The Slough of Despond

Following certain actions of the U.S. government around the beginning of July that I will not detail here, having a policy of no politics in my newsletter, I found myself wallowing in negative thoughts and being unable, or unwilling, to “snap out of it” as I usually do. I didn’t feel like writing, even when my grandchildren and their parents were off at family camp and I had all day every day available to write.  I didn’t feel like cooking, even though I’m in the middle of revising The Book of Whole Grains and I really do need to test a large number of recipes.  I didn’t feel like walking.  I didn’t feel like swimming.  Without Kismet to nuzzle me and coax me out of my snit I just sat in it, or more accurately, sat in my reclining chair and watched video after video, day after day. Mindless entertainment that didn’t help at all.

The Pilgrim’s Progress

I wallowed in what John Bunyan, who in the 17th century wrote “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” called The Slough of Despond.  According to the gospel of Wikipedia, The Slough of Despond is a “symbolic bog or swamp. It represents a state of deep despair, doubt, and discouragement that has become an idiom to describe a state of profound hopelessness and depression.”

I felt like I was walking with very heavy mud-caked boots on my feet. Nothing cheered me up for long, even my wonderful grandchildren. And my RA flared up, as it tends to do when I’m anxious. So now my joints hurt as well.

From High . . .

Perhaps it’s significant that I was coming off an emotional high from spending two weeks in Santa Cruz and diving into the local vibe. For two glorious weeks I walked along the coast, took part in a trivia quiz night, discussed the best plants to put along a garden pathway, danced in the dunes at a beach concert, and marched in a No Kings protest with thousands of my closest friends. I shared meals with friends, hiked with friends, attended church with beloved and badly-missed friends, and spent hours doing absolutely nothing but staring out to sea. I drove home with a renewed energy and plans to finish my nonfiction book revision quickly so I could return to writing the much more enjoyable Cozy mystery.

Then Congress voted to pass the Big Beautiful Bill.

. . .To Low

There, I’ve said it. Deep cuts to Medicaid and medical research, bans on gender-affirming care and Planned Parenthood funding, unreasonable reporting requirements for recipients of Medicaid and food stamps, removal of clean energy tax credits, defunding of public radio and TV, and reductions in funding for the Affordable Care Act and Children’s Health Insurance Program. All to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, billions of dollars for the border wall, Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement,  a “Golden Dome” missile defense system, shipbuilding, and nuclear deterrence. Not to mention violent removals of undocumented people from our city streets, Home Depot parking lots, and workplaces

It’s no wonder I found myself in the Slough of Despond.

I felt helpless, frightened, worried.. I’d awaken several times during the night, try to find something positive to think about, plan several tasks for the following day, then wake up with no motivation to complete them.

As the weeks went by I finally began to realize that I wasn’t alone in my funk. After taking a break from social media and emails, I slowly started reading the posts of some of my favorite writers on Substack, email, and Facebook. One after another reported that they too were struggling with negative feelings about the state of our country and the world. Feeling listless and unmotivated. Finding it difficult to engage with other people, to work, to sleep, to make plans for the future.

Even my hero, historian Heather Cox Richardson, who posts 1200-1500 words daily chronicling the details of our political landscape and comparing them to historical events, took a day off to go for a swim, and admitted a couple of weeks later in a recorded conversation with colleague Liza Donnelly, that sometimes “the news sucks, basically. And I don’t want to write a piece about the really nasty stuff that’s happening right now. I just don’t.”

My friends shared with me that they were feeling the same way, and in some cases it had been going on for months, while I had been blithely feeling useful with my tiny contributions to Climate Reality, MomsRising, San Fernando Valley Indivisible, phone calls to legislators.  But I wasn’t  seeing any results, and now the effort seemed irrelevant.

So what do we do when the news is bad, and we can’t sleep at night, or engage in productive activities during the daytime? How do we move forward, or fight back, when the news is so negative, and our ability to change things seems so minuscule?

Limit Scrolling

Much as I enjoy the writings of several regular contributors to Facebook, Instagram, and Substack, they tend to be hidden among essays describing the political shenanigans of our government, which of course I read on my way to other posts. The images and sound bytes sink into my subconscious, and I find myself dreaming about them once I do manage to get to sleep.

I resolved to block news-heavy social media sites and limit myself to half hour a day when I scan social media for topics related to writing and family life.  Also to restrict my intake of TV news to one program a night. PBS News is well balanced, and staying current still seems important, but watching three different newscasts results in a higher level of anxiety, not less..

Go Outdoors

The heat in southern California has been keeping me inside. I resolved to go outdoors in the morning before it gets too hot, play with my plants, walk the local nature trail, sit on the  patio and read a good book.

Do it all again in the evening when it cools down. The exercise and the fresh air might even help me sleep.

Get More Exercise

Since Kismet died, I’ve been lazy. We used to go for four, five, six walks a day during her last incontinent years, but I stopped walking cold turkey once I was alone.  I’ve reached out to friends in my neighborhood and now I walk with a partner two or three times a week. I’ve also started (again) to pedal my exercycle in the garage, which doesn’t get too hot until the late afternoon.

Dopamine and endorphins, neurotransmitters associated with the brain’s reward system and relief from stress and pain, are released when our muscles are asked to work. I need the pain relief and mood improvement that come from the release of these elements.

Do Something for Someone

One of my happy memories from my trip to Santa Cruz was spending a late afternoon with five other women preparing dinner for several homeless people in the community. Part of the enjoyment came from being with the friend who’d suggested it, and the rest came from the banter between the cooks and the conversations with the recipients of the meal after they arrived. But part of my good feelings about the activity, research tells me, came from the activity itself — dopamine and endorphins again.

Last week I took a new box of Yorkshire Tea to a neighbor who uses a walker and recently acquired a very large dog who has to wear a cone of shame while his neutering surgery heals. I’d seen the woman struggling with the leash and the walker, and after learning she was Australian, thought a cup of tea and a natter, as my mother would say, might be good for her – and me too.

It was.

Writing this essay has been helpful. I feel like I have a plan, and I already feel hopeful that I’ll regain my balance and climb out of that slough of despond. I have so much to be grateful for, and I have confidence that our democracy will stand. Our courts will do their job, our elected officials will (eventually) do their job, and life will return to normal.  I have to believe that.

How are you doing? Are you feeling discouraged too? What are you doing to shake off the negative thoughts?  I hope you’ll share your emotions and ideas for going forward.

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Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s.   Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic) Families will be out soon, and she’s working on an update to The Book of Whole Grains while also crafting a cozy mystery, Death on a Sunny Afternoon – a Harriet Palmer Mystery.