This has been an ongoing struggle for me that reached a head at the start of this year, but was rooted in my experiences during the previous Trump presidency.
As a self proclaimed activist/artist I made a decision after the 2016 election to rethink how I was making art. I didn't want to add more images of upsetting things into the world, when we were surrounded with horrible images every day. Instead I would focus on creating images of the people and moments that could offer positive antecedents for how to respond in the current moment. I would create more images of underrepresented people. More images of what I'd rather see prioritized in the world around me.
This worked well for a while, but by 2019 I felt like I was drowning under the weight of the endless barrage of negative news. I felt like I had to respond to everything in real-time and it just ground me down. That was when I had my first experience with serious depression and anxiety. Therapy helped, but after a year of isolation in 2020 I found myself falling back down deeper into the darkness in 2021. It took until 2023 for me to swim my way back up to the surface and find a somewhat secure footing again.
So when the 2024 election happened I knew I needed to immediately put some mental guardrails in place. If I allowed myself to get caught up in the maelstrom of negative news I would end up right back where I'd only recently escaped from. Part of my solution was to delete all social apps on my phone and utilize a feed blocker for when I did access those sites on my computer to respond to personal messages. But that didn't feel like enough.
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