Scarleteen

The UK recently changed some laws so its going to be much harder for under 16's to get on puberty blockers and whilst this doesn't directly effect me, its made the future looks so much muddier to me, I'm scared everything will only start tipping backwards on this sort of thing.
I normally don't like coming to message boards with this sort of issue, but my only offline friend doesn't have any social media/messaging so I've not been able to talk to her since quarantine began and my internet friend is really stressed out with job hunting so we've not even been able to just watch anime together, I'd feel bad coming to them to angst/vent if it made them feel worse.
In addition, I keep seeing more and more go fund me's for people in dire situations as well as news about so many other countries dealing with terrible problems that aren't being reported on (in conjunction with the stuff from my own country being barely reported on...)
I'm not sure what to do, I decided to post here because I just feel so overwhelmed today for no reason and I couldn't even really work on any fan art/fan fiction I wanted to make and that's supposed to be fun stuff.

Hi BishoneninBloom,

I totally get that feeling of all the crummy stuff that's going on right now being so overwhelming that it's hard to focus on even the fun things that we like doing (or that help us feel calmer). Prolonged anxiety does a number on people's energy, and it can make it hard to imagine a future where things are better.

What would be the most helpful direction we could take this thread right now? If you want more space to vent, we can certainly do that. Or, if it would be helpful, we can talk about some ways to address that hopelessness and anxiety when it comes up.

I think I'd like ways to address the hopelessness, I've calmed down since I wrote the original post. But this despair is recurring and while it started before quarantine, its only gotten increasingly distressing, so I wanna try to deal with it w/o needing to vent as much, especially because I don't want to worry/ruin my friend's moods

Okay! So, the first thing I want to toss your way is this column that I wrote awhile back for folks dealing with hopelessness during the pandemic: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/advi ... ng_covid19. Are there any recommendations in there that you've tried? Or any you think you'd like to try?

Something that might also help is to identify the main things that are causing that sense of hopelessness. Now, the current times feel like a barrage of bad stuff, but in my experience there are often one or two things that are the ones draining our optimism and hope out of us. Do you feel like you know what those main drains are for you?