Asklemmy

Behavioral standards plummeted during the pandemic and never recovered. People are a lot more stressed, and they refuse to behave. We're divided, and it really does not help that our leadership literally believes that AI is going to replace most jobs.

Depends on the person. I’m a therapist, tons of my clients are very upset, scared, crying, having trouble sleeping, depressed, feeling powerless and angry, etc.

This administration’s actions are taking a huge toll on some people’s mental health.

And people who are trans or gay? They are scared and many want to get out but can’t.

Having said all that… there are plenty of people who are not bothered because they are not informed and don’t realize how bad things really are.

The average American barely has any idea there's a war even happening or who the president is. Half the people I know think Biden is still president. Even people who do know there's a war wouldn't be able to find Iran on a map. Everything about our government and everything it does might as well be a TV show to my fellow Americans. They see it as fiction that doesn't impact our lives and most people think it's extremely boring so they tune it out.

People are crashing out but for different but associated reasons. Everyone's broke, no one can afford healthcare, there's a mass shooting every 3 days. Everyone's tired and the alienation is so thick that people are all pointing in different directions to where they think the problem is. People are getting more conspiracy brained and twitchy.

I've noticed that stress is beginning to show in society. When you order groceries, much of the order is wrong. People are using employee assistance programs in certain cases for stress related issues. Many of my friends can't stand to watch the news. I'm fucked in the head from doom scrolling. I know a person who had a party recently and said the only thing she wanted for her bday was for nobody to bring up politics. It's awful honestly and I'm crashing out. My health is impacted. Like, a lot.

It's invalidating that some don't see all this.

People in the U.S used to say.

"Finish your dinner , there are kids in Africa/China starving. "

Now it's our kids going without food.

They used to say

"we have to liberate religious fanatic dictatorships of other countries"

Now we hope someone liberates us from fanatic fascist dictators.

"We are the richest country"

Poverty is high and climbing every minute.

Children are illiterate. No one can afford basic healthcare and die from preventable diseases. Lose everything they own and become homeless from cancer or a serious injury.

Sex trafficking. That used to be other countries right?

Nope. It was here. It was always this place.

It's been rotting for a while. Causes have effects. Some people don't seem capable of actually following the path to see the outcomes. And the few who can are often ignored.

Even my other leftist friends thought I was being dramatic this time last year.

I couldn't get them to engage much. Now they call me, sobbing. Overwhelmed. It was all real. It was all true. It's all over for us. We can't come back from this without a lot more hardship.

I think people still haven't accepted that last one.

Our children can't even read. You think we are going to bounce back from this in 5 or 10 years?

No one will trust the U.S for anything.

Right now they are all working to stop using the dollar as the main exchange currency. Many are working on their own tech so they don't have to use our corrupt tech.

Hell some country in Africa has their own Internet now that's not accessible to outsiders because they are sick of the manipulation.

It's over. And we , the citizens, will be paying for decades.

None of this will be fixed any time soon. I know no one wants to hear that. But it's true.

Go ahead and make your peace with it. And then be ready to fight and try your hardest to support each other.

We only have each other.

I was fired a month or so after the intentional stock market crash. Jobs are no longer existent, likely to be worse than 2008. Most of us can't afford a home let alone rent for an apartment. Medication is expensive even with insurance, and that's assuming you can even obtain it as the fda/dea are in some sort war causing shortages. Our government is killing people. Our friends are being put on lists/into databases for being queer. Our government is threatening our allies, resulting in them hating us further inhibiting our ability to get assistance and or leave. Concentration camps are being built. Drones are being tested around the country along with mass deployment of facial recognition cameras. Data centers are sucking up the water. All of our data was looted by foreign connected individuals posing as government waste reduction. They're attempting to get rid of physical cash by removing production of the penny. Age verification laws are being baked into everything we love in an effort for additional surveillance. We've been infiltrated by Russia and Israel. We're being dragged into another oil war even though many of us witnessed the effects of the previous one on our friends and family. They're rolling back women's rights. Pedophile billionaires are wrapped up in all this. And it seems anyone who could have done anything in their positions have failed us. So yes, I'd say that's the definition of crashing out.

Look at American history. This really is business as usual, sad as it might be.

Things are bad, and are going to get a lot worse before it's over.

I'm self-employed, and 2025 had one of my best starts in 18 years of business. 2026 is one of the worst starts in my history. January can be hit if miss, but February is usually pretty good, and March is always one of my best months. Tomorrow is the last job on my schedule, and I have nothing beyond that until the Fall. I'm talking to other small biz owners, and they're saying the same thing.

Economic indicators always lag by a few months, so the rest of the world is going to find out in a couple months what those in the trenches, like me, already know - we're already in a really bad economic situation.

And it won't get better until somebody in power starts admitting it, and committing to fix it. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

People rarely distinguish between the sentiment of a demographic versus the sentiment of the individuals that make up that demographic. Hence, stereotypes.

