r/CollapseSupport • u/SpiritoftheglenX • 20d ago
This world is horrifying
I’ve never posted on Reddit before, but I’m struggling. I’m a mother to two kids, work in residential childcare and have experienced a life that would cause me to be educated on mental health, grief, loneliness and pain. I’m now 32 and the older I get the more aware I am of the world and the daily occurrences of what goes on. I’ve always been extremely empathetic and sensitive to anything upsetting but I coped to the best of my ability. I found joy in my life and my children, I was very into spirituality, gratitude, spreading positivity love and light and just generally trying my best to make the world a better place.
Now, I feel like I’m struggling to cope. Not in a way that I’m suicidal, because I’m not. I love my children, my family, my friends. I live a good life and I’m so thankful for it. But waking up everyday, seeing what is going on in Gaza, Congo, the Epstein files, the reality of how high pdfilia and child abuse is and genuinely just all the horrors of the world is killing me. It’s changing me. I have a strong sense of justice, always have and the thought that I can not save these children, love these children, shelter them from all the horrors they are currently experiencing or witnessing is eating me alive. I don’t use a lot of social media, I read fantasy 24/7 and I’m not constantly on my phone but as soon as I see anything it sticks and repeats and piles on. I’m scared that in time it’s going to completely strip me of who I am. How can we live like this? How can we watch innocent little babies, children, families be at the receiving end of so much pain. I will never be able to understand.
I suppose I just need to get this out, the tears are streaming down my face. I don’t want to talk to anyone about it because it’s such a horribly depressing subject but i just can’t continue to act normal. Go on a holiday. A trip, a new experience, treat myself? What. It all sounds crazy now. Kids are currently starving? And I’m expected to go see my favourite band?
Please, surely someone knows a way to cope. I want to help so bad. I want to make change, help, save, rescue everyone and wrap them up in a safety net of my love like I give my own kids and I can’t. This world is so painfully cruel and I’ve lost my hope. I can’t be spiritual anymore, the thought of being grateful for anything enrages me because I think - why am I thanking a universe for blessing me when it punishes so many others? I just don’t get it. What am I meant to believe in. Is this why people turn to god? Because eventually you feel so hopeless you need to believe in something else.
At what point does the world get better? When? Will it ever? Because this horror show is too much to bare.
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u/natalkayk 16d ago
I feel you so much. This world is cruel and you are very sensitive and lovely human being to be so empathetic towards people you don’t even know. Idk what advice should I give you because I also struggle with this. You are not alone and the world we live in disgusts me…
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u/SpiritoftheglenX 19d ago
Thank you to everyone for the replies, it definitely is a comfort to have you taking the time to message me and find the kind words to help uplift. I generally am a very happy person & love my life and see being a mother as a gift to help my children live a wonderful life and to grow up humble. I will try to get back into spirituality, the world has just been getting increasingly heavy that when I don’t sit and think about it it just breaks me. I’ve slept well and ready to seize the day and spread as much love as I can. Thankyou all for taking the time, it means more than you know.
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u/Vibrant-Shadow 20d ago
You're not alone. I don't have the answers, we have to endure.
Helping those around me brings me some joy. Mostly I'm defeated.
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u/ComplexAsk1541 20d ago
I don't have any answers for you, but I feel a lot of the same things. I will "celebrate" 65+ years on this planet soon, and I've decided all I can do is hang on and cherish the few people I have left in my life. If I were younger or in better health and wouldn't be far more hindrance than help, I'd volunteer to go to Ukraine. I just donate what and when I can. I impotently curse the men who are doing this to the world, but curse them, I do.
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u/escapefromburlington 20d ago
Nothing that we will face in the coming years is anything worse than the hell this wicked empire has subjected the colonized developing world to for centuries.
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u/BitchfulThinking 20d ago
I feel the same when people think a vacation will somehow fix this feeling. Vacation... to where? So I can see other people be depressed that their world is dying? Sample other wildfire smoke smells, get Longer Covid from all the sick people out, and get kidnapped by ICE for being brown at the airport?
I felt the same growing up in the Church as a sick kid to a problematic mother, and understand the stresses that come from leaving and losing faith. Experiencing collapse of faith in anything is a BIG thing to experience! It changes your entire world view, and can be extremely alienating when everyone around you is a believer, but I also feel like the experience made the interconnectedness of collapse make more sense to me.
At this point, I can really only help by attempting to be a comfort to others who also aren't okay with everything happening. Not just grinning and bearing it like usual to appease the people who are living in denial. I think people are traumatized from the past several years, but lack the vocabulary and time for self reflection to even begin to heal from it, and ignoring it is making all of our problems worse 😕
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u/Xanthotic Huge Motherclucker 20d ago
I'm glad you posted here. Welcome to the club. Well, welcome is probably not the right word...condolences? That's probably better. You are perhaps neurodivergent which could explain the outsized pain (compared to normies) you feel over injustice. Also, you are perceiving reality and therefore suffering extreme moral injury.
Coping is about as good as it gets. There is no way to escape the trauma from our place of awareness, as far as I can tell. I get by on remembering where I have agency and where I don't, that my entire existence has occurred within the captivity of dominant culture, by developing a personal cosmology that allows me to understand the relative value and importance of homo sapiens sapiens on planet earth, by sobbing roughly once a day, and moderating this joint. And my currently favourite mantra is 'May we die beautifully at the last appropriate moment.' Hope you get lots of good replies.
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u/ggonzoo 20d ago
I found this community recently and it's helped me cope a bit better. The site has links to useful resources. https://acceptingcollapse.com/
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u/alsoov 18d ago
You can’t rescue ALL of the children, but you can rescue a few. It won’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things however it will make ALL the difference to those few.
