I can't offer you any help with depression, but I can say that what you are describing is not being made miserable from caring too much. It's being made miserable from being too online and not caring enough to go be offline. There is no such thing an NPC because life isn't a game. Everyone around you is full of their own thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams. Go find the ones whose hopes and dreams align with yours and try to make them happen. Get off reddit. Forever. Seriously. It is a government op to eat people's time and attention and misrepresent reality. Full of racists too. Care more about yourself and your time than to waste it on reddit.
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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I noticed it's your "cake day". Says you've been here for 2 years. Shortly after October 7th.
There's something called second-hand or secondary PTSD. Happens to first responders, doctors and nurses, and social/care workers. You see enough fucked up stuff happening to other people and it traumatizes you just the same.
At the same time, this is about humanity. How can we see the slaughter and not be moved to action? Who are we if we simply choose to look away?
And yet, still, your brain is melting and your heart is singed every day by gazing upon the horrors in the cyber chaos feeds.
You simply can't keep looking. You're gazing into the abyss and it is looking back at you. Stop.
You gotta process all this and integrate it. Then you can figure out what to do about it. I believe this is what Matt Christman was saying when he spoke of the "grillpill". It sounds silly but it is actually very necessary. Constantly re-traumatizing yourself just wears you down and then you can't even do anything.
If you want to fight for the love of humanity, then you've got to also live your life and bring that love into it. Hold onto every single precious beautiful thing that you can in these dark times. I want to find a quote but I can't remember who it was, there was some woman who was doing revolutionary work during a very very dark time and she said that's when we danced the hardest, laughed the loudest, loved the most, because life is beautiful and that's why they do it all.
It took me a while to understand this because I kept getting stuck on "you're privileged in the imperial core!!!!!!!!" guilt like, ohh how nice for you, of course you can just turn off the computer and ignore the horrors and go take a walk in the sunshine, you piece of shit. Scrolling infinitely at the horrors is sort of like punishing yourself, it's self harm. But ultimately this is part of the PTSD too, it's similar to survivor's guilt.
I feel this existentially, part of it is the sheer absurdity of existence, but part of it is the consequence of social media and doom scrolling.
I find it helpful for myself to take breaks, go for a long walk, or a run, stare into some water, lift something heavy a few times, or make some silly craft with my hands.
Regardless if the whole world is a fascist hellscape, or a communist utopia, we're all going to the same place in the end anyway - our dead bodies decomposing into dirt, so grass and mushrooms can grow out of us and live. And long after that our sun will burn out, and the remains of people grass and mushrooms will be cold minerals floating in the vast emptiness of space. And the universe will slowly entropy, until it forgets anything that ever happened here. Good or bad, all is temporary.
Going out won't magically make you feel all good and okay, but it could help stimulate some of the nice neutrotransmitters and help you feel a little less funk in a very funked up world. Keep being brave, comrade!
Becoming mushroom food sounds lovely. Time to log off
You gotta log off
This happened to me a few years ago my mind just snapped and i temporarily became a formula 1 guy. Took about a month for my brain to recalibrate
Car go vroom
I think I'll become a Sonic guy and play through all the 2d ones again
Yeah that's perfect. Go super into it, do speedruns or something. Just let something absolutely harmless eat your brain for a while
Ya this is why I've become super into ttrpg's again lately I think. I've been getting back into D&D 4e especially again during it's sort of recent "revival" and reappraisals.
It helps to have something to distract the mind every now and then. I'm still doing stuff for orgs and helping when I can, but when I can't, there's no point in worrying about it and I might as well read about rpg's and play Baldur's Gate 3.
It sounds like you are falling in despair bc you don't know how you can solve the problems you know. Incountable things happen at the same time after all.
Try looking for and sharing with more people outside reddit and lemmy. Say hi to those around you, and ask how they are doing. Sharing experiences in different contexts helps to learn and to live better. You could find things you can solve and things that make you happier. Cheers
Stop. Go do something. The struggle makes you free.