Feeling helpless in a f*cked up world

Or, WTF now?

There are a lot of people hurting right now. And there are so many reasons the world feels like an especially fucked up place at the moment. And it’s such a dark time that I’ve been thinking that maybe we should all be thanking Jada and Will for the (unintentional) comic relief they’ve brought to what is otherwise a heartbreaking news cycle. (Unless you were also heartbroken by their news, in which case, sorry?)

So in this 3am Huddle, I just want to say that I see you.

I see your anger. Your feelings of helplessness and despair. I see your struggle with the question, where do we go from here? Because I’ve felt all these things and asked all these questions many times over the years too.

Before I go on, this post isn’t about delving into the many complex issues that are going on at home and overseas. It’s not about taking sides, either. It’s about taking a moment for yourself – if that’s what you need right now.

That’s why this week, I thought I’d ask a clinical psychologist for their take on how this intense news cycle is impacting our mental health and how we can take care of ourselves while also staying informed. Dr Justine Corry from The Good Mood Clinic generously shared her thoughts. Here’s our conversation…

Lizza: At the moment, we’re bombarded with bad news that we can't control. I’ve noticed in people's social media posts, and in conversations, there's this helplessness that people feel.

I wondered if you could talk about how this impacts our mental health and what are some of the other common emotions that you see in response to constant bad news.

Dr Justine Corry: It's awful, isn't it? And look, I think that the problem with the current news cycle, and this is a relatively recent problem, is the fact that images are unfiltered and even more graphic than they ever used to be. People are posting their own content, so I think our reactions to it – and this is just my impression – are actually bigger because we are getting this really intense graphic content…

Lizza: It brings us closer to the issues than ever.

Dr Justine Corry: Yes. And you can see the suffering. These are real people suffering. It isn't like a newsreel that's been put together that’s a bit more sanitised. These images are everywhere – you don't have to look hard and you can be confronted with something really awful.

Now, as human beings, we are capable of empathy, and invariably, in good ways and bad, we put ourselves in other people's positions. When you see suffering, you can put yourself in that situation very easily.

When we do that, we have a stress response ourselves. Our fight or flight response kicks off and we get adrenaline and cortisol in our body, particularly if we keep topping up ‘the news diet’. And that can lead to a whole heap of emotions, like feeling helpless and powerless, because we can feel there's nothing we can do.

You can also have guilt. This can particularly impact those who have close personal connections to the issues. And then you can also get very hopeless and despondent about the state of the world, because obviously as human beings, we are influenced by what we see.

If you are constantly consuming all these negative images, that will distort your view of the world, and you potentially won't see the other things that might counterbalance it. So you can feel quite hopeless and think, ‘Oh God, everything's gone down the toilet.’ Those would probably be the emotions I've seen.

Lizza: During the height of COVID, I interviewed experts who recommended limiting the amount of news we watch, or see on our social feeds, to help our mental health. But what if these issues are really important to you and you want to know more? How do you find that balance of staying informed, and feeling like you're able to contribute in some way, but then also look after yourself?

Dr Justine Corry: Yes. Well, I think you have to continually check in with yourself and work out why you're doing it. It's one thing to want to be informed so you can make a good decision, or decide where to put your energy into something, but it's another thing if it's been driven by a lot of emotion.

So it could be you feel guilty if you don't find out all the information, and to you, it means you're not taking the issue seriously when it’s important to you. Or you might feel like you're turning your back on people who are suffering. And so staying super connected to the issue is a way of supporting them and not abandoning them.

Or - and this is a common one - it could be that you hope you're going to read something good, so you dive into the information hoping there's going to be good news and you keep trying to find it.

Also, seeking out information can give us a sense of control. So when we feel hopeless and overwhelmed, that's the thing that we are doing, collecting more information…

Lizza: Huh. So it feels like you’re taking action.

Dr Justine Corry: Yes and so I think that you have to check in with yourself and work out how you're feeling in your body.

