Not much explanation is needed when we say that 2020 has been a crazy year, we’re facing the Covid-19 pandemic, earthquakes in New Jersey and the wildfires raging across western US.

It’s no surprise that people have started a #SignsTheApocalypseHasArrived conversation on socials lately.

Research by Bio Med Central (BMC) shows that since the world went into lockdown, there have been increases of people experiencing several symptoms of mental trauma: emotional distress, depression, stress, mood swings, irritability, insomnia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress, and anger to name a few. 

If you add the countless other disasters happening during 2020, we could easily be sitting in a minefield of stress triggers.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by 2020 yet? 

For those who say “YES!” it’s understandable we would be looking for coping mechanisms to help us blow off some steam or just generally decompress.

That said, we have to be on guard our coping mechanisms don’t mutate into bad habits or even worse, addictions.

If you’re struggling with addiction issues, this could be a difficult time to practice self-control. Research shows that stress is the number one cause of a relapse – ex addicts often turn to their addictions as a coping mechanism.

For many, pornography use has changed from an occasional distraction into a crippling need.

Stats show that pornography is a go-to coping mechanism for many. Since countries went into lockdown, there have been spikes in porn searches across the world: Pornhub’s global traffic reported a record 12% increase earlier this year.

If porn has become a menacing distraction you would like to kick, we have some resources to help.

Not convinced porn use is a problem? Need a little motivation? Check this out:

Get the facts

Need a little inspiration to get started? Check this out:

Brain Heart World

Need help to kick porn? We have the tool for you:

Join Fortify

If you find these resources helpful and want to help us wage war on the porn industry, considering supporting our work!

Donate here.

Do facts scare you? Apparently, they scare some of our schools.

The New York Times Magazine has decided that the American history curriculum in public schools doesn’t address slavery and racism enough; and instead of seeking to correct any errors or oversights, they have decided to rewrite portions of American history in a way that has many deeply concerned. 

The 1916 Project sees America’s entire history through the lens of slavery. 

The American Revolution? That was actually a war started by white men to prevent the British from freeing their slaves. 

Problem is, many  notable historians disagree with this interpretation and have written letters claiming the project lacks historical evidence. 

Gordon Stewart Wood, an American historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote,

“I don’t know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves […] No colonist expressed alarm that the mother country was out to abolish slavery in 1776.”

The creator of the project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, admits that her own narrative and anger are woven into the project’s pages. “It’s a little angry,” she admitted on The Daily Show earlier this year. 

Hannah-Jones’s strong emotional interest in the narrative seems to have confused fact with fiction, but she appears comfortable with this given her conviction that  history cannot be objective. 

In Hannah-Jones own words:

“I did respond to someone who was saying white scholars were afraid, and I think my point was that history is not objective. And that people who write history are not simply objective arbiters of facts, and that white scholars are no more objective than any other scholars, and that they can object to the framing and we can object to their framing as well.”

Hannah-Jones poses an interesting question about the importance of ‘framing’. 

Is it enough for us to acknowledge our biases then carry-on with ‘framing’ history as we choose, or do we have a responsibility to try and move beyond our biases, once acknowledged, and represent history in the truest sense possible?

An important question for not just historians, but for us as well. 

Do we want our teachers teaching history through the lense of our contemporary values/beliefs, or is it perhaps better to receive history as it was and to make our own judgements? Something to discuss over dinner tonight!

It turns out the president and many politicians are putting a stop to this track. Recently, President Donald Trump warned that schools set on implementing this new curriculum would lose federal funding. 

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, who introduced legislation to defund schools using the new curriculum, called the project “a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded.”

A powerful claim that should strike in us deep angst.