You aren't alone.

Take a break from the news. Enjoy some nature. Escape into a book or series that is familar.

The fear and feelings are real, but they will pass.

Do things that occupy your mind in a good way.

World Cup to stay sane!!! and its working!!!

dogs and cats (often the grooms no one else will do) -- and I've never owned a dog -- but it relaxes me...

She is very soothing and you get to watch cute animals get cuter.

My dog has never been groomed. She's naturally beautiful and she smells like snickerdoodle cookies.

Between caring for our grandson (18 months old), and gardening - and hiking - my wife and I have managed to find a peaceful mental bubble to exist in. Oh yes - and we haven't watched TV in 15 years. And don't get a newspaper.

People get discouraged. They should remember, from me, it takes courage not to be discouraged.

Benjamin B. Ferencz

If you don’t know who Ben is look him up as the quote is more meaningful in context.

In my old age it is folks like Ben Ferenzc and Howard Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh who have inspired me the most.

To all you stalwart news consumers at DU, consider taking in a little league baseball game some Saturday. It's a remarkable way to give your minds and souls a much needed time off to breathe.

Come fall, consider checking out local kids soccer and/or football to sooth the mind and restore the heart a bit.

Perhaps make a pact with yourself to stay offline for a full day, then limit your time to an hour a day or something reasonable. Then go for a walk. No screens. Plant a nice flower bush or something similar if you have somewhere to do that. You got this!

It'll take you back to a happy place.

Their extinguish bursts are happening.

These criminals are not all-powerful. We are the millions, they are the few.

if we realize we have the POWER!!!!!

JEssica Craven and Robert Hubble and Timothy Snyder and Heather Cox Richardson are also very good. THey have substacks you can subscribe to.
And listen to this every week!
https://indivisible.org/events/whats-the-plan-with-leah-and-ezra/
It will make you feel better. They get 20,000 people listening each week. WHAT HELPS is community and action.
Highly rec joining an Indivisible group for that. They are alll over the country.

None of this is to deny that there is a lot of stuff going on to scare and depress you but there is a lot of things you can do to help!

I do subscribe to Heather I love her.

I have seen Timothy Snyder posts on Substack

I appreciate your response

My husband has started with the Bridge Brigade and 2 hours a week they hold signs and wave on the overpass
They get smiles and honks - and just a few middle fingers that they all laugh at.

It has helped.

For me, I can’t watch the news. I close the computer when it gets to be too much, and I have friends who are running locally, and those who are working for candidates who forgo dirty money.

But it’s not enough, I too am on the edge. Hugs, and I hope you find a refuge.I hope we all do

And I will never watch an Ellison owned property ever again. The less I see of fuckhead, the better!

Fuck the republican party to hell.

Take a walk and listen to the birds.

They aren’t winning, except in your head.

You don't have to solve every problem. You don't have to be the most effective person in the world. Just figure out how to do something almost every day: say, half an hour a day, five days a week

Although I think it's important to take time out and do some recreational thing every week, that doesn't work for me as an antidote to the daily dose of horror we are witnessing. The pain of being victimized needs to be addressed IMO. It is super stressful to know that we are living in a collapsing democracy, where every day there's a fresh cut by ruthless perpetrators. To absorb those cuts remotely and passively is even more paralyzing when there's no immediate rescue from the state of dissonance and worry it induces. But fighting back feels good, no matter how small the effort! I suggest doing a direct action task or two as often as possible, every week at least, if not every day, til it becomes a habit. Everyone can find a different rhythm with this. It doesn't matter what direction this resolve to "get out there and do something" takes.

Write or call reps (do it with a support group)
Become a voter registrar or a GOTV volunteer
Write a Letter to the Editor or comment online (DU counts )
Donate time or money to charities and relief services (esp those harmed by this administration)
Attend regular street demonstrations
Work with orgs doing educational outreach and community support
Make guerilla art if so inclined, join resistance singers
And more...

