The Emotional Cost of Being Aware

The Emotional Cost of Being Aware

I’ve opened my laptop 💻  to write this blog more times than I can count, and every time it felt wrong. There are moments when the world feels so heavy that even naming your feelings feels like too much 🫠. When every headline, every scroll, every conversation feels like a debate about perspective, reality, or who is right 📱. It is exhausting.

I’m going to be honest. I did not know how to write this blog this week (which is why it’s a little later than normal). The uncertainty I have been carrying feels heavy, and I found myself questioning what belonged in this space 🤔. Do I turn my work into a political opinion piece. Do I avoid it altogether and write about something safer. Neither of those options felt right.

This space is not where I unpack policy or argue positions. Not because those things do not matter, but because what I see every day is how deeply all of it lands in people’s bodies, relationships, and sense of stability 🧠💔. Avoidance would be pretending this does not affect us. It does.

Many of us are carrying the emotional weight of being deeply aware 🧳. For many in my generation, politics were never this right in our face before. Decisions used to feel slower and farther away 🕰️. Now we see outcomes almost immediately, sometimes before we have even processed what has happened ⚡. That kind of real-time visibility is heavy, and it lingers in ways we are still learning how to carry.

I have noticed it in myself and in the people I sit with each week. Shorter patience. Lower motivation 😑. A sense of heaviness that is hard to explain but impossible to ignore. It is not a lack of resilience or strength. It is the cost of staying awake to what is happening around us 👀.

If you have felt more tired, more irritable, or more disconnected lately 😶, it does not mean you are failing. It may simply mean you are paying attention 🧠. And that comes with a weight most of us were never meant to carry alone or really know how to process.

So, what do we do with it? When does it go away ❓ I wish I had answers. I wish I could give you a clear outline of what happens next and where to go from here 📍. But when we talk about unprecedented times, that includes the absence of answers too.

What I do believe is that we still have obligations to ourselves and to each other to keep moving forward in whatever ways we can 🤍. Sometimes that looks like disconnecting from social media 📵. Sometimes it means setting boundaries around conversations 🚧. Sometimes it means finding people who feel safe to be around 🛋️, or pulling back and hibernating for a while .

When everything feels big and consequential, even enjoyment can feel wrong 😬, like you should be paying attention or doing more. That pressure adds up. Sometimes lightness looks small and ordinary ✨. Watching something mindless 📺🍿. Making a low-stakes choice on purpose 🎯. Letting one evening be about comfort instead of awareness 🛋️. None of that means you don’t care. It just means you’re human.

Self-care is recognizing what you need in a given season and allowing yourself the space to meet those needs 🌱, even when others do not understand it 💛.

This is a heavy and unfamiliar moment, and it’s taking a toll in real ways 🧱. It makes sense that things feel confusing and overwhelming when so much feels immediate and unresolved 🌀. But this moment is not the whole story of our lives or who we are 📖. We are still allowed to live, to care, to find enjoyment, and to move forward without having everything figured out 🚶‍.  Holding space for what’s hard while still choosing to live fully is not avoidance. It’s how people endure long stretches of uncertainty.

Today’s blog is a bit of a detour from my usual sarcasm and retro commentary 🎞️.  But hey, even sarcasm needs a coffee break once in a while ☕😏. So maybe the point isn’t to have clarity right now, or to know exactly how to feel or respond. Maybe it’s enough to notice that this is hard, that it’s new, and that you’re still allowed to live your life inside of it 🧠❤️.

Humor, distraction, seriousness, joy, frustration. All of it gets a seat at the table 🍽️. That’s not avoidance. That’s being human in real time ⏳🫶.

Written by Stacy Dahlke, LPC, an EMDR-trained therapist helping anxious, overwhelmed adults in Wisconsin navigate trauma, identity shifts, and adult ADHD.