It’s Been a Rough Week So I’m Reminding Myself of These ThingsPin

It’s Been a Rough Week So I’m Reminding Myself of These Things

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s been impossible to avoid stories about horrific war crimes, nasty political fights, shootings, and just plain old organized hate over the last couple of weeks. If I’m being honest with myself, it’s a difficult time to take to this blog or social media with any positive message. I am not feeling it. It’s not where my head is, and my anxiety about the world and people I care about would rather I stay awake all night worrying instead.

At times like this, though, I am reminded of all the times I’ve told people on this blog before about focusing on what we can do. So, I’ve taken some time to go back and read my own words to remind myself of what I’ve done before to keep going during difficult times. I’m sharing a few of those links to help anyone struggling with things this week or provide a simple thing we can do to help others who have been impacted directly.

Quick Thought #15 – Do what you can, it’s good for you.

One Day, One Thing, At a Time

When Anxiety is the Norm: Right Now

Want to Lower LGBTQ Youth Suicide Risks? Just Accept Who They Are

Quick Thought #11: We’re All On the Roller-coaster

Even when there are things in the world that I do not have the power to change, I use my own words to remind myself that there are things I CAN do. I can look after the people around me. I can add my voice to support mental health, survivors, and marginalized groups. I can find ways to contribute to making the world a better place in some small ways while also encouraging others to do the same.

This also serves as a great reminder to myself that writing here about these topics is never a waste. I just found some hope by going back and reading what I wrote. Who knows who else might read these words and find a little hope too? That is another small thing I can do that is more useful than wallowing in my anxiety.

What can you do? How can your small acts ripple out into the world at large? And what are you doing to take care of yourself so that you can continue to give in small ways?

 

Similar Posts

  • Running on Fumes

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

    I heard someone on the radio use this phrase to describe herself as we were out grabbing a few last-minute items to assist with riding out Hurricane Ida. She was talking about evacuating her home in New Orleans at 10:30 last night, driving to Alabama to seek shelter, and then doing the show remotely from there.

    Here, we aren’t in as much of a need to evacuate, we are further from the coast and the storm surge, but it’s still going to be a long, dangerous couple of days. So, we are spending a lot of time, and both mental and physical energy, preparing to possibly be without power, for needing to leave if the house is damaged, and so forth. It’s a lot. And that is on top of all the mental energy necessary to deal with large COVID outbreaks we’ve had in recent weeks, all of the recent events in world news, and the various personal and professional challenges that we are also dealing with.

    Running on fumes is a really good description of how I think most of the entire state feels today, and yet, there’s a storm coming that we are all going to have to deal with, while everything else just continues on as well.

  • Addicted to blogging?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    Here’s an interesting look at the possibility that blogging is causing problems for people and taking away from people being able to live their lives offline. I can easily see where that could happen, but I think I suffer from the opposite effect, when I’m not out living my life, I’ve got nothing to blog…

  • |

    Celebrities and Mental Health – Trendy?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Interesting discussion on this podcast episode about celebrities opening up about mental health issues, and whether it’s a good or bad thing. I do believe, overall, it helps any time someone is willing to talk about dealing with mental health issues. But, there are definitely some things to think about, especially as Gabe and Michelle…

  • Florida Sends the Wrong Message when Allowing for the Death Penalty in Child Abuse Cases

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

    I get it. Punishing child abusers is an easy public opinion win. No one wants to punish abusers less. As survivors, though, we must balance that with what is best for the child. Testifying in a child abuse trial is a traumatic experience as it is. We shouldn’t be asking kids to take responsibility for taking the life of their abuser on top of that or spend the rest of their lives knowing that someone died because they spoke up. Nor should we be arming abusers with another way to manipulate kids into staying silent.

    We should focus on what is best for a survivor’s healing so they can have a life after abuse because that is possible.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)