You Need a Bad News Break
Seeing images and videos of young people being brutalized and buildings burning genuinely took me out of commission.
Photo via Pexels @CottonBro
Mentally, emotionally, this week has been exhausting. We’re all feeling it. And there is no shame in needing a break from the constant barrage of bad news, sad news, and you-know-who’s latest whatever.
I’ve been reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way during my time off of work and stuck inside. I’m still determined to come out of this thing smarter, hotter, and more in touch with myself. While going through the course— that’s what it is; a twelve week course designed to help you discover or recover your creativity— I decided I wanted to limit my screen time.
Using the Screen Time function on my phone, I set a time limit on my most used apps, Twitter and Instagram, and that helped me bring my weekly screen time averages down from six-ish hours a day (I know, I know) to three-ish hours a day. This was an easy way to help me connect more with the lessons in the book and allowed me to get in touch with myself and not feel like I was wasting my days away. I was sleeping better and exercising and reading books and it was great.
Then the world fell apart in the course of about two days. You don’t need me to tell you, but here’s a quick recap: cities across the country and the world held protests for the murder of another black man, George Floyd, by a police officer in Minnesota. Some protests turned to riots which saw fires, looting, and a lot of violence.
I decided I needed to stay informed, so I took a day—the day that the protest here in Pittsburgh turned into a riot— to remove my time limit. I essentially stayed on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all day reading articles and hot takes and memes and chiming in myself, too.
Photo via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
I found that taking in so much stressful and downright sad news took a tremendous toll on me. Seeing images and videos of young people being brutalized and buildings burning genuinely took me out of commission for the next several days. I was having trouble sleeping and feeling physically ill and unable to focus on anything. But, I knew I needed to stay informed and also continue to speak out when I saw fit. If I wasn’t participating in protests physically, then I knew I had to do my part to the best of my ability.
I published last week’s post in what seemed to be a response to what was going on at the time. Truthfully I started writing that post when the video of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder was released and was inescapable on newsfeeds. I could go on about how this happens so often in our country that I started a draft after one murder and finished it after another murder just a few weeks later, and how totally ridiculous that is, and how badly things need to change, and how there are tons of resources for you and funds to donate to and ways you can help, but I digress (for now). When I hit publish on the post, I immediately felt my mood improve. It was slight and didn’t last long, but it was real.
The Artist’s Way teaches us to allow ourselves to feel through our anger and sadness, to listen to the creator within us during these moments and follow it’s lead. That’s what I did and I know that creating some kind of work helped to heal my wound, even if just a bit. Noticing this mood improvement, I jumped into my next chapter. Week 4. The big task this week: Reading Deprivation. I won’t go into too much detail (I recommend trying The Artist’s Way yourself sometime), but basically you’re meant to not read or watch TV or listen to the radio or podcasts for seven days. Seven.
My first thought was something along the lines of, “How the hell am I supposed to survive seven days in quarantine during the most newsworthy time of my entire life without reading news articles or scrolling Facebook and Twitter or watching Killing Eve?!”
After some time to sulk about the very idea, I realized that lately social media has made me feel figuratively heavy and literally sick; and yes, there is a lot going on, but if I need to stay informed, I have Adam to keep me connected to the outside world. Oh, and all of my shows will still be there waiting to be streamed. It’s worth a shot and maybe I’ll actually get something out of it. It’s only seven days.
Here I am, right in the midst of a reading/media fast, and honestly, I’m feeling better than I have in a long time. People who aren’t slaves to their phone like I am are probably scoffing at me right now thinking, “Obviously! Why did it take you so long to realize the detriment caused by staring at your phone all day long?” And the truth is that it took me this long to actually feel the problem. I’ve always been the type to see social media as a useful tool, if not also a form of entertainment and, dare I say, art. It’s not without its share of issues, but I’ve never been the type to argue about staying off of your phone to “connect” to the people around you because I believe the connections found through social media can be real and equally as important as those IRL.
A tool, essentially, is an extension of ourselves. Entertainment is a reflection of ourselves. Art is an expression of ourselves. Social media should act in those capacities for us. When we find that it is acting in a capacity to cause us pain and anxiety, we have to realize it’s time to put it down, just for a moment. To refocus. To breathe. To rediscover ourselves before we let social media decide who we are for us.
We find ourselves once again in a time when social media can be an important tool for social justice and we have an opportunity to make a difference. That means keeping current events top of mind, and top of feed. That means staying loud and keeping the pressure high. We can’t let this momentum slow. We have to keep our foot on the gas. Because of this, I’ll probably end my reading deprivation before the full seven days are up (we’ll see). But, taking this time out has given me the chance to examine myself, my feelings. I feel stronger to get back into the fight, but I also feel newly inspired to write more, to take more photos of flowers and selfies and the sky at sunset, and to try to fill the ether with useful resources, funny memes, and beauty in equal parts.
The constant stream can get exhausting. We want to keep the energy up, but we lose steam ourselves. That’s when it’s okay to take a break. Find a friend who still has the energy left to fight and tag out. It’s self care. Just be sure to come back.
We need you strong, because we’ve still got a long way to go.
P.S. Things ARE changing. Click on this thread: