When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, I remember feeling desperate hopelessness for days after the news broke.

Warning: this article discusses self-harm, reader discretion is advised.

I spent hours scrolling through news and social media, trying to analyse every detail, every political speech, every rubble-infested Ukrainian street. Some videos and pictures were harrowing and I don’t think I’ll forget them for some time.

Looking back, I still don’t know why I did it to myself. Perhaps to try to find some sort of solution so that my internal concerns could be laid to rest, but nothing is ever that easy.

It’s frightening how quickly significant political events, such as Donald Trump’s US election win, can consume your world. His contempt for anyone and everyone who doesn’t fit his view of a blue-blooded American patriot can make days like this feel terrifying, and it’s valid to feel that way because it is terrifying.

It arguably feels as though the less radical, less bigoted, less MAGA-obsessed among us, both in and outside the US are going through a mass-traumatic episode, as if it isn’t real and there must be something we’re missing. Surely, surely they didn’t elect him again.

And so here I am again, endlessly scrolling through Twitter, swiping news article after news article trying to justify what is going on right now. I’m tired, we’re all tired, it’s no less tiring than it was in 2016.

There’s a line where behaviour like this, ubiquitous as it may feel, becomes harmful. Doom-scrolling – the act of spending too much time traipsing through social media consuming negative or controversial content – is a form of digital self-harm.

Political awareness is important, make no mistake about that. Now more than ever, we need to be aware of what our political representatives believe and what we can do to hold them to account, but there is a limit – political activism should not come at the cost of your mental health.

In its guide on digital self-harm, the LGBT Foundation highlights issues such as conflict-seeking or searching for homophobic content as forms of psychological self-abuse. Its section on the symptoms to look out for includes “time blindness”, which is a lack of realisation of how much time you’re spending online, repetition, or how often or consistently you’re accessing harmful spaces, and urges: the need to check spaces you know will cause you distress.

I have caught myself countless times today closing Twitter, only to open a new tab on my phone or computer and search again. I have sat there, waiting for my social media feed to refresh so I can find a new post on Trump to bring me further down into the pit of despair. That’s not activism, that’s self-harm.

Instead, we should be morphing this despair and outrage into living our best lives in defiance of those who wish to see us down. If it’s happiness they want to take from us, it’s happiness with which we should fight back.

Activism doesn’t have to mean joining counter-protests or voicing our condemnation of Trump on a volatile social media platform. Some people aren’t prepared to deal with that and that’s OK. Activism can simply be caring for yourself and for others.

If you’re in a place of crisis because of the election, please reach out and talk to someone. If you’re struggling to find someone, try the NAMI helpline in the US on 1-800-950-NAMI, text “HelpLine” to 62640 or email helpline@nami.org.

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