The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Is anyone else considering leaving the US or moving to a secluded area for the 2024 election season? The 2020 and 2016 election seasons had such a negative impact on my mental health that I don't want to stay where I am for the election next year and since I can afford to avoid it I think I will. I will probably also block myself from reading the news and themotte and most social media as well when I'm away. But I can't remember when things really start to amp up where politics becomes unavoidable- the election is held in November, but what time of the year do things start to get ridiculous? I'd like to be gone for all of September through the beginning of November at least but I can't remember if the entire summer in an election year is bad or not. Maybe I'll just wait it out and leave as soon as it gets unavoidable but I fear by then it'll be too late and I'll be too annoyed and I'll chicken out and stay longer than I need to.
If you stay outside of the US for too long then there is a chance the local politics of your new home may start to negatively impact your mental health. There is political disfunction in many places so you may only be trading on cause of negative mental health for another. Additionally, US politics is often a trendy topic in foreign countries. If you socialize with the locals they may be interested in your thoughts on US politics. It would still be better than being in the US though because foreigners are far less vested in the outcome and can do very little to influence it.
I like your strategy of avoiding news and social media. Maybe just extend your strategy to avoid people (especially ones that bring up politics) for a while. You don't really have to travel anywhere to do that. Just do all your shopping online and only leave the house to go to secluded spots in nature.
I spent over a year traveling outside the US and it was great, I completely ignored local politics and didn't have to worry about US politics at all except for what I saw online. Almost no one talked to me about American politics or if they did they had such a different perspective than the people who irritate me in the US that I was able to hear them out and listen to them with a more critical distance than I do when people in America do the same. I like spending time in places where I don't know the local language because I don't have to get irritated by the political implications of everything and can just operate at a more basic level like a child does, sort of feeling what is going on around me rather than being bombarded with social and cultural messaging at every second like it is in the US
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