Protecting one's mental health

I think it's reasonable not to want to know every detail of dreadful happenings, murder, torture etc. unless one has to.

You can never unknow these things once learnt or read.
I know that for a fact, some horror stories never leave you.

Yes, I get haunted by awful news at times and as a result, sometimes avoid reading. I know it's a selfish, 1st world luxury to be able to ignore it.

I don't think it's selfish, gagajo. During my first term at uni I did not watch any telly, listen to any radio or read any newspapers. This meant I hadn't heard about a train crash somewhere in South America. My father was shocked and gave me a small radio to take back with me after Christmas. His view was that I ought to have known.

My view was: What difference to anyone does my knowing or not knowing make? The answer is no difference at all.

I've had many a sleepless night after reading about child abuse cases. I have to stop myself now.

I avoid awful news until I feel I can cope with it.

And, I think that what is happening in one's own life can make a difference to how one deals with bad news.

It’s a self preservation tactic I use Baggs. With so much negatitaty and heartache pouring into our lives it becomes so overwhelming. I help wherever I can but I can’t help everybody which leaves me feeling guilty so I rarely watch the news or read a newspaper. So no, it’s not wrong to protect one’s mental health.

In lockdown I had to stop reading or watching the news as it was really upsetting me adding to my anxiety. It was overwhelming for me and it did have an effect on quite a few people close to me on their mental health. There is nothing wrong with self preservation.

But do we want, and is it good for us, to live in Cloud cuckoo land, avoiding anything unpleasant?

How often does bad news really damage our mental health? OK we may feel shocked and distressed when we read it and the memory hangs around a bit, but life is a mix of good and bad and feeling a negative emotion now and then is not damage to your mental health.

I am sure my, so far, robust, mental health, is partly due to my determination to look life, for good or ill, fully in the face and deal with it. Yes, someone who gloried in reading about other people's misfortune, would make me feel uneasy, but to turn away from the knowledge of the tragedy in other people's lives, like that of the parents of the boys who drowned in a lake last week, or the families of the Thai sailors drowned yesterday when their ship capsized in a storm, seems to me to show in indifference to other people's tragedies and a lack of compassion.

I feel this especially so, when so much drama on tv is violence and viciousness based and so many people watch and enjoy it.

I prefer to face up to the realities of life, no matter how terrible, which reminds me of the plight of the Ukrainians this Christmas, and leave the vicousness and violence on tv to those who like their violence tastefully packaged and without any unpleasant baggage for them to worry about.

One of the Buddhist ethical vows is to be careful what one watches and reads... it doesn't mean one is less compassionate to the suffering in the world but that one uses that compassion wherever one can without it adding to our own suffering.

But it is far, far worse for the people enduring these situations. I forced myself to listen to a report from Ukraine this morning about the number of unidentified dead bodies discovered; a warning was given before the news item, but it dealt with the horrific situation factually and methodically and made me realise I must start contributing to Ukranian relief again. How the pathologists there cope I don't know, but how much worse it would be if they too buried their heads in the sand.

While I do keep up with basics - a quick flick through the paper and the BBC website - I do steer clear of endless news now, since so much of it is bad/depressing.
Dh, OTOH, would listen to it virtually all day. A bone of contention if there’s a long journey in the car!

I can’t and won’t watch any films or programmes with sadistic violence, or a lot of graphic violence, either. Things stick in my mind and come back to haunt me.
Dh has no such trouble - he says, ‘I don’t let it bother me.’

It’s not a question of ‘letting’, though - I have yet to find a way of banishing these things from my head.

I think our own life experience and what we have as individuals endured can certainly determine what we can tolerate emotionally. Continually watching or observing news that is disturbing would be mental torture. Why put yourself through it if you are have a fragile sensitive mind.

What wise words pascal30, thank you for that post. The recent drownings of those little boys, the horror being faced daily in Ukraine, that poor lady crushed to death in Brixton - all leave their mark on us because "no man is an island entire of itself" but just because we might choose not to dwell too much on them doesn't mean we don't feel sadness, compassion, anger.

I would certainly not smugly say that anyone who chooses not to surround themselves with bad news is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, though. Surely it's whatever it takes to get you through, and if turning off the horrors helps your mental health, then so be it. I've done it myself often enough when things in my own life have become as much as I can bear ...

Good question Baggs
Go back far enough and all you had to worry about was what happened in your village and now and then in the nearest town.
24 hour news coming at ya from all directions can’t be good for anyone.
I screen it out.Just enough to know the general news and that’s all.
If you’re going to bed and thinking of all the worlds badness it will affect you.

But do we want, and is it good for us, to live in Cloud cuckoo land, avoiding anything unpleasant?

No, but there is surely a balance.

We need to know about some of the terrible things that happen around the world, in our country and close to home.
It's not good to hide oir heads in the sand.

However, what is written in the media about some of the atrocities that happen are often only half the story anyway. Some details are best never known.

There's a difference between being aware and having too keen an interest in gory details of cases.

pascal30

One of the Buddhist ethical vows is to be careful what one watches and reads... it doesn't mean one is less compassionate to the suffering in the world but that one uses that compassion wherever one can without it adding to our own suffering.

Thank you, pascal, and this is not "Cloud Cuckoo Land".

GagaJo

Yes, I get haunted by awful news at times and as a result, sometimes avoid reading. I know it's a selfish, 1st world luxury to be able to ignore it.

No, Gagajo, it's not selfish, sometimes it is better not to know too much.

It can disturb peace of mind and in fact make someone over-protective about the welfare of their own loved ones.

pascal30

One of the Buddhist ethical vows is to be careful what one watches and reads... it doesn't mean one is less compassionate to the suffering in the world but that one uses that compassion wherever one can without it adding to our own suffering.

So does that mean a Buddhist may not choose certain jobs or careers?

Never work as a paramedic, a fireman/woman, policeman/woman, a social worker, nurse, forensic scientist so that their peace of mind is never disturbed?

Let's think about all these people who see the results of all these atrocities, horrors, every day.

I don’t think it’s wrong to protect mental health by avoiding certain subjects.

It does however mean you are unable to have informed commentary on them

My mental health isn't robust. It's fragile. I have tortured myself in the past reading horrible things. I have experienced violence and abuse as a child in the home so my head is not in the sand. However I have to sometimes stop myself from reading these things now. Self preservation has to come into it.

Summerlove

I don’t think it’s wrong to protect mental health by avoiding certain subjects.

It does however mean you are unable to have informed commentary on them

That's part of the idea: not wanting to comment on them. There is no obligation to have an opinion about everything.

You can know about them and still have an opinion.

It's not necessary to know every last distressing detail.

I can understand someone who already has poor metal health avoiding anything to exacerbate it. I am down with a winter bug at the moment and have cancelled my Tai Chi class because it might exacerbate it. But if I was well I would not avoid it on those ground.

It is one thing to avoid mining all the horrid details of Russian atrocities in Ukraine, but another to decide that the war is horrible and so you will pretend it is not happening.

Which is exactly what I said.