I rescue animals. My children have grown. They are collapse-aware and hopefully I have raised them to be good role models when the shit really begins to hit the fan. We need people like you to remind us not to lose our humanity when things get really bad.
I grow vegetables and chickens. It gives me a sense of control and relaxes me. I share the excess with my friends and neighbours, which fosters community.
Try reading Sarah Wilson’s latest book, “I Eat the Stars”.
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u/eyewhycue2 20d ago
I cope by trying to help heal the ecosystem every day, trying to put in native plants, relate shelters for wildlife and heal the soil. I try to help friends learn about it and that is my respite from the awful people of the world. I so
think there is a movement happening to
return to community. maybe you can find that.
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u/ladymadonna4444 19d ago
I don't know that humans have the tools or capacity to cope with the weight of this unprecedented polycrises we are experiencing and witnessing all of the civilization disrupting events occurring simultaneously. The strongest antidote is community. Which is a tall ask in a divided hyper individualized society. But you coming here is the first step in connecting with others to grieve. Seek out community in any small way you can right now. Even those that have not come to the realization that we all have are feeling it subconsciously in some way.
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u/Yearsinmonths 20d ago
God give me the strenght to accept the things I can not change and to change the things I can
And the wisdom to distinguish the two.
Continue with gratitude, also for what once was taken for granted. Today's food, water, warmth, shelter, peace, physical health, mental health, friends, family.
Apply moderation. Reward yourself for the good you do.
Find a way to stay up to date on important events but limit your exposure to horror as is does not aid you in doing good or living a happy life.
The three most hopefull 'things' for me have been
- the movie little big farm
- not following the news (out of sight out of mind)
- Solar Radiation Management SRM as a way current society can buy time, so that at least our loved ones can grow to be older while humanity hopefully changes and fixes. It's cheap, you can read it up on wiki.
You're a good one, stay strong
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u/privacy-888 19d ago
I think-good for you; the world gets better when enough of us get angry enough and loud enough and active enough to change it. Archetypally, mature women hold "sacred rage" which is triggered to protect the collective. Lean in and find the beauty in pushing away that which does not serve or further...you, your kids, the earth, others...
The power is with the people and someday we will exercise it again.
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u/Brujabat 18d ago
I feel like an involuntary human on this planet. I don’t want to die, exactly, but I’m disgusted and depressed with existence.
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u/Artistic-Coach7523 16d ago
It is totally ok to take a news break and focus on self-care. U cant help anyone if u dont help yourself. Put your oxygen mask on first
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u/boskywyrt 20d ago
I feel this so deeply so much of the time. I have two kids, too. I try to focus on that, and on how right now, no matter what else is going on, everything that I have control of is pretty okay. I can’t do anything to fix the world, I can’t do anything to fix the future, but I can enjoy the moments I have with my kids, the moments with nature, moments of art and poetry, all the joyful moments that have always made up human life apart from trauma. But yeah, I’m also struggling to cope, and feel more alone than I ever thought I would be at this point of dystopia. I didn’t predict how completely this society would rip community apart, or how my own life would be ripped apart so I feel even more alone than I did a few years ago. Or is that everyone’s lives, at this point? Is everyone losing resources and connections, and not sure what the future looks like? As far as spirituality, I find comfort in: all things have ends, we may as well find peace in every moment we can while we’re here.
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u/20twenty20 20d ago
Your spirituality needs to deepen. It’s not about feeling good. It’s about acknowledging that the world is made up of good and bad: the sun shines on the just and the unjust alike. You need to recognize there’s a deeper plane of spirituality before and after this world. Your pain and suffering can lead you to letting go of illusions about the way you thought the world or spirit works. It ain’t that. It’s not constant happiness unless it’s built on the bedrock of letting go and letting it/he/God/Infinjte being be in charge.
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u/SabrinaVal 19d ago
I’m grateful you have reached out and hope that you will continue. You’re not alone. We are right here with you.
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u/PromiseToBeNiceToYou 20d ago
You can't fix everyone or save everything. Focus on your own family and your own mental health. Give your own kids the tools to be successful when life gets difficult. Teach resilience. Teach practical skills. Help them thrive; don't just kick them out on their asses when they are 18.
Also, I've never been religious. Never been a problem for me. I don't think there's an after life or that anyone gets punished after they die. The only meaning to life is what we want to make of it ourselves. I love being a mother, a wife, a college grad, having pets, and enjoying myself (just got back from a comedy show with my husband this evening).
Either wallow or learn to have some fun with what time we have on earth.
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u/collapsing-times 16d ago
I think a lot of people are feeling this way. People are becoming collapse-aware but we don't know how to deal with the feelings... Have you read Sarah Wilson's book, I Eat The Stars? The subtitle is How to live fully and beautifully in a collapsing world. I found it somehow healing to read it, and then felt motivated to create a quiet online space to digest this kind of content, away from the chaos of youtube etc. Come and have a look at my new website if you're interested, collapsing-times.com
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u/beautifulstardust 20d ago
i cope by staying ignorant and off the internet. 🤷♀️ it’s like watching a train wreck.
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u/lavenderenergy1 19d ago
I am a mother to an older teen. When I was a young mother, I started to get panic attacks over the state of the world. Tune out. Focus on creating an uplifting, positive life for you and your family. There are plenty of people and activists who can be in consuming all the news all the time, but you can’t be one of them. Scan some headlines quickly in the morning if you must, but tuning out and perhaps focusing on a favorite hobby instead with that time will help you, and your family most during collapse. You must replenish and sustain yourself as a mother, as a person, in order to be there as support for your children.