I am feeling so bloody irritable!

crazyH

It may sound selfish - I am not interested in the world as a whole - I am mainly concerned about my immediate world, my family and friends, although the recent AI Crash bothered me deeply. My family travel a lot.
I am not interested in threads on Politics, about Trump or Putin. I listen to the news religiously, but it doesn’t affect me, unless it’s a human story.

Not selfish crazyH, probably sensible.

I sometimes think that even if I cried for a week over some of the awful happenings, it would make no difference, so why bother.

I’m similar crazyH I remember as a child being told ‘eat your sprouts, children are starving in Biafra’ I could do nothing then to change that and little more now.
I do watch the news and follow online, I like to know what’s happening and have lively discussions with friends and family, I can’t ignore it.
My occasional periods of worry are for my family, sometimes I can influence that.

I always start a diary each year and manage a week or two and then it fizzles off, I will come back to it a few months on and write for a few days then dribble off again into obscurity
Looking over them I can see how many horrendous things have worried me in the past but they have passed and I m still here and I can’t even remember being so worried and upset

I have a picture I painted in the sixties it’s pretty horrific picture for a young person to have painted very bleak and scary I know I was worrying enormously about the starving children I think it might have been Biafra or maybe somewhere else ? I can show you if you want but I don’t want to make anyone feel worse
I can’t watch the tv news in depth but I can keep up to date with reading and knowing some details
I get accused of being too optimistic ( a Pollyanna) but I can’t live with the negativity we have around today

I feel the same as many previous posters. I never used to be as pessimistic as I am now. I worry constantly about what feels like the collapse of society and what will happen to my descendants. This government is overspending like crazy and fewer and fewer disgruntled tax payers and paying for it. Angela Raynor’s housing dept has already spent £6.5M on foreign travel. Why? They will be coming for our money which I would actually quite like to leave to my children who are not as well off and probably never will be as many of our generation have been.

It feels like there was a different world pre-Covid and a new one post-Covid, I hardly recognise now.

glammagran

I feel the same as many previous posters. I never used to be as pessimistic as I am now. I worry constantly about what feels like the collapse of society and what will happen to my descendants. This government is overspending like crazy and fewer and fewer disgruntled tax payers and paying for it. Angela Raynor’s housing dept has already spent £6.5M on foreign travel. Why? They will be coming for our money which I would actually quite like to leave to my children who are not as well off and probably never will be as many of our generation have been.

It feels like there was a different world pre-Covid and a new one post-Covid, I hardly recognise now.

Absolutely glammagran. That’s how I feel. I felt for those Ukraine people, dealing with covid, then Putins war!
Now Israel & Gaza. No end to it.

escaped

crazyH

It may sound selfish - I am not interested in the world as a whole - I am mainly concerned about my immediate world, my family and friends, although the recent AI Crash bothered me deeply. My family travel a lot.
I am not interested in threads on Politics, about Trump or Putin. I listen to the news religiously, but it doesn’t affect me, unless it’s a human story.

Not selfish crazyH, probably sensible.

I sometimes think that even if I cried for a week over some of the awful happenings, it would make no difference, so why bother.

My thoughts exactly. It’s getting like a mass hysteria.

Oreo

Kandinsky

Exactly Dorrain

The world is no worse than it’s ever been - it’s just now we get so much information that people can talk about it all day long on social media ( if they choose to )

All the things that happened in the past up to today in the world were no better but now, if retired you have time to dwell on it all , plus rolling news and SM.
To help your own mental health only watch the news once a day and don’t get into it on SM.
If you’re able to, get out more and do things.

Some of us have been interested in politics and world affairs for decades. But I can never remember a time when I’ve been so appalled by what is happening everywhere or so helpless to do anything about it. And I’ve never before regretted bringing children and grandchildren into the world; I’m so scared for them.It’s a bit ageist imo implying the WWM2 problem seems to be being retired and having too much time on her hands in which to think.

It’s not about being retired, it’s about spending your twilight years doing things that are less stressful.
The world is a terrible place at the moment yes, but chatting about it on here isn’t going to stop the war in Ukraine or Gaza, or stop Donald Trump visiting the UK.
WWW2 ( and there is absolutely nothing wrong in this ) does seem to spend a lot of time on here, which is fine! but it must be exhausting to chat for hours about the really heavy subjects she’s into.
No wonder she started a thread saying she’s irritable. Who wouldn’t be.
If something is making you irritable, something you can do absolutely nothing about, why would you want to spend all day talking about it?

That’s all I’m saying.

The world IS worse than it’s ever been. We have bombs capable of wiping out all living things. The world has never been in that position before.

I'm finding these comments about regretting having children, or glad not to have grandchildren, quite unpalatable.
The majority of our offspring will have happy, fulfilling lives. Despite everything that's going on, I'd never rue the day they came into the world.

I don't have a TV so I avoid distressing images and I don't read newspapers. I do listen to the news on the radio briefly most days. I no longer engage in discussion about Trump or world disasters. What's the point!?
I came across a beautiful large pink mimosa tree the other day.I had never seen one before. So today I went back with my dog and my watercolours and had a peaceful time painting out in nature with sunshine too. I find such distractions just about keep me on an even keel!

escaped

I'm finding these comments about regretting having children, or glad not to have grandchildren, quite unpalatable.
The majority of our offspring will have happy, fulfilling lives. Despite everything that's going on, I'd never rue the day they came into the world.

