I’m European but after doomscrolling on Lemmy, watching Last Week Tonight etc. I can’t keep my calm over the US election, which is not helping my existing depression and suspected ADHD. The only good thing I did today was not eat much (I’m overweight) and 15 minutes of gardening. I can’t keep todo lists because I’m really depressed over not having completing any meaningful item for weeks, and not even my long-abandoned passion projects spark joy anymore.
I’m afraid things will go very wrong for my mental state if Trump wins. I have two psychologists and a psychiatrist but I’m only meeting them next week. Please help me get my mind off this and maybe even get something done.
Do yourself a favour: put the phone down. Stay away from your computer screen. Do literally anything else - some chores, a hobby, counting the number of people walking by your house, fill pages with drawings of squares, take several really long walks, find a pond and skip some rocks, whatever floats your boat. The point is not trying to accomplish anything, but to shift your attention. If something you’ve been putting off gets done, that’s a nice side effect, but not the point - so don’t worry too much about the result.
You have no control over the outcome of the U.S. election whatsoever. It is not worth your health to obsess over something that you can’t control that fills you with negative feelings. So block it out - if anything, try to summon some gratitude that you have the option to do that (though it’s ok if you find that hard to do).
I know this is much easier said than done. But you’ve got this. You’ll be ok. I’m pulling for ya.
Thanks. I’ll be trying to push my psychiatrist to do ADHD tests ASAP so I can get productive before the project’s Christmas deadline. Until then, this is pretty much the best advice I could be given. Thank you for your empathy.