Eco Anxiety Anyone?

[Feathers]

I've read articles about it, it's supposed to be 'officially recognized' sort of.

People just have anxiety over what is happening over the planet or in our houses or neighbourhoods, with food and surroundings..

Does anyone else have it?

Partly it can be good, cause it made me change my lifestyle to be greener. Partly it can be annoying as hell, and stops me from doing some of the things I want to do and are important..

What are your ways to combat it or any suggestions?

 

[EscapeArtist]

Wow this is a real thing? I have this for sure.. It's sending me in the right direction, towards health and living green.... but at the same time it's ruining any social skills I escaped with. Would being obsessed with "getting back to nature" be the same? I freak out about the course of mankind and our descent away from nature as a species, and our effect on the world. Eco-related topics is all I talk about, because nobody I know seems to give a **** about the environment, and it scares me that nobody shares my worries to the point that I worry x 1098209234 about it. To combat it? I'd say find people that agree, volunteer in restoring the ecosystem in some way, don't lose it as an interest just try to tame it by making it a hobbie (is that how you spell hobbie? brain-block) I suppose... do what you can to help the environment. When you said that it stops you from doing things you want to do.... yes, me too! For example, I plan to never ever own a car because I would feel shame, but going on a road trip or living out of a car seems very appealing to me. Also I stopped washing my hair with shampoo on January 1st because the whole process seemed unnatural, and now I have to take freezing cold showers every day to clean it, often I'm not motivated to do this so my hair is a mess and then it keeps me inside more.. It's like my environmental side and the part of me that needs to blend into society are at war. Pure contradicting harm! Although it holds me back, it's also building my identity and that's valuable to me.

 

[Ignace]

I'm not wasting any food, water, peper, etc.. But when I see how other people are uncareful with energy and all those things ... A lot of people ignore the environment, waste sources and all that kind off things .. It makes me wanna stop being good for the environment and start wasting myself too. What's the point of 1 person saving sources when 20 persons screw it all up .. People suck ..

 

[Feathers]

Thanks for posting!

EscapeArtist, are you sure you aren't another me, younger and prettier?

I'll try to find and post some links. There were articles written about it, yup.
I'm one of the most 'eco' people I know, and sometimes it's just scary.. Because I'm not that perfect either, and sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not 'green enough' (especially when I hang online, due to misery or being upset over a situation at home or such) or other times I feel like other people aren't 'green enough'.. (Even some so called 'eco activists or people inspiring others.. I guess I am just very 'hardcore' in some ways, and pretty demanding of me and others, especially closest family, and it can be really hard sometimes.. Dad and I are sort of in 'warzone' almost, re: renovations, he just wants to 'get stuff done fast' while I'd like it to be as eco as possible, but it's not easy to find all the info on eco building and compatibility with 'conventional' materials, even experts may not know much on this or may not be trustworthy (or at least it would be great to see independent tests!) - I'm the kind who wants to 'doubleproof' everything, and sometimes even people selling stuff don't know what they're selling etc. And sometimes I just got frustrated with it all and 'gave up' sorts..

Sometimes it's just frustrating. And yeah, my SA and OCD and ADD-ishness and overall anxiety and upset levels and bipolar-ishness have gotten worse because of it..
But then again I've managed to accomplish quite some things in my personal life too and we did some local awareness-raising stuff and tried to green another charity and inspire, inform other people.. Some were really positive and cool about it.. It just seems so hard sometimes..

And yeah I can relate to the hair thing. I just haven't washed hair for 2 years or so, mostly you can't really tell although it's not 'squeaky clean' but 'medium clean', except one week a month (it seems hormonally related?) when it's really bad, or after sweets and greasy food.. (I get tempted to eat chocolate or such around that time of month too..) I have really long hair so I just wear it up most of the time..
Do you have short hair? I was on water only for a few months. Not sure if you need to wash it every day, I washed it 1x a week and it was really okay the first two days, like washed with shampoo, then it got worse over the week.. I used a very thin comb and hairbrush in addition too.. Your hair sort of adapts to the frequency when you wash it.. and some people report success with not-cold water too, though for me cold water worked best too! (So that's why I went for this even more radical approach, lol!) People don't know if I don't tell them though (and I don't tell many..)

I totally get what you say about eco and 'conventional/people' side sometimes like being in opposition.. It's similar with fashion, I just really don't want to buy new trousers just because a different cut is 'in'!!
I don't want to have a car either, sometimes it can be really dfifficult though - usually something can be worked out with a little imagination and asking around..

 

[Feathers]

I'm not wasting any food, water, peper, etc.. But when I see how other people are uncareful with energy and all those things ... A lot of people ignore the environment, waste sources and all that kind off things .. It makes me wanna stop being good for the environment and start wasting myself too. What's the point of 1 person saving sources when 20 persons screw it all up .. People suck ..

