When I was a teenager, my mom watched CNN constantly. At least it felt that way to me. I couldn’t understand why she kept listening to the news. What her fascination was with the terrible events everywhere. All throughout college, she would call me each time something major happened in the United States and I was often clueless since I never ever watched the news.

In my twenties and thirties, I continued not to watch the news. I would spend Sundays reading the New York Times and I would spend my nights watching the Daily Show. Those two were my source of news in the world.

Until this year.

Early in the election cycle, I became obsessed with the election news. Watching the debates turned into watching CNN for the latest news about the election and next thing I know, I can’t stop watching CNN. So much so that when I was traveling all summer, I made sure both my phone and my tablet can play CNN on wifi using my cable account from home. So much so that Nathaniel asked me if I still watched CNN when I was in Zurich, Seattle, and Sydney for work. And yes, of course I did.

Yes, it’s sad.

If you’ve spent any time watching CNN, you’ll know that they repeat the same information every hour. This means if you’re watching it for 3-5 hours, you’re listening to a lot of repeats. It also means I’m hearing a lot of non-election related news. Most of which is depressing and sad.

It got to a point where I’d wake up in the morning and be scared to walk down the stairs and turn on the TV to find out yet another terrorist attack or terrible news about Turkey. It has definitely affected my peace.

And yet I can’t stop. This election has me reeling. I am not one of those people who slows down when there’s a traffic accident in the lane going the other way. I don’t like to watch it. I drive carefully but pay attention to my own road. And yet, I can’t seem to ignore this one. I keep coming back for more and more.

Stories from 2016 is a year-long project for 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.