The Sky is Falling
What we believe matters
When I was in my teens, I was horribly depressed. I often thought about suicide. I didn't ever come up with a plan because I believed in reincarnation. I didn't see that as an easy out but that I was here to learn something. Clearly, I hadn't learned anything yet, and I figured I would have to come back and start all over again. I'd already gotten this far and didn't care to repeat any of what I'd already experienced.
What we believe matters.
I had some beliefs that were counter-productive to my mental health. I wasn't just depressed, I was anxious. At that time, one of the common fears was that the Russians were going to start a nuclear war. My husband is just enough older than me that he remembers doing the 'hide under your desk to save you from the nuclear blast’ drills [look it up.] They had stopped those by the time I was in grade school, but there was still plenty of talk. And there was a made-for-TV series [look it up] about the end of the world from nuclear poisoning. I think this is also when ‘post-apocalyptic’ started as a genre of fiction.
By the time I was in high school, Ronald Regan was challenging the communist system of the Soviets. Despite the continued fear that he would spark a war, environmental collapse became the thing to be concerned about. Not in just one way, but in multiple ways over a few years. I don’t specifically remember the fear we were going into a new ice age, but I do remember acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer.
In grade school, we were required to watch a horrid little film called Ark. It postulated that air pollution would be so bad everyone would have to walk around in masks. The main character had a tiny greenhouse which he loved and nurtured. It was destroyed by people desperate for a breath of fresh air.
What a horrible thing to make a child watch! I couldn’t do anything about air pollution. All I could do was have nightmares. In high school, I had a required class called World Problems. By the time I finished getting an A in that class - I even did an independent study on pollution - I wondered why I should plan for anything but try to live a short and reasonably happy life.
Why try to do something meaningful when the world is going to end?
My fear fed into my near-constant anxiety. The anxiety kept me from sleeping which fed into my depression. And round and round it went.
I'm going to be 60 in a little over a year and I'm finally realizing how wrong I was about so much of what I was taught.
Nuclear annihilation didn't happen. The Soviets opened up their markets, the Berlin Wall fell, and East Germany reunited with West Germany. The prediction of an ice age magically disappeared. Acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer that was supposed to have burned us all to death, both got fixed. And our air got cleaner rather than dirtier.
Now I know how very wrong my younger self was. How wrong my entire culture was. I am no longer anxious [unless I spend too much time on current events] or depressed. Why? Not because the world didn't end. There is always some other thing to be afraid of, and it's far too easy to jump on board with yet another looming disaster.
I’ve stopped being anxious and depressed because I put my focus where I could actually change something instead of ruminating over things I couldn’t control. I worked my ass off to make a good life for myself and my husband. And I found something meaningful to do with my time.
If the owners of news outlets - or politicians - have any say, the world is always going to end. How else can they get our attention? Without our attention, they don’t make money, or retain power.
Don’t give it to them.
Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. She lives with her husband, and is Mother of Cats; four boyz and one cranky gurl. Selina has written The Young Woman’s Goodlife Guide: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. Or… Learn From My Pain, and How to Train Your Cat: Using a Clicker and Leash to Keep Your Indoor Cat Happy and Healthy, and the Goodlife Guide to Nutrition.