Ignace, it's great you are not wasting things (did you mean pepper or paper? or both? )

I sometimes can be uncareful with energy too - like being on computer too much (but I still think it's better than eating meds and polluting waters with them? And at least if I research stuff and get inspired and tell other people about it, it can be helpful to a big number of people? I wish I could have the money to have clean eco energy..)

I totally understand the frustration when other people are being wasteful.. I was told about 30% people do the right thing if they are informed enough and there are local facilities available, another 30% can be persuaded with awareness campaigns, and for about 30% there have to be financial penalties/negative consequences or something if they don't do it.. So there is still hope for our planet, and if everyone does just one small thing, that can be a lot of small things or even some big things..
60% of a billion people is 600.000.000 = 600 million people!!

And if even 100 million people do something, every day, that's a lot of stuff done on a continuous basis!!

If everyone just recycles one beer or soda can, that's a lot of beer cans recycled!!

 

[Tiercel]

If Ignace is wasting black pepper, I'm going to have to confiscate it all from him.

Then again, the rate I use it is comparable to wasting it, I suppose. I love the stuff. Especially when I grind it myself.

 

[hippiechild]

Oil spill related mental health claims
... apparently a lot of people :/

...who'd have thought so many people cared so much? I certainly didn't...

 

[panicsurvivor]

I have had many long sleepless panic filled nights over this.

 

[Ignace]

I was talking about paper, I'm sorry. I don't care about pepper. My actual point was that they tell us at school 1 sheet of paper needs 10 liters of water. If this is true, why do they give a bundle of 5 papers to everyone ? Nobody reads it ? .. At my dad's work they print half a book for a few sheets. They print 50 sheets to use 3 of them and the other 47 lands in the garbage, still warm from printing .. This is just one example, it looks like nobody cares about such things. They waste it for any kind of goal they want to. "They can recycle" is what people think. But it degrades .. (right ?) I'm not so sure if this last thing is true, if not, give me everything you have to proove me wrong.:: Recycled paper is smaller and brown, right ? Also that people have to be carefull with how they drive irritates me. They don't need to tell us how to drive to save fuel, especially when they just came in the country with their private jet ... Not a bad idea though, all those people make a huge diffirence, but they need to adjust themselves too. Not letting the people save everything and spill it all themselves.

 

[Feathers]

he he while pepper would be kinda exotic (and I suppose some rationality may be needed there too, for health factors if not anything else ), it's much more important to not waste paper, I agree..
and yet the nature of my work demands quite a lot of paper too.. so I try to at least buy recycled or chlorine-free.. and make sure to write/print on both pages..

I really hate it how a lot of things is pure bureaucracy (sp?) - for EU projects or any non-profit grants tons of paper are expected, how is this supposed to be eco?? (I guess it's to serve as a filter for those who scare away of tons of paper and those who do not-?) I think too much EU-stuff is pure bureaucracy-

Yeah, recycling is not enough - paper can only be recycled about 6 times, if I remember it right.. and recycling usually requires bleaching with iffy chemicals or such, especially glossy paper can be problematic (so I don't buy glossy magazines anymore and we have an anti-junk-mail sticker) and some iffy waste is generated which is usually incinerated

Recycled paper can be 'pretty' and white too, but I don't want to think about chemicals needed to make it such ::

I think many people still need to be made more aware of these problems, and usually/often kids are more educated than so-called grown-ups!!

People preaching while flying about in private jets, sigh... You mean rock stars and such? And/Or politicians? It's still better to at least try to raise awareness than to fly about in private jets anyway.. But I know what you mean..
I'd love to travel sometimes, but flying about really isn't eco.. Though it's probably still better if you go with a plane that'd fly anyway than with your private jet? Or just use trains and such?
High-profile celebrities can fear for security or people/masses 'crushing' them, though maybe if they went 'undercover' and deeply unrecognized, hmm?

hippiechild - thanks for that link. Interesting, isn't it?
I'd rather the lot of them had to pay for it all, though claims would skyrocket, I guess.. And what about big corporations moving business (and/or trash and toxics) to Asia and/or elsewhere? It's such a huge worldwide problem, yet (at least some of the) solutions seem so pretty simple and obvious...

Panicsurvivor, sorry to hear about sleepless nights. I find I worried a whole lot more until I started doing some awareness-raising locally and changed my lifestyle rather dramatically too.. It's still nowhere near that I'd like to but still muuch better than eg ten years ago..

I do have some panic/anxiety/phobias at times about the whole awareness-raising things though lol.. fearing I/we wouldn't do well or that various things would be a problem (which usually aren't, I usually think of at least 100% too many problems than ever really happen, sigh..) some of it has to do with overall stress and nutrition or exercise (or lack of it) too.. The trick is to make it as simple as possible too.. which is not always easy, sigh.. lol