What did I post earlier, mass hysteria.
Is it any wonder that certain information is not given to the public.
A very close friend of ours was on nuclear subs in the 80s.
There were some very threatening incidents 😱
If most of the posts here are representative of the way the general public would have reacted with that information there would have been chaos.
The posts here made me think of the chaos when Orson Wells read War of the Worlds on the radio.

www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20231027-behind-the-broadcast-orson-welles-on-the-mass-hysteria-of-the-war-of-the-worlds

Is it any wonder that certain information is not given to the public.
A very close friend of ours was on nuclear subs in the 80s. There were some very threatening incidents 😱
If most of the posts here are representative of the way the general public would have reacted with that information there would have been chaos.

Couldn't agree more.

The 1970s had plenty of wars - Vietnam, Cambodia, Yom Kippur - and also saw the Ebola virus emerge, the Munich massacre, Idi Amin taking over Uganda. And the ongoing threat from the Cold War was played down as much as possible, despite some horrific accidents in nuclear submarines.

The 1980s were much the same, just different venues. Iran-Iraq war, Falklands war, explosion of Mount Saint Helen, crash of Challenger, Beirut bombing.......

Then in the 1990s the Persian Gulf war, rioting all over the place, Oklahoma City bombing........

All of these would have been horrendous at the time, but we've forgotten most of them unless someone mentions it. But we didn't follow them in detailed reports throughout the day, just the newspaper report in the morning and probably a report on the BBC in the evening. Consequently for most of us they were removed from our everyday lives (except of course for those with family serving in the wars or medical personnel attending explosions, shootings, etc.).

News now is intended to be invasive - every paper and every channel is fighting for supporters. Time to switch off where you can and just keep up.

And yet, when some of us on another thread said we were avoiding the news these days, we were criticised for that, too...[can't win]..There have always been problems in the world. But I don't remember there being so many problems all happening at the same time or populist right wing political parties threatening to be elected in European countries. And America has never had a president like Trump before. Even Nixon wasn't that bad in comparison.

I think we just didn't know so much because we didn't have such ready access to everything that was happening in the world years ago, Maybee.

Is it any wonder that certain information is not given to the public.
^A very close friend of ours was on nuclear subs in the 80s.
There were some very threatening incidents^ 😱

I worked with someone whose DH was on nuclear subs.
The Russians were often causing problems with British ships years ago.

In fact the public is still unaware of half that goes on.

Ambergran
Not to mention the IRA, someone I know missed a bomb by seconds.

As did DD on 7/7.

Allira

I think we just didn't know so much because we didn't have such ready access to everything that was happening in the world years ago, Maybee.

Is it any wonder that certain information is not given to the public.
^A very close friend of ours was on nuclear subs in the 80s.
There were some very threatening incidents^ 😱

I worked with someone whose DH was on nuclear subs.
The Russians were often causing problems with British ships years ago.

In fact the public is still unaware of half that goes on.

We knew which countries were at war though.

MayBee70

Allira

I think we just didn't know so much because we didn't have such ready access to everything that was happening in the world years ago, Maybee.

Is it any wonder that certain information is not given to the public.
^A very close friend of ours was on nuclear subs in the 80s.
There were some very threatening incidents^ 😱

I worked with someone whose DH was on nuclear subs.
The Russians were often causing problems with British ships years ago.

In fact the public is still unaware of half that goes on.

We knew which countries were at war though.

We did, and about the terrorists on our own shores.

We knew about famines, refugees, but we didn't have discussions about all this on social media.

Another one here, I have become so irritable, cynical and grumpy. The state of the world is horrendous. I have begun to look briefly at the BBC in the morning and then no news for the rest of the day, no Facebook or any other social media. It's a real relief. So much of what we are told is not something we can actually do anything about.
I think it was the stories about beached emaciated, dead whales with empty stomachs and the proliferation of dolphins and turtles turning up in unlikely places and orcas bringing food to scientists studying them that got me so upset that I just thought I couldn't cope any longer.

I try to be active locally, am a WI Climate Change Ambassador and so on. What is the point of feeling so stressed and helpless by endless news. I feel better as a resubscribedult.

Allira
Plus the fact that we were too busy earning a living and bringing up children.
And before anyone suggests that we didn’t have access to all the information then I have 3 daughters who work full time.
They don’t have time to digest alls that’s going on.
That’s the problem here: too much time on their hands.

Doom scrolling. It doesn’t do any of us any favours. I limit the time I spend reading the news. Yes I’m interested but not ‘obsessed’ by it.

There’s a world outside my door. Full of happy people. The sun shines, the grass still grows and the world turns. Family and friends to engage with.

Everything in moderation is best. Worrying does no-one any good really.

petra

Allira
Plus the fact that we were too busy earning a living and bringing up children.
And before anyone suggests that we didn’t have access to all the information then I have 3 daughters who work full time.
They don’t have time to digest alls that’s going on.
That’s the problem here: too much time on their hands.

We were but if I let all the misery I came across in my working life get to me, I'd have been a wreck.
As it is, some things never leave you but you do have to compartmentalise to an extent, otherwise you couldn't carry on.

Dorrain

I don't know if the world is any darker now than it was in the past.
Mass communication 24/7 via the internet or television is dominated by reports of wars, famine, crime, corruption and bad behaviour. This, on face value seems to outweigh the positive events, good people and the improved and worthwhile outcomes which exist in our world today.

Before TV and then the internet many people lived in a relative form of ignorant bliss simply because we were not exposed to as much information.

Its understandable that exposure to so much bad stuff makes us irritable, frustrated and negative.

Exactly this….

I’m one of life’s optimists, my default is to always think things will get better - which is a blessing when times are hard.

My dad’s advice still holds Whitewavemark2, don’t let the b….rs get you down. Also you have every right to get angry, let it all out on here. For starters, I’ll join you in poking anybody who describes me as ‘in your twilight years’ right in the eye!

What bloody irritates me are people who sit in judgement assuming that they know how I spend my time😄😄