The therapy lies in taking action, preferably with others in real time or networking with others who are feeling the same way. Living with the delusion that everything is OK is just not mentally healthy--- if there's any energy left after the necessary demands of life, the way out is through action with realistic goals. The autocrats and their enablers are depending on most of us being stressed, isolated and powerless. Why give them that satisfaction? It's time to pull together, if it ever was. Get busy in whatever way is available.

thank you

They are convinced they will accomplish nothing and that congress is full of rinos.

I'm not trying to diminish the very good advice that I've seen in replies to your post, but I just wanted to speak the words to you that MOST of us with any sense at all are feeling this way. We just don't know what to do. We see what's being lost and are screaming at the top of our lungs only for so many to tell us "it's gonna be all right", when we know it isn't.

We are all waiting for that one, major event that will change the course. It's way past time for that to happen - whatever in the hell that is. Where in the actual hell is the Democratic leadership and why aren't they fighting harder?

I often reference an old high school classmate who is full-fucking blown QAnon, and I follow her Facebook page for entertainment. She is currently talking about Michael Jackson reappearing any day now to testify to just how bad the music business is and how Trump "saved him" from that industry. You simply can't be around crazy 24/7 (which we all are being subjected to right now) and not get freaked out.

So, here's what I do. I take a breath and try to remember that I still know the difference between right and wrong. I know what I see on video, even when they try to tell me that I didn't see it. I know what I hear on audio even when they try to tell me that I didn't hear it. I know bullshit when I'm confronted with bullshit.

I remind myself that since I still know that difference, that I'm still sane and functional - and able to fight against this in small, steady ways.

Well, any group appreciates a target to laugh at.

about the true size of it!!!!!! Fuck stand up to the BULLY!!!!!!!

Grocery shopping, quick store, gas station, pharmacy... There are so many sweet people out in the wild.

Seriously, I just want to stay home every day, but I'm forced to go out into the wild daily. And then, I'm so happy. I never have bad, standing in line, stories, except drivers, don't get me started! But people, yeah, even in redneck sw Oregon, been respectful. BTW, I'm pretty redneck right now. Got my trailer girl gardner tan rocking! 🤣

Ya'll need some Priscilla glads for your party? I got ya! lol

And I wish that for EVERYBODY!

Miss it so much.
Most of my contacts have retired and moved. During bush 2, we met on a downtown corner every week in Beaverton, to protest bush 2 illegal war.

He had the trunk of his 1960's land yacht fitted out with angled tubes to carry his glads to county fairs and the like. He'd always come home with ribbons. He even had a variety or two named for him. His name was Bill Tavener, in case you ever come across a seeming variant of that name on a glad variety. Most of his property was turned over to growing them.

Repeat.

to be outright outspoken on this, but no none wants to stand to this SF!!!!!!! This fucking criminal needs to be in the swamp he and others created.

This is not true. You spoke about your son not understanding. One MAGA is not "most of the people of this country". Right now many people cannot afford gas and groceries; much less housing and medical. We are all WELL AWARE of what is going on.

Can you join your county democratic party? If that doesn't appeal to you - how about learning how to register people to vote or serving as a poll watcher? Those are a little less partisan and you will still be part of the solution rather than drowning in the problem.

Take heart.

get everyone voting - young people, working people, busy people, older people - we need everyone! We can defeat these fascists.

remain. How with 70% apparently not pleased with the tyrant’s performance-what are their primary disagreements with him? Secondly, what is structurally, legally wrong or missing in our government that permits this man and his party to run roughshod over the 70% (majority) of us while we wait and hope for relief?

I wouldn’t be revealing an unheard truth when I answer the second question this way. It’s pretty obvious that there are powerful economic forces in our country that really make the major decisions affecting everything. Dramatic changes to the economic/political machine would require a swell of pushback revolution in the streets. Any one or many elections it seems doesn’t faze the preponderance of media, bank, military, corporate supremacy over us.

