good size garden!
My grandma used to have one like that and my best childhood memories are picking vegetables with her and then we’d cook them for dinner
I never got into gardening except the last couple years and it’s very rewarding in the spring when you start seeing things sprout
My parents nor I would take the “stop” very well because I would end up doing stupid shit. See my comment with the cat pic.
Trump isn’t worth this. No one is. Get off the internet and go outside or focus on a hobby. Stop doomscrolling.
Do a week of digital detox. Seriously, drop it all. No Lemmy, YT, RSS, not even the weather; drop all digital media.
I’m physically disabled and been through stretches like this. I’ve read all of Dune and most of Asimov’s fiction in these stretches. Books are good. Independent thought and perspective is rejuvenating and can break the spiral. Scrolling is addiction, as is most digital media. Sometimes you need to detox for self care.
I stayed off for a day but I need longer, feel terrible today. Book is a great idea.
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Idk, gay rights in my country are expected to be decided in 1-2 years and I’m pretty sure we will not follow through with gay marriage if America doesn’t. Why do I even care so much? I don’t even know any openly LGBT person IRL, and just one Ukrainian! Am I too obsessed with Elon facing justice instead of a key government job offer?
America legalized gay marriage many years ago.
Gay marriage is mostly decided in the US, despite Republican bluster and Democrat worry. It is strongly supported by both parties, and while more radical Republicans are in power now, it’s quite unlikely it will change.
The policies at critical danger in the next four years are abortion, trans rights, and immigrant rights.
I live in Canada, so whatever happens in the States would affect us, but we can’t really do anything about it. I would be lying if i say I’m not at least a little bit nervous about the results. But just like many things in life, I try to practice to only worry about things that I have control over, and let whatever I don’t have control over be.
You’ve correctly identified that you’re doom scrolling. Like many others have said, it’s probably a good idea to try and limit your news consumption, at least for a little while.
Eat something healthy.
Just not eating at all will likely lead to a binge later.
Do yourself a favour: put the phone down. Stay away from your computer screen. Do literally anything else - some chores, a hobby, counting the number of people walking by your house, fill pages with drawings of squares, take several really long walks, find a pond and skip some rocks, whatever floats your boat. The point is not trying to accomplish anything, but to shift your attention. If something you’ve been putting off gets done, that’s a nice side effect, but not the point - so don’t worry too much about the result.
You have no control over the outcome of the U.S. election whatsoever. It is not worth your health to obsess over something that you can’t control that fills you with negative feelings. So block it out - if anything, try to summon some gratitude that you have the option to do that (though it’s ok if you find that hard to do).
I know this is much easier said than done. But you’ve got this. You’ll be ok. I’m pulling for ya.
Thanks. I’ll be trying to push my psychiatrist to do ADHD tests ASAP so I can get productive before the project’s Christmas deadline. Until then, this is pretty much the best advice I could be given. Thank you for your empathy.
No problem my friend. On the project side of things, a couple of thoughts. This is assuming it’s a project for school, if it’s not either see if any of this can be adapted to your situation, or otherwise discard it without any guilt.
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100%, do whatever is in your power to expedite things with your psychiatrist. Ignore my caveat above on this one.
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If possible, do one thing a day that moves the needle a little bit. It can be tiny - like, write 2 sentences - but just something where you can say “I did something”.
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If you need to use a computer for some project tasks, go to campus (or a library) and use theirs. Sometimes being in an environment where folks are doing focused work (or at least pretending to) can help people stay on task a bit better. Turn off wifi and mobile connectivity on your phone, and keep it in your bag.
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Set timers for doing project related tasks in increments - 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5, whatever makes sense for you. Try your best to just do something project related for that increment. If the end product is you wrote a sentence, that is still something.
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If you find you’re lapsing into doom scrolling instead of project work, give yourself permission to stop ASAP and go do something else (see prior comment). If you’re not going to be productive anyway, at least do so in a way that isn’t causing you as much distress.
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If you need to review sources, print them out over just viewing them online. Go through them with a pen and a highlighter and take physical notes.
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[should probably be higher on the list] Set a meeting with your prof and be brutally honest about your situation. Let them know your struggles with the project, and what you are trying to do about it. See if an extension is an option at all. It may not end the way you want, but having that conversation is something you can control (if not the ultimate outcome).
