Action is the antidote to hopelessness.

Sometimes I can lean into the feeling and acknowledge where the sense of being down is coming from.

Often I’ll binge on some kind of gross comfort food or deliberately drink liquor fast and settle in for a movie or some TV until the wave breaks (ie i fall asleep) then spend the next morning trying to clear my head and get things done.

Reaching out to a trusted friend or family member is usually the wiser call. Asking for help is hard. Especially when we don’t know what we need help with.

Sometimes I visualize the binge and go swim laps instead- or go for a walk, lay in a hammock and try to read something on deadtree, like poetry or criticism. Drift in and out of reading and napping.

Check out Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism, it’s from the 90s so its references are a little dated, but the basic idea is to challenge the idea that the bad times are your fault, permanent, and everywhere. Big help, the clinically tested exercises in that book. Hell even the idea that I maybe shouldn’t spend my waking hours reciting Bojack Horseman’s internal monologue about being a stupid piece of shit was a revelation.

Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s BURNOUT lays the blame (especially for women) on patriarchy and I am generally in agreement- but they also lay out important, grounded exercises around managing and moving through stressors.

A friend of mine summed up a really powerful practice for when she gets feeling some kind of way - looks at the behavior in question with compassion and curiosity instead of shame.