This is the greatest bit of wisdom I have ever seen from a religion. I am an atheist.

Dear Lord, Please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.

Go volunteer at a food pantry. Tutor in a literacy program. Do not buy into their world view. Every good thing you do creates ripples that disrupt their evil. Check out www.volunteermatch.com or www.idealist.com for ideas.

spring-fed parks and there are nice hiking paths along gorgeous aqua water. Helps nicely.

That's something I've had to do from time to time. It's information overload. If you're like most of us here, you are extra sensitive to the plight of your fellow humans. It's difficult to turn away, but to save your sanity you might need to. At least for a short time. It's only going to get worse between now and November. Hopefully, after that we may.see some light at the end of a long dark tunnel.

Good luck and be well.

I had bookclub today and most of the time we don't talk politics we talk about the book. Over the years if something big happened we might talk about it.

Today we were reading a book about two women in Iran, picked it long time ago before America got involved in war.

All of us started to talk about book and ended up talking about how we felt like the women in the book in the 70's like we are on the edge of having our rights taken away. I have been in this bookclub for years and never heard all the women sound so scared.

I think people are paying attention. And these are not women like me that are into politics just regular American women. All ages from 30's to 69.

back in the bush years when 92% of the country supported him right after 9/11 it was more
common for us to have DU meetups.

perhaps we all in our regions should consider meeting up with fellow DUers for picnics like we did back then.

It was healing back then . Big hug All around

For me, it was meeting a few of my fellow DUers in lobbying efforts in DC.

Perhaps the highlight was being in the in the Hart Senate office building when the news that Barbara Boxer had agreed to join Stephanie Tubbs Jones in an objection to the Ohio electors as having been appointed pursuant to an election that systematically disenfranchised countless voters.

Even staffers in Conyers office responsible for the What Went Wrong in Ohio report said we would never get a Senator.

Well, we did. And in so doing, challenged the "can't win, won't fight" rationalization for inaction that permeated the Democratic Party.

They want all of us to feel helpless, powerless, exhausted, and discouraged. It's the reason for the relentless assault, the deliberate chaos, the performative cruelty. They know that motivated Americans can kick some serious ass. We did it during the Revolution; we did it in the Civil War, we did it in the World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, the Space Race, the search for life-saving immunizations and medical treatments, etc.

Every member of his administration is catastrophically incompetent. They've only gotten this far because Trump succeeded in finding a lot of people just himself; awful human beings who are good at failing upward.

We're in this together.



We're fortunate that Trump came to power at such an advanced age. Imagine if he was in his forties right now. As long as it's taking to happen, he will die one day. And the paralyzingly vile, vulgar, anti-American cult that grew up around him will fall apart like a lint sculpture in the rain. Repairing the damage will take decades, but we will get it done.

Hang in there and know that you're not alone.

The highs are high, the lows are low.
Trying to maintain fair to middlin' is a challenge.
For you,
🫡 🫶

I'm pretty worried, and I live in Canada!

nt

So, you are being told to seek therapy, to ignore what's happening, to take a walk, that its all in your head, to "think positive"...

I'm going to give you a different response. You're not imagining it, it's not all in your head. Therapy won't change what's happening. Ignoring it won't change it. Taking a walk won't change it. Take a walk if you like, but taking walks doesn't stop fascism. "Thinking positive?" Would people be giving you that advice if a hurricane were bearing down on you? Would "thinking positive" do anything to stop the hurricane or to prepare you for it? No.

Your response to what is happening is completely rational.

People are afraid, they are in denial and they don't want to face what's happening. Don't let them talk you out of your quite accurate take.

I don't know what is going to happen next or what, if anything, I can do about it. I do know I plan on voting and I hope every eligible person does the same.

Because I am old and more pissed off than can be described, I know that if the Democrats don't win the midterms, all bets are off, and I will find a resistance group to join.