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Be gentle with yourself. You’re in a hard spot, and you are trying your best while working to get the professional assistance you need. Maybe you do or are doing all of the above, and you don’t feel like it’s getting the results you need. That’s OK. When you get the professional support you need, you can revisit. Prioritize your well-being.
I hope you find at least some of this useful.
Thanks but my discipline is terrible so today I did mostly the same shit as yesterday. I succeeded at trapping a free-roaming cat that’s been coming to eat but after half an hour sitting in the cage with it I grew no closer to befriending it, just got bitten. Oh well, at least you get a cat pic.
I sent the “progress” report to my coach and she told me I don’t have to bother coming next week, as there is no point when I can’t follow her advice.
I replied positively to a course offer at uni that will make this “gap year” at least somewhat productive, so there’s that. I still have to type out the email to the psychiatrist before I go to sleep.
The college is impractically far and commuting makes me tired. My parents are at home in the afternoon but they are way too aggressive at trying to get me to work, I am already too tired most of the time and can’t focus when they’re watching. I tried dad’s office but his boss is not happy with my frequent toilet visits and I don’t get too productive there either. The problem is: they’re right, the only time I’m productive is when there is somebody around but they just wreck my mood when they’re behind my back so there is a huge cost: I get 0-10 minutes of productivity for every evening spent crying or pouting. However, still better than what I would be doing alone.
The nearest town has a library but I’m still pretty sure I couldn’t end up productive if I used the study room. The work is coding btw and I’m not disciplined enough to disable procrastination webpages; still I would probably end up binging “Unusual articles” or similar collections on Wikipedia. I guess it there is harm to try the library, though.
Thank you for the cat tax, though I’m sorry to hear you got bit.
I completely understand re: campus being too far to be practical, but 100% recommend giving the library a shot. Given that it’s coding, the whole ‘use an organization’s device rather than yours’ thing is tricky (unless you can put everything you need on a remote/web-accessible IDE or something - I remember screwing around with something like this but as decidedly not-a-coder, it may not be practical). Still, the library has the whole other humans being around aspect going for it, with the benefit that said humans aren’t going to go out of their way to distract or push you. Sometimes people just being there, but doing their own thing, is enough to help folks buckle down a bit. But it might not be, and that’s ok - at least you’ll know.
If all else fails, pay more attention to my first post and the others like it here than the second one. It’s certainly worth trying for progress while waiting on meds, but if it’s just not happening focus on well-being. I obviously don’t know you well enough to offer more practical advice on trying to get the project done, but definitely think meds will help if your psychiatrist agrees.
Hang in there buddy.
I’m sorry to hear you got bit.
No problem. I’d take a gruesome, mind-wrecking rabies death over Trump any day if it didn’t entail so much suffering for everyone around. So yeah, I thoroughly disinfected the wound. The election scar on my soul will stay way past 2029 though, if I love that long.
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Nothing happening in the US will have any immediate impact on Europe. Not even on the US. No matter who wins the election inauguration is still weeks (months?) away.
because vladimir putin doesn’t read the news? the idiocy in this statement is beyond
What should Putin do? Immediately attack the EU when he can’t even handle Ukraine?
I still have some 5 decades left in my life (hopefully, if I get through this crisis) and everyone has been convincing me that a second Trump term will have a huge, lasting impact on the entire globalized world. You’re telling me it’s OK just because the terror would start on January 20 and not tomorrow?
Well, at least it could save you over until next week.
And with all the doomsaying about Trump, we said the same thing about his last term. It was bad, but not as bad as it could have been. A second term won’t be good and might test American democracy. But nobody can tell what will really happen. It might be a total dud while all he does is ensuring that he will be richer and pardoned when he’s done.
I found this video to be quite positive. It’s titled "Why I’m not worried about the election, so ofc I expected some BS but I’ve liked him in the past and sure enough, he came up with some surprisingly good thoughts.
you will not. none of us will be alright if trump wins again. a million americans died the last time trump was the president, from a purposefully inept and sandbagged global pandemic response. this is not a fucking drill.
this will be my only post to this sub, beyond the reply i already added, you do no one any favors by telling them the actual monster coming to eat them, isn’t, and to ignore it
It wont be. Sadly the entire world would be a better place if everyone white man in the US died the day before yesterday. And I say this as a white guy.
