Climate change anxiety

[Sea-Possibility-6012]

Hi all, I don’t know if this is the right sub, and I don’t want to dampen the mood but I’ve been having quite awful anxiety – I am in Europe and it is HOT – but even before this year, I have been having recurring bouts of anxiety, including about climate change.

I know I can take medication, and I have in the past & likely will soon again.
I garden and keep bees partly to make sure I have something to eat in case of shortages. I work in environmental protection (sorta) and I do try to remain positive but I legit get REALLY bad mentally.

I was raised with the belief that it’s all individual people’s fault and that it would be best if I didn’t exist at all. Not explicitly said to my face, but implied.

Is anyone else feeling this way and if yes, have you found something that helps you?

Thanks in advance 🌻

Discussion

[NorinBlade]

I grew up at a time when I was convinced we’d all be massacred in a thermonuclear war. I went to bed each night praying for the Russians to launch their missiles so I wouldn’t have to live with this unbearable anxiety anymore. That belief was so ingrained that I was constantly surprised to still be alive in my 20s and 30s.

I realized how insidious fear is and how paralyzing. How it can ebb our willpower and self worth. And I swore to never be coached into believing we’re all doomed ever again.

So all the terrorist stuff in the 90s and the financial meltdowns in the 2000s and the pandemics in the 2010s, the hysteria and doomsaying around all that, I just didn’t let it get to me. I’d already seen that movie. I’ll just keep my fear in my back pocket, thank you, media. I’ll just live my life and not be contained by your fearmongering. No one knows how we’re going to die or not die. The future is not set and there is always hope.

However.

Since I was a child in the 70s all the way up until this very afternoon I’ve been noticing trends in the natural world and I am very, very anxious. It began 30 years ago and now it’s more like full alarms blaring away. I’m not going to mention things I’ve seen because similar things are all over the news. Species extinction. Imbalance. Smaller and smaller harvests from year to year.

I mourn the world I have seen slip through my fingers like grains of sand in this lifetime, and I think it is getting worse.

The threats you are anxious about IMO are very valid concerns and are not overblown media hype. Even so, I have been in the situation of absolute certainty of annihilation before, and 40 years later I’m still here. So I think you are justified and have ironclad reasons to worry. But also I still encourage you to have hope and focus on what is effective and positive. Be a witch and cast the magic on yourself. Cast a glamour on yourself to take the bad news seriously but to enjoy finding helpful, actionable solutions. The cold pit in your stomach when you try to sleep at night is not your friend. It is clouding your thoughts and dulling your aura, and turning your life from one of wonder and joy to anxiety and dread.

As for the “all individual people’s fault and that it would be best if I didn’t exist at all.” I’m sorry you were given that message. It isn’t part of the rest of the stuff I was just talking about. I encourage you to get some support in erasing that poison from your mind. We’re in a real mess now and you need to be your best self. So please if you can, give yourself grace and realize you have as much right to exist as any of the asshats in Parliment or wherever.

[AllAbortionsareMoral]

You are not alone.

Climate is an excellent reason not to have kids, and it is only conspiracy theorists who do not understand climate change. The science has been in since the 80s.

You exist now, and your impact does matter, for worse, but also for better. That you are an example, and that is good, and ok. You don’t have to stop existing to make things better.

Do you think Bezos thinks that of himself? Or Trump? Or Musk? If these people don’t feel bad about themselves and they actively make the world worse, then you, with your tiny impact, and who clearly cares and wants to make the world better, then you shouldn’t feel bad about yourself.

Focus on what you can do. And talking is a big thing about what we can do. Some other thing is hobbies and giving back with volunteer work. Community will be the only thing that saves us.

There are things that won’t change. The mountains will still be high. The oceans will still have waves. Fire will still be hot and beautiful. There will still be clouds.

We did see a climate change this drastic, but it lead to the Permian mass extinction.

Here is the thing, though – although 95% of life on earth died, without it there would have never been dinosaurs, or birds, or mammals. It is through pressure that life evolves.

Pre Humans made tools for a million years, but they stayed the same, much like a bird building a nest. It wasn’t until the population crashed that we started to think in the way we recognize as human.

Write in your book of shadows, spend time in nature, and be in awe of the things we have now. Now is all we have, and it will slip through our fingers, so we might as well enjoy it while it lasts and try to hold onto it and preserve it for as long as we can.

You are not alone, we are in this together.

The old world is dying. But remember that Death in tarot simply means unavoidable change.

[SecondGI_zie-zir]

The narrow focus on individual carbon footprints is a distraction tactic by the industries who have been in the know since forever and have been obfuscating and delaying action ever since.
Major carbon drivers are fossil fuel industry, automotive industry, mining, the military and large corps producing a massive surplus of stuff that they then have to place with consumers.
The drive to endless growth and the prioritisation of profit are at the core of the crisis

The solutions are energy sovereignty and food sovereignty, a right to repair everything, the creation of unionised jobs centered on people care and planet care and the provision of universal basics, like homes, education, transport, healthcare, heating, energy and means of communication.
Public luxury and private sufficiency, in the words of George Monbiot.

