The news has become a lifeline to the general public throughout this pandemic. With its 24/7 coverage of all things coronavirus, it is almost impossible to miss an update on any new developments that have been made in this fight against the virus. While the news is a good source of updates and information on this growing pandemic, for me it’s become a source of anxiety and sadness. As the scale of this crisis increased, so did my attentiveness to the news. There would be periods where for hours on end I would scour various news sites looking for any sign that things were getting better and life would go back to normal soon and when I couldn’t find anything along those lines, I would become depressed. It got to the point where I would start spiraling anytime any new piece of information came out. Last week, I hit my breaking point and decided that I had to make a change. I needed to stop watching the news.
After I came to my realization about what the news was doing to my mental health, I decided to try and cut the news out fully. I now realize that that was impossible because the news has become inescapable but I was determined. I lasted 24 hours before I broke down and started checking it again which led me into one of my darkest spirals since this crisis started that lasted 2 days. Once I was able to snap out of it, I decided that I had to set some ground rules for myself in order to make this work. My rules were that I couldn’t spend more than an hour watching the news, I wasn’t allowed to check any website that had a case counter, and I especially wasn’t letting myself check any website that had any sort of time table about when the virus would peak in the US. I am proud to say that I have followed these rules ever since and have started to feel a little bit better.
I believe it is very important to keep yourself informed on issues in order to make yourself a better-informed citizen. That being said, it personally went from me wanting to inform myself to trying to find any bit of news that would reassure me that the crisis would be over soon. I became obsessed with checking statistics and any random study I could find that I prayed would make me feel better. Not only did checking the news make me feel even worse but it led to me not being able to focus in my online classes, having a hard time leaving my room, and feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness. This week, I can’t say that I feel 100% better and that I feel like I am back to my normal self but I have made some progress. I may not be able to control the virus and what’s going to happen but I am able to control how I react and how much I let it affect what I am trying to accomplish from home.
That’s all for now collegiettes. Please stay safe, stay at home, and remember this all will pass.