Too much unpleasantness

Hey dude, I feel ya. My in-laws are the same way. It’s kind of worrying my kids. We’ve told them to not talk about any of that at the dinner table. It’s very tiring, repetitive, and a general pain in the ear for everyone, except them. They also are forgetful. They forget that they say one thing to one person and explain it all again. It’s a fucking circle. I understand what it means to be informed, but we need to let go of what we can’t control. It’s a discussion that leads no where, except frustration and agony. It’s a very touchy topic. Everyone is experiencing this thing in different ways. Let’s just not discuss it, except for the occasional “Hey, it’s looking better/worse.” ffs

Greetings, in my personal experience this challenge is all about self-discipline. Choosing not to be part of the problem part of the solution. Admittedly it is an increasingly difficult challenge when you’re living with your parents or someone else and you have no control of your environment.

I am a veteran now living in veterans housing after having had a long career of success in two marriages. The second one being a tragic failure catapulted myself to my present conditions, The first half of that problem was my fault the second half hers. I hear these problems echoed daily from the downtrodden masses. I find myself having to take great control over my time and space; Where I am and who I spend my time listening to.

I have been educated to believe that the difference between a stumbling block and a steppingstone is the way you choose to use it. As long as I use my self-discipline to focus on other things besides their inane chatter, I have a greater control over how I feel. Too often we hear people say oh I feel this way because of that person or so-and-so made me feel bad. The fact is we feel a certain way because we choose to. We either choose to react to a persons words ( most often negatively) or we can choose to respond to them ( positive choice). An example of responding to them would be when a person starts talking about a negative topic, get up and walk away. BTW this is most effective if done when they are in mid-sentence. Don’t say a word just get up and walk. Believe it or not sooner or later, they will get the idea that you don’t want to hear it.

I also find that we train people to treat us in certain ways. Sometimes without realizing it we communicate to them that it’s OK to dump on us ( hey I’m a good listener) and other times we let them know with our body language that it’s unacceptable.

I realize this is all easier said than done ( once we’ve established a pattern) especially when we’ve allowed ourselves to be affected by other peoples negativity for so long. But I can assure you it can be done.
BTW this is all assuming one is starting with an emotionally balance state of mind. IOW The person being yourselves have stable mental health. When I say stable mental health I mean that in a good way. Too many people see mental health issues as a negative. The topic no one wants to talk about today but everyone is affected by. In order to control our own mental health we have to control whether we respond or react To any given situation. It’s a matter of responsibility.

I apologize for the wall of text and typos But how else can I get this idea across without contributing to the problem. Have a great day however don’t let anyone dictate your day.

P.S Everything described above is negatively impacted by the use of substances which change your mood and behavior.

Fear sells and there is a lot of fear to sell right now it seems, even more so as it is a diminishing return and as a news outlet you are probably on the ropes or corporate life support. Can be quite addictive as well.

Not sure what there is to do. You can try to correct things, you can try to introduce other topics. Navigating, or indeed preventing, the tirades and the wanderings off in a huff is a fun one*.

*though a possibility. If you are deemed an unresponsive agent (there are morons and arseholes in the world, always will be, can we talk about something interesting? Whether you want to appeal to vanity, as so much of fear porn does get tied up with it even if they might think it virtue they are espousing, with "Great Minds Discuss Ideas. Average Minds Discuss Events. Small Minds Discuss People." or something to that effect is up to you.) and can weather the doubling down storm they might give up and revert to the weather -- none of my family talk to me about politics as trying to get me to care in front of them is like blood from a stone so bonus.

Personally life is good. We are living in one of the safest times in human history, with nice tech, food in belly, clean water enough that even I (a decided poor person, though by choice) can take half hour showers in drinkable water and be more concerned about the power bill... such that most people can afford to spend their days worrying about cultural change of trifling significance (effecting it, blocking nonsense, returning to an earlier state, bypassing some nonsense established) and imagined ills (most ists and isms really aren't) instead if they want to worry about things.
Even this pandemic lark. Leaving aside that such a thing would be everyday news and thus boring prior to about 60 years ago (and we were well overdue for one) then anybody in history would have taken this over anything else that people can name; if measles makes a comeback then that would be a worse time than this.
To that end water off a duck's back for me, even if I had not gone for the quasi nihilism/want to watch the world burn/enjoy the decline path.

@Redhorse It's good that you have ways to help deal with this, and thank you for sharing them. While I see what you're saying, some of those things don't work for me. I can't tune out people. And I can't just get up and walk away. I can hear them from nearly anywhere in the house. (though as both you and Fast said, walking away angrily or without a word would work) I think that I'll try asking if they can be a little quieter or talk about bad stuff less often. Letting them know would be good. Thanks, and have a wonderful day.

Thats why my family and I dont talked about it. When we watched the news.. we watched only weather news then change the channels for something excited or watch the movie or I mind my own business playing PS4/PS5/Nintendo Switch. Dont need to listen to DUMB reporters blah blah about this and that. Its annoying. And hate the reporters that liked the zoom closer to stare at a long Q-tip insert into stranger's nose which disgusting us a lot. Idiot reporters, really. No more. Only Weather news then changed the channel immediately.

Yes it took me a long time to come to this method. Admittedly it doesn’t work for everyone, and also the people in the receiving you don’t always get the hint which requires persistence. I’m going to tell you one of the thing that worked for me, you might laugh at it as I did when I first heard about it. I started reading an old book called the Tao te Ching, I guess you might call it a philosophy. Change the way I perceive people and bad circumstances. Again not for everyone but it worked for me. Actually my first introduction to it was through a book in titled the Tao of Pooh. this book illustrated the philosophy in a humorous way that made it easy for most people to understand to the creation of the cartoon Winnie the Pooh. As funny as it sounds it’s worthwhile read.