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great Carolyn Hax moments
Hopalong:
Q: Optimist gone bad
Carolyn - I am having such a hard time staying positive. The virus, the politics, the climate change, a hero and a protector (RBG) passing. I've always had a relentlessly positive attitude. Even when I was going through tough times, I'd wake up and see the sun shining and think "this isn't so bad, it's new day." All of that wind is out of my sails. I feel so hopeless about the state of the world, and also apathetic about my day to day life, work, relationships, etc. Like is justice a thing anymore? Is truth? If it's not, what's the point? What do you do to get through times when you feel this way?
A: Carolyn Hax
I think a lot of self-described optimists just woke up to realize they're just weekend warriors who'd thought they were Olympians.
It's okay. Go ahead and feel defeated for a while and go fetal. Maybe choose better snack foods than I did.
Then get back to whatever it is you feel you were put here to get back to. This can be a small thing or something ambitious enough to qualify as life's work. Up to you.
But you might want to start with your visualizations. They, too, can be small--where you think of one thing you can do to make your day better, one beautiful thing. Can you create something, can you clean something, can you write a check to someone, can you go help someone.
Or, it can be as big as the universe. Can you summon a mental image of the earth as viewed from space? And then ask yourself to put your questions in that perspective? Can you, similarly, call up images from difficult times in history? We humans have served up no shortage of horrific-case scenarios to lean on when we think we can't do this, to remind us that people get through stuff we get nightmares just imagining. (Reminder, I'm available for birthday parties!)
Noodle around with these visuals to see if something gives you a sense of relief, or perspective, or motivation. Any one of them is a start. If that leaves you empty, then I urge fiction (whatever absorbs you), rest, try again. It may seem like unproductive escapism and a dereliction of citizen duty, but fiction is a form of empathy training. It's productive, heart-opening, mind-broadening mental rest.
Another restorative escape, or way to regroup, is self-care. Assess, then give yourself what you need.
There will be plenty to do when you're ready. If mindful rest isn't enough to lift you back up, then two more suggestions--talk to your doctor (depression assessment), and narrow your scope. You're thinking national stuff when you have only local, one-human-scale reach, and it's a recipe for helplessness for all but the very very few people who have big power. So, bring your power to bear locally, where you can see a difference. Millions of you doing that can have a history-making effect--but only if each one of you chooses to do it.
— SEP 25, 2020 2:21 EDT
Twoapenny:
Timely, Hops, and good advice in the response, too (says the woman who's just started her morning with an hour in bed reading her 900plus page hard back blockbuster :) ).
I've not personally been a relentlessly optomistic person but I always used to feel that we were working towards solving problems - the various 'isms', climate change, global peace and so on. I used to feel that was the way we were heading and that things would get better, personally and on a wider level. I don't feel like that now and haven't for a good few years. The ease with which people have gone back to not only accepting but encouraging the various 'isms', along with the endless demand for consumer goods shipped from anywhere in the world, regardless of working conditions or sustainability and the way in which this pandemic is being handled - those things have been a bit of a nail in the coffin for me. It's true that you can only focus on your little bit for now - just hunker down, look after yourself as best you can and read a lot :) Lol xx
lighter:
Whew boy, Tupp and Hops:
What an amazing thread. I'm so glad to do some catching up.
Oh, to be released from the scary darkness, Tupp. To step into the sunny present and fear no more.
To feel the past recede and take its rightful place. The old man in the doorway isn't in your face anymore.....there's distance now. What a huge shift in your universe, ((Tupp!))
Lighter
Hopalong:
Nice comment from a man who's a regular on the Carolyn Hax (CH) column:
"
1 day ago
(Edited)
I agree with CH; "Unsure in Wisconsin" lives in a dark place of anger and resentment, Having been there myself, I know it to be corrosive place where pain and embitterment exists in our/my heart.
It may be worthwhile to define embitterment:
Embitterment is a persistent negative feeling in reaction to common negative life events, and is a reactive emotion towards Injustice, Insult or Breach of Trust. Embitterment is a gnawing feeling and has the tendency not to stop.
And more of us suffer from that than we might want to admit; it may well lurk in our own underworld.
1 day ago
(Edited)
What to do.
FWIW, I try to be in the moment when embitterment presents itself, when I've experienced Injustice or Insult or a Breach of Trust -- and anger and resentment are boiling up.
I try to feel my raw pain, fully. I try to stay with my hostile feelings and let it speak to me, which it will do. I mean many lives have been destroyed by not addressing our intense negative feelings. Thus it behooves us to take responsibility for these powerful destructive emotions.
Rather than try to address these corrosive feeling cognitively -- that is to say, with my brain, my thoughts -- I try to stay within my emotional experience, my raw feelings.
1 day ago
Beneath that anger is a wounded child who wanted to be loved and accepted but was instead rejected, mocked, and ridiculed. So that child withdrew and tried to protect itself from that awful situation by presenting a brave front.
An endemic form of that occurs in schools and it's called bullying.
But we are an adult now and that is key. The adult in me can mourn what happened to the child in me. The adult in me can understand the trauma that the child in me suffered for many years but was never acknowledged nor comforted nor protected.
But you/I can. So now we have a path forward, a path that can heal after all these years.
I wish you well."
Hopalong:
Q: Glad I'm not famous
I need advice or be directed to resources on how to get over my own perceived mistakes and not worry about what people think of me. It's funny, because I'm a journalist (print) and on a daily basis my work is being edited and critiqued. That doesn't bother me. I appreciate a good editor/copy editor. But say I accidentally cut someone off on the road and I get honked at. I say something in person or social media that someone takes the wrong way and is offended or hurt. I'll ruminate about these things. I get anxiety. I often want to fix the record about my character and the type of person I am. I guess, it comes down to I really don't want people to be angry with me. But no one is perfect. In fact, I rarely get upset at others because I realize that most people aren't perfect. But I always worry what others think of me and my character.
A: Carolyn Hax
This could be about your wiring--I know there's a cohort of people who dwell on stuff like this, perseverate, replay conversations for days while cringing. (I'm one of them.) It's a tendency that shows up to varying degrees with anxiety/OCD, ADHD, autism, dementia ... maybe others, these are just off the top of my head, though like anything else there's no doubt a sub-clinical level of this that isn't part of any specific condition. Behaviors are less like on-off switches, more like dimmers.
Anyway. If it's really getting to you, then talk to your regular doctor (call) about relevant evaluations, or just try counseling. In the meantime, too, you can treat it as you would anxiety and adopt the various non-medical interventions that tend to work for it, like exercise, meditation, absorbing hobbies, etc. If that works, then you can skip the medical intervention part.
— OCT 23, 2020 1:41 EDT
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