Dear Bel,
What do you do when you think the world is just about beating you to a pulp? I know I’m not the only one to feel so down all the time because nothing seems to be within my control.
How did we end up with the world we’ve got? How can a person not feel depressed reading the papers and watching the news? How can you avoid feeling – from time to time and not often, I admit – that it would be much more peaceful not to be here at all?
I know you don’t write a political column but ‘events’ must creep up on you as they do on me and surely you must get depressed, too?
This time the trigger for me has been the massacres of innocent people in Syria. I watched the news with tears pouring down my cheeks, something I tried to hide from my teenage children who don’t need to see their mother falling apart when they have so many issues of their own to deal with.
Those poor people being killed because of their religion… how can anybody who believes in any god believe that somebody in Heaven can allow such slaughter to take place?
I used to go to church sometimes but now I can’t stand to hear the platitudes from the pulpit when the world is so full of hate. I’ve got to the stage when I won’t look at Facebook any more because, after a few minutes, I read people being horrible about Jews (disguised as criticism of Israel, of course) and I can’t stand it.
Over the past few years, I’ve read a few Holocaust memoirs and still feel shocked that it all happened within my grandparents’ lifetime. So recent, really.
I always feel haunted by man’s inhumanity to man. It goes on everywhere, doesn’t it? But why?
People will probably be thinking of me as a snowflake who can’t face the realities of life. But that’s not how I see myself. I hold down a good job in the Civil Service – or at least, I thought I was secure there, but the looming cuts scare the hell out of me.
One minute I think, ‘Yes, we need to save money because so much is wasted’ but then I think, ‘These are people’s lives behind those headlines’.
It’s confusing, you don’t know what to think about anything any more.
This is a weird problem letter but I suppose I want to get some advice about how to stop all this getting to me.
Please don’t suggest a yoga retreat because I couldn’t stand it.
ANTHEA
Bel Mooney replies: I’m glad you wrote, because I suspect many readers feel as you do but might hesitate to put it all into words.
You are not the first to express this sense of foreboding – finding the problems of the world too much to bear.
To any rational person the continuing proofs of man’s inhumanity to man can only provoke sorrow.
No wonder so many people choose not to think at all.
To jump to near the end of your letter, surely it’s no coincidence that these feelings have increased at a time when all things feel under question, including your own job.
I’m not suggesting you wouldn’t feel down anyway, just that right now your personal security, as well as that of the world, is worrying you.
All you can do is to lie low and see what happens, while always keeping your eyes keen for opportunities elsewhere. It’s an attitude of mind which can alleviate that feeling of helplessness.
To return to the wider world (since we must), let’s just agree the feelings which lower your spirits have been felt by generation after generation.
When I was a teenager we worried about nuclear war, then (at university) about the war in Vietnam. And ever since then, year on year on year, conflict in the Middle East and horrific suffering and exploitation and war across Africa.
Of course, a key difference is that there was no 24-hour news cycle when I was young, nor (and this more of a blessing than we can possibly calculate) social media.
Newspapers were essential, of course, and if you only read the one which mirrored your own opinions then you at least enjoyed peace of mind in being ‘right’. The online world has destroyed all that.
Sympathising with every issue currently making you so sad and worried, I deal with it by the rather cynical reflection that ever since the First Century AD, the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins has underpinned Western thought.
Pride, Greed, Sloth, Rage, Gluttony, Envy and Lust still stalk our world and I reckon you could pin one or other of them to every headline you see in your Mail, as well as tracing them in every plot of every novel ever written.
That’s not going to cheer you, I know, but it saves me from useless fretting. These days I tend to shrug sadly that humans have always messed up their own lives as well as their communities and the planet as a whole. There’s nothing new under the sun. And about that I can do nothing, and nor can you.
But you do need to control any use of social media and also your news consumption. Listen to music instead of watching BBC news. Write down something that made you grateful every day.
Focus on your own private world and that of your children. Listen to their fears and talk to them about this sad old world, but never without reminding them of the perennial beauty of nature as well as warning them to be wary of life.
Above all, believe in the goodness of individuals, which is as powerful as any Deadly Sins. What else can we do?
My son’s partner is messy and chaotic
Dear Bel,
Our son lives with his partner and their four children, including a very new baby, in a small three-bed semi.
They all sleep in two of the three bedrooms, the third being a ‘playroom’ but, in reality, it’s a dumping ground.
This is because our son’s partner hoards everything – and I mean everything!
All toys and clothes they’ve ever had for the three older children are kept, the excuse being it’s for the baby.
Occasionally, our son will tidy up the mess but he is never allowed to bin anything. He sends us the odd video, presumably behind her back. So although we all have a good relationship, we feel we can’t say anything to her.
One time I suggested he needs to speak to his partner’s parents. He replied they are messy people, too.
My wife and I worry that the children are growing up in utter chaos, not realising it’s abnormal. All of them are always ill and, though I know children bring germs home from school, it can’t help them to remain well with their surroundings being inevitably grubby due to the mess.
Do you have any advice for us?
JOHN
Bel Mooney replies: Four children? I feel just as I did last week when I answered a letter from Alison, whose unwell daughter-in-law, already a mother-of-four (with two of them having acute problems), had chosen to get pregnant again against her husband’s wishes. What is it with these women?
Only have a child if you feel 100 per cent sure you have the ability and finances to look after that innocent being properly. (By the way, a number of readers wrote to say the obvious answer is for the son who doesn’t want any more children to use a condom or have a vasectomy! Of course, that’s entirely wise, and I feel rather silly for not saying it, too. Thank you everybody.)
Now here you are, John, with another daughter-in-law who sounds incapable of giving her children the environment they need to grow up calm, secure and able to cope with life. A good test is to ask if they feel happy asking a friend back to play? Or do the children go to friends’ houses and observe what they are like?
There is counsel about what to do when there is a hoarder in the family on website mind.co.uk – just type ‘hoarding’ into the search box. I found the advice very thorough and sensible but (understandably) ‘soft’ in that it emphasises reticence and respect at all times. This doesn’t quite come to terms with or tackle acute concern like yours.
In your position, I’d be going mad with frustration as I hate mess.
Surely the only key to this problem is your son. That sounds like a cop-out, I know, and yet he is the one person who can act to deal with his wife’s problem. I’d suggest he looks at that website, for a start.
You say he sends you ‘video evidence’ but do you ever have the chance to talk seriously to him? I’m not sure why he doesn’t take charge and insist they clear the third room for the baby to sleep in.
If he fails to do this then the blame for the mess must be as much his as your daughter-in-law’s. You can ask him how he sees the future when the children have homework to do and need space.
Are you invited to their home? Do your grandchildren visit you so give them experience of a different atmosphere?
You certainly don’t want to alienate their mother, but you should certainly be able to encourage (i.e., put some pressure on) your own son.