Tune into your body a few times a day, because your body will tell you if you're stressed or not. So if you notice you're feeling a bit jittery or you're more irritable or your sleep's out, that means that you're in the stress response and what you're consuming could be a reason for that.

And so then you would step back and then put yourself on a news diet. You could say, ‘I'm just going to spend half an hour a day staying up to date because that's important to me. But no more than that because if I put my attention there for longer, my body's going to be in the stress response for longer, and that means it's going to be harder to calm down and I won't be able to do the things that make me feel good.’

Connecting with friends and family is a very good thing to do when awful things are going on because when we feel safe with our loved ones, we calm down. Along with things like exercise and all of that.

But yeah, I think it's just an ongoing check-in. [Ask yourself] What’s happening for me right now? Am I consuming too much? Am I in the stress response for too long? Am I more irritable? Am I preoccupied with thoughts? Am I having nightmares? Because you can get vicarious trauma from the news.

The other night I thought, you know what? I want to know what's going on, so that was a conscious decision. I watched the news for about half an hour and I was crying. It was just awful. That response obviously comes from a deep empathy for what's going on, but if I then start consuming lots of information that's actually going to affect my mental health in a way that I'm not functioning, I'm going to be no good to anyone.

Lizza: I guess if you’re conscious of the amount of information you’re consuming, and you want to make a difference, you will then also have a clearer head about what you can do.

Dr Justine Corry: Yeah. We’re not meant to be in the stress response for a long period of time. It's meant to be triggered to deal with something, whatever that is, and then we're meant to calm down and go back to base and feel safe again.

Lizza: I was just thinking, when we see all this content, we automatically jump to the conclusion that the world is, excuse my language, pretty fucked. And it's hard not to make that leap. Other than going on this information diet, is there a way to remind ourselves that going from what we see to thinking the world is fucked is not the case necessarily?

Dr Justine Corry: Right. Actually, human beings are geared to find negative things more compelling because from an evolutionary perspective, if we're aware of risk and danger, we're more likely to survive. We're less good at seeking out positive information.

I suppose you would actively have to seek that out intentionally and get your information from varied sources, not just information from the 24-hour news cycle, so you can zoom out and see the bigger picture. So that's one thing.

But the other thing would be to just appreciate what's going on in your day-to-day life and what's good in your world. Ultimately, the point of our lives is connection. We feel very good when we have good relationships and are doing meaningful things, which is usually tied to connection.

Ultimately, you can zoom out, and choose information, but also zoom in and allow yourself to enjoy the relationships that you have in your life.

Lizza: Just one last question before you go, if that's okay. For people who feel like their day-to-day life is inconsequential in the whole scheme of things, and they're minimising their own experience, what would you say to them?

Dr Justine Corry: Well, this is when you can get a bit psychological with it. People who are a bit sort of existential – I have clients like that – and it's like they're so zoomed out. I always joke with them that they're just a spec floating around in space. They tend to wonder, what's the point?

Some people do have that existential bent more, and you know what? They are very good thinkers generally because they see the bigger picture. The people who make changes in the world do have to have that existential bent.

But hanging around out there can become a coping style, a way of avoiding what's actually going on in your life, a way of justifying why you don't have good relationships or a way of minimising things you're avoiding in your life.

For those people who I think are using it that way, I frame it as a coping style. I then ask, what function is that serving to hang around out there?

Lizza: That’s so interesting. I’d never thought about it that way before. Thank you for your time.

Dr Justine Corry: And thank you.

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I know it seems like an abrupt ending to our chat – and I feel like we could’ve spoken for ages – but I was conscious of not taking up too much of Dr Justine Corry’s time. (As my husband pointed out, my “one more question” is never one more question.)

My takeaway from our musings? Connection is more important than ever in this divisive world. So too are the hilarious The Office memes that break up my social media feed. And if we want to make a difference, it helps not to drown in too much information, so that we can stay clear-headed and make decisions about actions we can/want to take.

What were your thoughts? I’d love to know as everyone will take away something different.

Until our next 3am Huddle…

Lizza x

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash