How do people manage to not let outrageous things impact your cognitive energy too much, or bother you too much. Often reading something outrageous is so much cognitive exertion it can make me crash due to the emotional response. By outrageous, I mean in general psychosocial interpretations of ME/CFS that cause so much suffering, what is happening in the US right now, things like that? I want to be at a stage where stuff like that is “water off a duck’s back”, ie. I’m able to keep an emotional response to a minimum, without having to personally avoid it because I don’t want to be oblivious to all the suffering and ways we’ve been wronged. I’m finding this an impossible balance to keep. I thought after a while I’d get used to it, but it’s been two years of basically near constantly reading about Psychbehaviouralists inducing great suffering on pwME and it still outrages me.
I avoid the horrible stuff by simply not reading/watching it, these days. I also try to focus on things that I can impact, and not worry about or dwell on those that I can't. Would you be able to avoid reading that stuff if you decided to?
I guess. I mostly see it on this forum. It’s just so illuminating to see the instiutional biases and helps me make sense of the world and I don’t want to lose that.
I find it useful to think about what I can control and what I can’t. I can’t control my initial feelings in response to something, but I can make an effort to recognize that I can’t control the circumstances of others. And even if I wanted to, I’m in no state to help anyone. So I’ve tried to accept that the most I can do is to agree with them on my own. I’ve also experienced that my reactions are more toned down if I have some distance from things. If I read about terrible stuff every day, I react more. If I read about it once a week or less, I react less. I believe this is because I’m able to cool down inbetween, and because other things can distract me. There’s also no shame in having to avoid things completely for your own health or sanity. Your suffering does not decrease theirs. And you don’t have to carry the weight of other people’s suffering in order to be caring or compassionate.
Is that illumination worth you crashing for, though? What do you gain by that illumination? (Serious questions, only you can answer!) What about doing an experiment and avoiding that stuff for a week and see how you feel at the end about continuing?
As others have said, the best option is probably to avoid it. There's a cost to anyone's mental health from doomscrolling. Weigh whether there's actually as much benefit as you think from reading things that make you mad, and maybe direct your limited focus to things that are also important but not infuriating, like the people doing things you support.
I just want to add that I had a lot less influence over my emotions when I was even more severe than I’m now, and PEM really messes with my emotions. The only thing that worked was to avoid negative topics. I’m not sure we’re supposed to not experience negative emotions when you’re in such an extreme situation. Keep in mind that you really don’t have access to the tools that people usually use to deal with emotions.
And thank you for bringing up this topic. I think it’s important to talk about it, because it affects all of us.
I have some odd ways of coping. I guess we all eventually find our own ways. I've had a lot more years to learn to keep my emotions on a more even keel when the world around me is going mad. Doesn't always work of course. But I agree strong emotions, happy and sad, are draining for pwME. Sometimes it helps to read or listen to someone whose integrity I trust raging about politics or BPS or whatever because there's a sense of solidarity. Articles by David Tuller and George Monbiot that rage on our behalf are helpful, I find. Sometimes I just have to read the headline or thread heading and stop myself reading any more. I admit I tend to avoid reading some of the in memory threads unless I knew the person. It's too distressing, and my reading them isn't going to make any difference to them or their loved ones. Sometimes I write a really angry post on the forum about some BPS rubbish, really let rip, then delete it, or cut it back to a swear word with asterisks, knowing the rest of you will know what I mean. I recently tried to hold an email conversation with a semi-BPS (pacing up/BACME) sort of therapist. While keeping it polite, over the course of about 4 emails I became increasingly impatient and angry, and in my last email I told them so. It felt necessary to let rip in the politest way I could. I doubt I'll hear from them again. I have also had to restrict my previously voracious consumption of fiction. Oddly I can't cope at all with romantic or weepy stuff, even happy weepy, because the emotional stress is too much and totally exhausts me. Yet I can watch and enjoy fictional detective and police dramas with all the death and mayhem. Go figure! I guess what all this rambling is saying is, we each find our own path. There's no shame in avoiding what we can't change in order to protect our health.
I find the 'ignore' function really useful, to mute the parts of the forum that discuss psychosomatic stuff and certain practitioners of it. So I can go and look at those threads if I feel I want to know something, but they're not always in my eyeline and popping up on the 'Recent Posts' lists etc.
It does make me feel validated seeing evidence of wrongdoing and just how scientifically flimsy their arguments are. And as Trish said, seeing other people criticise it just makes me feel good. But I guess it comes with a cost, maybe it is not worth it.
I don't know. I feel like my world has become much smaller so some things I encounter feel so much bigger than they used to be. On top of that my dysautonomia is very reactive to any rise in stress/emotions/nervousness. Before those would be a flicker and mean nothing, now my body reacts physically and emotionally to triggers (not related to ongoing thoughts) and that is a vicious circle that triggers cfs symptoms. I feel like that's a battle I can't even win.
I find by Wednesday of each week I need a refuge from what's happening in the US. The situation is here is bizarre and frightening, so reading experts' views feels comforting. But there's a saturation by mid-week and it seems like so much noise and dust. I find it harmful to me to read the bs-psych literature about FM (and ME). It gnaws at my acceptance and active self-management of my FM, and I don't need that. I avoid reading those and check the Ignore Post option.
This is very relatable. I need this forum to meet with other people who can relate to me and the things I have to deal with. That is very positive. The injustice we have to deal with is also very prominent here and really can deflate me sometimes. So some days I try to ignore that and find the parts where I feel the support and warmth of the lovely people. Other days I do engage with discussions and hope to make a small contribution to those discussions. Another part of my ‘outrage’ is that I have ideas to help advocacy but am too unwell to contribute.
I think another part of the “outrage” for me is that my caregiver still hasn’t fully given up on BPS beliefs (I’d say they are maybe 70% biomedical 30% BPS in how they view my illness). And everytime I see something BPS it makes me really scared about what if they read it, how is that going to make them respect my limits less, how is that going to influence them to pressure me to try X, Y, Z.