"Americans" are not a monolith. There's almost 400 million people in this country. Idk how each individual is doing, but most of the people I know are too busy trying to keep their heads financially above water to care. The actual American people have very little say over what happens in this country, and most are just as trapped in the horror as the rest of the world.

Does a country without public transit, universal healthcare, or any social safety nets sound like a country where the average person is in control to you?

There have been many organized protests against Trump since he took office. I'm not sure how much press they've received outside the US. Though many still support him because they are indoctrinated into the MAGA cult, I would say that most (over half) of Americans are against the war for a variety of reasons.

The problem is that there is not much we can do in the short term to create change. Our system of government does not have an effective means to recall a leader.

The threat of legal action does little to deter this administration. For one thing, it's slow. For another, they've shown that they can and will ignore court orders and this far don't suffer any consequences. Finally, the administration has done as much as possible to install loyalists and remove honest people in every part of government, including the legal system.

Impeachment is a joke. Even if the process was started again, Republicans in the Senate would never convict one of their own.

So the average citizen doesn't approve of what is happening but don't see any effective means to change. It's a very helpless feeling. Many disgruntled communities have been able to create some change in their local government but even changing political parties is not real change. We still have 2 right wing parties bought by special interests. I think many of us just try to do good where we can in our own sphere of influence.

The ‘background noise’ is getting louder but for the most part, people are just carrying about their day worried about their own personal lives

The oil prices have not hit the average consumer hard yet. They are releasing oil reserves and taking other measures to artificially reduce the price increase. It will probably take a month or two before things really starts to go down. (or up in this case)

I have a "conservative" friend. We both had a bit of a crashout discussion last night. We're American.

The economy is crashing in front of our eyes. We're both extremely privileged and lucky and we both recognize it and we recognize how fucking stupid everything is in our society. We recognize we're powerless to even change the nature of our jobs.

Things are not normal. It is like a lot of people are waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Resistance is legal, so long as it does not go "too far". I am near an "ICE" city. When empty cars with cut seat belts started showing up, there was an added level of horror film unease. The kidnapping by random "not ICE" didn't amount to much, though we have yet to truly know who was kidnapped by "not ICE" (likely few). The murders have on not been good, but are at least fairly public.

No one is arming, as a shooting war on American soil will get everyone killed. There were days I wondered if we would be bombed. So far the "keep calm, and resist." Crowd is making progress, which helps keep tensions from boiling over.

Elections are coming up, which is providing an outlet for energy. Real voting won't be until November, and zero changes will happen until January 2027. Expect crazy shit to ramp up.

America is huge though. For any trend in one location, the opposite is happening elsewhere.

This is a very good time for the privileged to take a "mini-vacation". It both slows production and gives one a chance to enjoy their last days on Earth.

I just recently got a bunch of medical stuff and psychiatric stuff sorted out after decades of barely being able to function. So I’m finally feeling “normal” and the state of our politics has me stressed to the point of action, but not to the point of curling up in a ball and doing nothing, which is unusual for me. Very surreal to be functional in a nonfunctional world.

The reality is none of this insanity has directly effected me. So day to day life, working, raising kids, etc. is completely normal for me. However, keeping up with news. Feeling empathy for people being effected now, and worrying about when the other shoe is going to drop on me and my family stresses me out. I don't like being stressed out and avoid stress as much as possible, so I find myself just trying to stay distracted with hobbies, video games, etc. Then I feel guilty about distracting myself. If I can't do much about the situation, I should at least inform myself about it. But then there comes the stress again...

So yeah, in a way add me to the crashing out list I guess.

I keep it together because a lot of young people are around me. But on the inside I’ve kind of given up on anything good and dread the next fucking crazy thing to come up.

At this point, many of us are numb to the impending whatever. There is always 6 things happening that shouldn't be happening (that we know about) and that could upend our lives. And usually there is very little we can do besides yell on the internet.

Am American/USian/Yankee what does "crashing out" mean?

If crying most days is crashing out, then yes.

Side topic:

ls "normalburger" a word commonly used in English?
If so, what does it mean (I assume it does not refer to grilled beef patties?)

My English dictionary draws a blank here...

Trying to conduct my day as normal (food needs buying and bills need to be paid, after all), but with a marked increase of episodes of staring of into space internally shrieking as avenues of opportunity and life plans made years ago are irrevocably altered.

What's the alternative? Give up? That doesn't help anyone.

I'm sure some people are. But constantly crashing out isn't useful even in the worst situations. What is useful is taking real steps that have real effects. Action is the antidote for anxiety.

Personally? I am extremely worried, yet at the same time I’ve become so used to all the crazy shit that I’ve become almost too comfortably used to it. I live day to day and not try to think about how much more horrible the future is going to get.