Staying Sane In A Hyper-Connected World

There’s a war over there, a genocide in progress somewhere else, and another disease is ravaging the population of somewhere most Americans would struggle to point out on the map. Not only that, but that one politician is at it again, and sweeping wildfires are not doing climate change any favors.

To borrow an expression from Gen-Z…

“Oof”.

A Very Modern Mental Health Menace

For thousands of years, we have had wars and genocides and plagues and corrupt politicians and assorted major disasters. Dire circumstances are not new to us as a species. So what is new?

As some reactionary said during the dot-com boom, “the Internet doesn’t make people stupid; it just makes their stupidity more accessible”.

The same is true now of The Horrors™.

The Internet doesn’t, by and large, make the world worse. But what it does do is make the bad things much, much more accessible.

Understanding and empathy are not bad things, but watch out…

• When soldiers came home from the First World War, those who hadn’t been there had no conception of the horrors that had been endured. That made it harder for the survivors to get support. That was bad.
• Nowadays, while mass media covering horrors certainly doesn’t convey the half of it, even the half it does convey can be overwhelming. This is also bad.

The insidious part is: while people are subjectively reporting good physical/mental health, the reports of the symptoms of poor physical/mental health from the same population do not agree:

Stress in America 2023: A nation grappling with psychological impacts of collective trauma

Should we just not watch the news?

In principle that’s an option, but it’s difficult to avoid, unless you truly live under a rock, and also do not frequent any social media at all. And besides, isn’t it our duty as citizens of this world to stay informed? How else can we make informed choices?

Staying informed, mindfully

There are steps that can be taken to keep ourselves informed, while protecting our mental health:

• Choose your sources wisely. Primary sources (e.g. tweets and videos from people who are there) will usually be most authentic, but also most traumatizing. Dispassionate broadsheets may gloss over or misrepresent things more (something that can be countered a bit by reading an opposing view from a publication you hate on principle), but will offer more of an emotional buffer.
• Boundary your consumption of the news. Set a timer and avoid doomscrolling. Your phone (or other device) may help with this if you set a screentime limit per app where you consume that kind of media.
• Take (again, boundaried) time to reflect. If you don’t, your brain will keep grinding at it “like a fork in the garbage disposal”. Talking about your feelings on the topic with a trusted person is great; journaling is also a top-tier more private option.
• If you feel helpless, help. Taking even small actions to help in the face of suffering somewhere else (e.g. donating to relief funds, engaging in advocacy / hounding your government about it), can help alleviate feelings of anguish and helplessness. And of course, as a bonus, it actually helps in the real world too.
• When you relax, relax fully. Even critical care doctors need downtime, nobody can be “always on” without burning out. So whatever distracts and relaxes you completely, make sure to make time for that too.

Want to know more?

That’s all we have room for today, but you might like to check out:

• Distressing images and videos can take a toll on our mental health. How can we stay informed without being traumatised?
• PTSD expert on how to protect yourself and your kids from overexposure to war images from the Mideast

You also might like our previous main features:

• C-PTSD, And What To Do When Life Genuinely Sucks
• A Surprisingly Powerful Tool: Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing

Take care!

The Show Must Go On

We’ve previously written about the topics of death and dying. It’s not cheery, but it is important to tackle.

Sooner is better than later, in the case of:

Preparations For Managing Your Own Mortality

And for those who are left behind, of course it is hardest of all:

What Grief Does To Your Body (And How To Manage It)

But what about what comes next? For those who are left behind, that is.

Life goes on

In cases when the death is that of a close loved one, the early days after death can seem like a surreal blur. How can the world go ticking on as normal when [loved one] is dead?

But incontrovertibly, it does, so we can only ask again: how?

And, we get to choose that, to a degree. The above-linked article about grief gives a “101” rundown, but it’s (by necessity, for space) a scant preparation for one of the biggest challenges in life that most of us will ever face.

For many people, processing grief involves a kind of “saying goodbye”. For others, it doesn’t, as in the following cases of grieving the loss of one’s child—something no parent should ever have to face, but it happens:

Dr. Ken Druck | The Love That Never Dies

(with warning, the above article is a little heavy)

In short: for those who choose not to “say goodbye” in the case of the death of a loved one, it’s more often not a case of cold neglect, but rather the opposite—a holding on. Not in the “denial” sense of holding on, but rather in the sense of “I am not letting go of this feeling of love, no matter how much it might hurt to hold onto; it’s all I have”.

What about widows, and love after death?

Note: we’ll use the feminine “widow” here as a) it’s the most common and b) most scientific literature focuses on widows, but there is no reason why most of the same things won’t also apply to widowers.

We say “most”, as society does tend to treat widows and widowers differently, having different expectations about a respectful mourning period, one’s comportment during same, and so on.

As an aside: most scientific literature also assumes heterosexuality, which is again statistically reasonable, and for the mostpart the main difference is any extra challenges presented by non-recognition of marriages, and/or homophobic in-laws. But otherwise, grief is grief, and as the saying goes, love is love.

One last specificity before we get into the meat of this: we are generally assuming marriages to be monogamous here. Polyamorous arrangements will likely sidestep most of these issues completely, but again, they’re not the norm.

Firstly, there’s a big difference between remarrying (or similar) after being widowed, and remarrying (or similar) after a divorce, and that largely lies in the difference of how they begin. A divorce is (however stressful it may often be) more often seen as a transition into a new period of freedom, whereas bereavement is almost always felt as a terrible loss.

The science, by the way, shows the stats for this; people are less likely to remarry, and slower to remarry if they do, in instances of bereavement rather than divorce, for example:

Timing of Remarriage Among Divorced and Widowed Parents

Love after death: the options

For widows, then, there seem to be multiple options:

• Hold on to the feelings for one’s deceased partner; never remarry
• Grieve, move on, find new love, relegating the old to history
• Try to balance the two (this is tricky but can be done*)

*Why is balancing the two tricky, and how can it be done?

It’s tricky because ultimately there are three people’s wishes at hand:

• The deceased (“they would want me to be happy” vs “I feel I would be betraying them”—which two feelings can also absolutely come together, by the way)
• Yourself (whether you actually want to get a new partner, or just remain single—this is your 100% your choice either way, and your decision should be made consciously)
• The new love (how comfortable are they with your continued feelings for your late love, really?)

And obviously only two of the above can be polled for opinions, and the latter one might say what they think we want to hear, only to secretly and/or later resent it.

One piece of solid advice for the happily married: talk with your partner now about how you each would feel about the other potentially remarrying in the event of your death. Do they have your pre-emptive blessing to do whatever, do you ask a respectable mourning period first (how long?), would the thought just plain make you jealous? Be honest, and bid your partner be honest too.

One piece of solid advice for everyone: make sure you, and your partner(s), as applicable, have a good emotional safety net, if you can. Close friends or family members that you genuinely completely trust to be there through thick and thin, to hold your/their hand through the emotional wreck that will likely follow.

Because, while depression and social loneliness are expected and looked out for, it’s emotional loneliness that actually hits the hardest, for most people:

Longitudinal Examination of Emotional Functioning in Older Adults After Spousal Bereavement

…which means that having even just one close friend or family member with whom one can be at one’s absolute worst, express emotions without censure, not have to put on the socially expected appearance of emotional stability… Having that one person (ideally more, but having at least one is critical) can make a huge difference.

But what if a person has nobody?

That’s definitely a hard place to be, but here’s a good starting point:

How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation

Take care!