“Why I’m so happy about eco-anxiety”

Today on Gen Dread, writer Jared Bilski shares his story about living through a natural disaster.?

He says:

I look down at the weather app on my phone and immediately feel the familiar pool of sweat starting to form on my back. It’s followed by a tightening in my chest and an increase in my already over-caffeinated heartbeat.

There’s a week’s worth of rain in the forecast, and I’m a mess over it.

The weather has always affected my mood to a degree. A cloudy day can destroy my motivation, a rainy morning can make getting out of bed feel like an impossible task — but the level of anxiety I feel lately is something altogether different from anything I’ve ever experienced.

It started soon after my Pennsylvania home was flooded in a 2021 storm that would later be declared a federal disaster. The remnants of “Hurricane Ida” — a name that sounds much tamer than the event itself — brought record-shattering flooding to parts of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware. It also brought four-and-half feet of water into the first floor of my home. I was in the house when it flooded, and unlike some of the more optimistic (delusional?) people in my area, I can’t write the storm off as a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime event because, well, these singular extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common all over our rapidly warming planet.?

Head over to our latest newsletter to read why Jared feels such huge relief now that our culture is finally starting to talk seriously about eco-anxiety, and what it means to have the words for it.