I remember when Russia invaded Ukraine – I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t know what to do, but life was moving on. I was changing jobs (super stressful), work was moving on, I’d been used as a news source (“You are Russian, what the hell are you doing?!”) and a make-a-wish genie (“You are Russian, can you make it stop?”).
No one consulted me when Putin decided to invade Ukraine – one of my most favourite countries in the world. Volunteering helped. Quitting drinking and all kinds of unhealthy behaviours helped.
And then all the other terrible things happened.
And now more terrible things are happening.
And unfortunately, I’m feeling a bit… dead inside.
It has a name. Empathy fatigue. Or whatever type of fatigue this is.
I feel my brain is simply not designed to deal with this. Berlin is intense – I’m exposed to “Kriegshetze” (warmongering), an information war against the wicked Russians (I ain’t, I swear), while Germany is supporting Israel, and, and, and… We are just intense this way. As a highly empathetic person – I just cannot deal with it anymore.
I think my emotional bandwidth is shrinking. As one of my favourite Depeche Mode songs says: “We’re going backwards, armed with new technology, going backwards, to a caveman mentality.”
My thoughts are with everyone affected by this.
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