That said, I firmly believe we are going to win in a landslide never seen before in the history of our country. Keep the faith, but be prepared for anything.

This is not to deny your pain and distress and that is what is intentionally being done
to you and our Country by evil forces that manipulate the elections, the media, and
society who have malevolent goals.

These have always helped me. If not you can find your own joy your own way.

It fights kings, it fights fascists, it fights corporations. It fights because those 3 political opponents plunder the masses, and then the masses rise up. Economic forces drive history, from 1500 to today. Will always be such.

ESPECIALLY ALL THE WAYS OLIGARCHS WANT TO STEAL MORE OF OUR MONEY!

I had to turn off news for months after the election. I read books, listened to music, went out with friends. I don't watch tv at all so it wasn't very hard. I left off online engagement. I have a few personal attitudes and thoughts that help.

This pain is a sign that you are a good and sensitive person. Laying down the burden for a while won't make the world end. Sometimes you just need to take time out for repairs and general maintenance. Re-engage at your own pace. You'll come back stronger.

"The first duty of a revolutionary is to survive".
(now if I could only remember who said that [grin] )

I look for things -- even little things -- I can do in response to news. When the NYTimes "sanewashes" in a way that leaves me enraged, I try to channel that into to a letter to the editor. When someone in the Democratic leadership fails us in some way, I write to them in that leadership capacity.

If there is no action within my power, I have learned to let go. My energy reserves demand it. I don't think any of us can afford to burn ourselves out on impotent anger.

I read Ariella Elm's substack.

There are more win's, large and small, than we know.

When I am able, I make contributions to a state Democratic party, to help them build the resources needed to protect our elections.

I subscribe to Simon Rosenberg's hopium chronicles. The interviews he does with fantastic Democratic candidates across this country inspires hope and gives me energy. And the strategic calls to action provide ways to effectively channel my energy.

Heather Cox Richardson's perspective helps to remind me that the American people have prevailed against seemingly overwhelming tides against us. We will again.

When the flood of shit is too much, I step back, knowing that allowing myself to be overwhelmed and immobilized is what they want.

"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." -- Desmond TuTu

There's been plenty to have been/be horrified by, and scared for in the future.

But I do my best to seek beauty and wonderment, feel joy, and laughter as a rebalance. And read upon the good people are doing.

And leave the people without any power to really do anything about it. At least, not within the law. But who'd have ever thought being within the law would be a political disadvantage in America?

With the Supreme Court being the scariest. They have taken away control of which should belong to Congress. That bastard Alito, I can't even believe of his argument that has stripped Haitians and others of protected status. They completely ignored Trump's racist attacks. Said they were trivial or whatever there excuse was. Justice Kagan totally gave it to him. These fuckers need to be impeached

I am struggling.

Just a simply-loving Serenity Prayer...Please grant me:

The serenity to accept the things I cannot change

And the courage to change the things I can

Plus the wisdom to know the difference

I’ve re-engaged and disengaged a few times. It’s not unlike my life as a Dallas Cowboy fan. I start out excited when the season starts, only to move on by October. Some call it being a ‘fair weather’ fan. It’s not worth sacrificing mental health over the Cowboys or politics. There are other things way more important.

It seems most of the advice here centers on unplugging. I had to do that with alcohol about four years ago. My life is much better without it since I can’t ‘handle’ it. I recommend to everyone to eliminate anything in their life if they can’t ’handle’ whatever it is. And we all have something we can’t ‘handle’. Some just are fortunate they’ve never found what that is for them.

Best of luck!

Not DU, but a qualified someone. Maybe take it offline for a while. It's not worth it if this is the reaction.

I have turned to cute animal videos before bed, and I also listen to a great short podcast that airs daily on KUT, my local NPR affiliate. It's called Take a Minute and it aims to help people learn some techniques to help with anxiety. I've learned some things.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1268984479/take-a-moment

One that's easy to do is to sing. Sing along to the radio or a video on Youtube, participate in a singing group or choir, etc. It's very hard to worry while singing.