IMO, the best antidote to anxiety is action, and I don’t mean obsessing with the fact that you personally should live perfectly, because we can only do what we can given our socially determined circumstances.
You can’t ride no bus to work if the government has cut the bus routes, and cannot cycle to work if there are no cycling facilities in your area because the city council would rather build a new parking lot.

Collective action is the key to get out of this situation.

If you are in the UK there is a demo about climate justice and social justice tomorrow in London. Meetup at 11 am at London Paddington Station.
Cheap/free coaches can get you to South Kensington for a secondary meetup.
All information at this website
https://www.weallwanttojuststopoil.com/?link_id=2&can_id=c3d7288d0737fef54b04311e294fbbd7&source=email-its-too-hot-and-everything-is-too-expensive&email_referrer=email_1609506&email_subject=its-too-hot-and-everything-is-too-expensive

I am from the UK BTW. If you go there, look for the stag beetle flags at Paddington to meet up with lovely people who are just as afraid and anxious as you.

Also I would recommend joining XR or Transition Town Network, or any equivalent organisation in your local area and do your bit for collective action against the climate crisis.

(Edited to add info on tomorrow’s climate justice + social justice demo in London)

[willowgems]

It’s terrible and terrible things are coming, but some will survive and we need to make sure that some of those who survive will be the good guys. So: stay engaged for the greater good, but also work hard magic to protect you and yours. Survive, and don’t succumb to survivors guilt, because you didn’t cause this disaster but by thriving through it you can shape what’s on the other side.

[Sweet_Chipmunk8812]

Also check out some of the projects around the world that are making differences even if they’re local and won’t stop climate change, there are places and people trying ways to improve their environment or mitigate the effects. Check out greening Singapore or permaculture in India on you tube. https://youtu.be/Tpozw1CAxmU
Africa’s great green wall hasn’t been what they hoped but there are still parts that have brought improvements. Even tiny things which on their own won’t make a difference can have an effect if enough people do them. Corporations will still ruin things and probably the best things we can do will be going local where we can, reducing our consumption where we can, getting involved in or starting local initiatives. Personally it’s not so much the anxiety that gets me as a total lack of motivation and energy which probably has an edge of depression that I’m trying to address.

[Sea-Possibility-6012]

Thanks all! Some great points. Good to know I’m not alone. 🙂

[MadamePouleMontreal]

It’s not anxiety. Fear, trepidation, dread. *Terror.*

Anxiety is when you spend your days fretting about the possibility of a tidal wave and checking to be sure that you are always on high ground.

Anxiety is not when the tidal wave is actually crashing down on you.

+++ +++ +++

Agreed, you still have to figure out how to live while watching the tidal wave and your sense of guilt and responsibility is completely misplaced. So yes, get help. Talk to your doctor and a therapist. Do yoga and take up boxing. Do NOT use weed. It will help you feel better in the short term but long term will add anxiety and paranoia to your legitimate fears.

[17nerdygirl]

Americans can still vote to protect our common climate,, but there are special interests that make it difficult to cast an informed vote. If your representative voted for law 001, liberals and conservatives will describe it in such different terms it sounds like 2 different laws. Looking for an easy way to see how my u.s. house of representatives person voted on the ” codify/legalize abortion ” vote for example, I went to a site called “votesmart” which I heard could at least tell me that, but I could not make it work. We only seem to find out what our congressperson wants us to know. Join a special interest group or trade group and they will keep tabs on their single issue for you, however. Elsewhere I learned votesmart ‘s annual budget is only 2 million dollars a year, so perhaps they don “t have the cash to keep the site running for the estimated 40 thousand elected officials they hope to cover. Both parties try to find ways to prevent the other party ‘s people from voting, also, though Republicans in certain parts of the US are much, much, worse. The only tool available to us is the courts to thwart or punish illegal acts that corrupt the voting process (usually too late to do much good ).The only rays of light in our situation are certain non profit “good government” organizations, like something called the League of Women Voters and the NAACP. These two tend to lean liberal in policy, so they are mistrusted by moderates and conservatives here.. There are two others working for democracy in USA that should be better known, are 503-c organizations that can take money from non US citizens, and that do not support or endorse candidates. They are Common Cause and the Government Accountability Project. Both were founded by Republicans ( the conservative political party in our country) to fight government overreach (like when a local government arranges voting so people of a certain complexion have to wait hours on line to vote (on a work day) and others are forbidden by law to even give them a bottle of water or food) and to fight corporate nullification of the popular will. Seeing how corporate interests. and obscenely wealthy American kooks have thwarted our efforts to protect the climate, I hoped that people elsewhere would boycott American services and goods. That, and/or financially supporting the organizations named above could help our world climate crisis.

[JemmaP]

Many good vibes and ideas in this thread so far, but let me also put in for the book “What We Are Fighting For Now Is Each Other”. I feel many of the same sorrows that you feel, and the thing that helps me through it best is connecting with other people who are also doing small, achievable things to help.

One person can’t save an ocean, but a small group can save a stream. When we work together, our hands are stronger. Find a small, achievable goal that you can work with other people on, and let that progress help your heart. That’s my best suggestion so far.

Take care!