School of thought
our experts eleanor morgan and anjula mutanda answer your mental health questions
ELEANOR SAYS:
Being upset by stories of child abuse is a completely understandable, compassionate reaction. However, I suspect there is a bit more going on for you here. If the way you ruminate on these particular events is impacting your sex life, you owe it to yourself, your partner and your future pleasure to address this. Try to suspend any self-judgement, if you can, about why this is happening: the brain moves in seemingly mysterious ways sometimes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t manage this.
Open the pressure valve and talk to your partner, if you haven’t already. You might be worried about how it’ll sound out loud, but any discomfort is a small price for what will be the start of addressing the problem. I wonder if you are prone to this way of thinking at any other time and think it would be helpful to speak to a therapist? Find one through your GP, or privately. They can help you hone in on these thoughts and try to look at what else in your life experience might be contributing to their looping nature. It might take a bit of time – however, you can hopefully develop resilience strategies and keep up with the news ( perhaps in a rationed way?) without, as you say, avoiding it altogether.
It is almost impossible to open a web browser, scroll through Twitter or turn on the TV without seeing human suffering, isn’t it? Thanks to the 24-hour news cycle, reports of violence and disaster are constant. We can scroll through headlines from the minute we wake up until we go to sleep: an extraordinary thing, but perhaps not so good for our minds.
Research has suggested that viewing traumatic images in the media can cause Ptsd-like symptoms. After 9/11, a study found that watching the events on TV was enough to trigger symptoms such as excessive worrying about future terrorist attacks in some people. Exposure to traumatic news is unlikely to ‘cause’ symptoms of PTSD, depression or anxiety in people who do not already experience the ruminative thinking associated with this kind of mental health problem. However, it can lead us to perceive the state of the world in a very negative light. It is very easy to go to bed at night thinking that everything, and everyone, is doomed. You, my friend, are not.
ANJULA SAYS:
‘ If I watch the news, I find I can’t get traumatic events out of my head. Stories of sex crimes against children particularly affect me. My sex life with my partner is affected because the horror runs on a loop inside my head. How do I break the cycle without having to avoid the news altogether?’
It’s hard to feel ready for sex after watching bad, sad or traumatic news, because such news does significantly affect mood. Things that make the news are inherently dramatic, emotionally charged, with powerful visuals. Research suggests that awful news can affect your own personal worries, meaning that you’re likely to magnify them and experience them as more severe – creating a vicious cycle. The more you worry, the more worrying becomes difficult to control, and the more distressing things in your life may appear to be. Avoidance of the news is next to impossible in the age of social media. The good news is that simple steps can help break the cycle. For your own positive well-being, you can edit yourself. Turn off news alerts, stop reading news headlines when you get up, place a news limit on yourself, and definitely stop watching the news at bedtime! Replace negative stories with positive actions and things will start to improve, including your sex life.