Pick a station that focuses on your favorite oldies or drag out old albums to sing along with.

Not least because Republicans will do everything in their power to block such efforts, and his fuckhead KKKultists will continue to vote for everye Trump-like they can find.

To me, it’s like I’m watching a clown show. For every minor success, these MAGA types have three egregious failures. I think of the administration as a “boob-ocracy,” with a Big Boob at the top, casting wildly about for new opportunities to mess up. A natural disorganizer. A classic Chaos-bringer.

That’s probably what you’re reacting to: the sheer chaos. Remind yourself to take a step back, detach from your fears about the fate of the US, and appreciate how many screw-ups these guys do on a weekly basis.

Imagine the sense of desperation in what remains of the sane parts of the GOP.

Seriously. A mental health crisis is not a normal or ok response to reading politics on the Internet. Some kind of intervention is required. (And by intervention, I mean learning new coping mechanisms, finding new activities, or exploring techniques to changing physical and mental health patterns). I saw your other thread from earlier in the week, and a cold quit for a period of time seems like it might do some good.

Discussing a mental health crisis caused by politics in a space like this is like an alcoholic going into a bar for advice on how to healthily manage their day drinking.

If you're having a breakdown, you need a break.

The country isn't going anywhere. Bearing witness isn't a moral act. It'll still all be there when you get back. Not only that, half the things that are causing you anxiety this week won't even be remembered on social media. Most of the daily outrage is disposable content that's discarded in favor of new outrage. It's a cycle. Go ahead and break it. It's fine.

But the Democratic Party decided to fall asleep and let the RePUGlicans get away with everything.

Destroying is always easier than building.

I'm a drafted veteran who has been doing emotional and intellectual damage control since the 1960s given the horror of Vietnam, the rise of predatory neoliberal capitalism, more and more Big Money pouring into politics, the relentless movement of White, hypocritical-Christian, straight, male-dominated, ultra-nationalism, and so on.

In my view, there is probably no ultimate anodyne, but for starters realizing and accepting that struggle is an inevitable part of life is essential. It has been said previously, but I would emphatically repeat that attending protests, peace vigils, and other demonstrations is also good for one's spirit, for one's psychological equilibrium, and so on. Having a network of enlightened family and friends with whom to share knowledge and to mutually vent is also a helpful strategy. Also, use your "socialist" public library to read, read, read.

about what has happened to us in this time. It may take philosopher, a future Hegel, to try to understand it. And maybe a Gibbon to sum it all up.

If elections fail us and the Constitution is shredded, we fight.
Since so many own firearms, we outnumber the government.
or
We roll over and accept chumps fascism.
The last round is for me!

Between having to listen to that garbage all day and night, and spending so much time online doom scrolling, it's no wonder you're burned out.

strong cultural underpinnings for authoritarianism. For example, Putin in Russia. They call him "President", but for all practical purposes he is Czar, just as Russia has had for hundreds of years. And that authoritarian culture is one of the reasons why liberal democracy didn't "take" in the 1990s in Russia.

Same with China. President Xi Jinping has all the powers of an emperor, as China has been ruled by emperors for thousands of years.

When Hitler came to power in the early 1930s, Germany had been a democracy for only a few years, so a democratic system did not have enough time to become embedded in German culture at that time.

The United States is different. We have had democracy and human rights in some form for hundreds of years. Part of that came from the native Americans particularly the Iroquois Nation, and part of it came from England dating back to 1215 and Magna Carta. It has been with us so long that it has become firmly embedded in our culture.

Therefore it will be much harder for authoritarianism to take hold here than in other places. We are already seeing quite a bit of push back (not enough in my mind) and I believe we'll see a lot more in the future.

For that reason and others, I believe we will defeat project 2025, and remain a free society, but expect the next few years to be turbulent, so don't get discouraged.

we are in this together hang in there