Mental Health in a Time of Collective Stress

When Silence Starts to Hurt

I don’t usually talk about politics.

Not publicly. Not with family. Not with many friends.

I come from a family where we hold very different beliefs, and the reason we’ve stayed close is because we’ve chosen care over debate. The same is true in many of my friendships. We’ve learned how to love one another without requiring agreement.

But lately, staying quiet has begun to feel painful. Not because I want to argue. Not because I suddenly want to be political. But because of what I’ve been seeing. And what it’s been doing to my nervous system.

Reports of immigration enforcement actions have become harder to hold at a distance. Stories of children being detained. Accounts of people taken who were later identified as the wrong individuals. Images and testimonies circulating of people left exposed, disoriented, or humiliated during enforcement encounters, sometimes in freezing conditions, sometimes without basic dignity.

Alongside this are reports of people being killed during encounters with immigration enforcement, including U.S. citizens, followed by public narratives that frame those individuals as dangerous or terrorist threats. What has been especially distressing is the sense that there is little visible accountability for agents who shoot to kill, even as families and communities are left grieving and searching for answers.

Whether someone follows politics closely or avoids it entirely, these stories land in the body.

I find myself thinking about children, parents, and neighbors. About what it does to a community when safety feels conditional. When people are afraid to go to work, to school, or to seek help. And about what it does to the collective psyche when human beings are reduced to threats in official language, rather than recognized as people with lives, histories, and loved ones.

I don’t feel outraged as much as I feel heartsick.

Because these are not abstract issues. They are human ones. And witnessing fear, especially fear involving children and the loss of life, changes something inside you, even if you’ve spent years trying to stay neutral.

That’s when I realized this isn’t just a political moment. It’s a mental health moment. And pretending otherwise has started to feel like its own kind of harm.

I want to be honest about something: this is very hard for me to write.

I’ve practiced political abstinence for more than twenty years. Not because I don’t care, but because preserving relationships, safety, and emotional stability has mattered deeply to me. Staying out of political discourse has been a conscious choice, one that allowed me to love people across difference and remain grounded in my own life.

Writing this has brought me to tears. Not from anger, but from grief. From the weight of holding compassion for people I love, while also bearing witness to fear, loss, and harm that feels impossible to ignore. This isn’t a position I arrived at lightly. It’s one I arrived at reluctantly, because staying silent began to feel heavier than speaking.

When the Stress Becomes Collective

One of the most disorienting aspects of this moment is how many people feel unsettled without being able to point to a single, personal reason why. That’s because this stress isn’t isolated, and it isn’t imagined.

When fear enters a community, it doesn’t stay neatly contained to the people most directly impacted. It spreads through proximity, relationships, and shared spaces….ultimately we are all connected. You notice it in quieter conversations, in canceled plans, in a subtle tension that lingers even during ordinary routines. You feel it when people hesitate before speaking, or when everyday activities suddenly carry an undercurrent of caution.

This is how stress becomes collective.

You don’t have to be personally targeted. You don’t have to be politically engaged. You don’t even have to be watching the news closely. This I can attest too.

When fear becomes part of the social environment, our bodies register it, even if our minds try to stay neutral.

The nervous system responds to cues of threat automatically. It reacts to uncertainty, unpredictability, visible distress in others, sudden disruptions to daily life, and the sense that safety is no longer guaranteed. This response happens below conscious thought. It’s not a political position, it’s biology.

That’s why so many people report feeling on edge or hyper-alert, emotionally exhausted, distracted or foggy, pulled between speaking up and pulling back or guilty for feeling overwhelmed when “nothing has happened to them personally.”

For people with past trauma, chronic stress histories, or identities shaped by previous instability, these environmental cues can be especially activating. The body remembers what the mind may prefer to ignore.

Collective stress doesn’t require agreement to take hold. It doesn’t require participation. It only requires exposure.

And when an entire social environment carries fear, silence, or uncertainty, mental health is affected at a community level, not just an individual one.

Recognizing this doesn’t mean giving in to fear. It means acknowledging reality…so care, regulation, and compassion can begin.

Why This Impacts Mental Health (Even If You Try to Stay Out of It)

Many people are asking themselves the same quiet question:
Why do I feel so off lately?

There may be no single moment to point to. No personal crisis. No direct involvement. And yet, the body feels tired. The mind feels strained. Emotions feel either close to the surface, or strangely absent. This is what happens when stress becomes chronic without resolution.

When a nervous system senses ongoing threat but has no clear endpoint, it stays activated. There is no moment of release, no signal that the danger has passed. Over time, this leads to emotional exhaustion, irritability, numbness, difficulty concentrating, and a constant low-level sense of tension. The system isn’t broken, it’s doing exactly what it evolved to do in uncertain environments.

Another layer many people are experiencing is vicarious trauma.

Vicarious trauma occurs when we absorb fear, pain, or distress of others through stories, images, and proximity. Even if we are not directly harmed, witnessing fear, especially fear involving families, children, or the loss of life, leaves an imprint. The body responds as though it needs to prepare for danger, even when there is nothing concrete to act on.

Alongside this is something more subtle but equally heavy: moral injury.

Moral injury arises when we witness actions that deeply conflict with our sense of right and wrong yet feel powerless to intervene. It can show up as grief, anger, guilt, or a sense of disorientation. Not knowing what to do or knowing what you wish you could do but cannot, creates its own form of psychological strain.

This combination, chronic stress, vicarious trauma, and moral injury, helps explain why so many people feel worn down right now.

Mental health is shaped not only by what happens to us personally, but by the emotional climate we live in. When fear, uncertainty, and powerlessness become part of the shared environment, the nervous system takes notice.

Understanding this doesn’t make the feelings disappear, but it does replace self-blame with clarity. And from clarity, more compassionate forms of care become possible.

The Impossible Choice Many People Feel

For many people right now, it feels like there is no safe option.

On one side is the pressure to speak up. To take a stand. To say something publicly. But speaking up can feel risky, emotionally, socially, professionally, and even physically. It can lead to overwhelm, conflict, fractured relationships, or a nervous system that never gets a chance to settle. For some, it also carries real safety concerns rooted in trauma, identity, or lived experience.

On the other side is staying quiet.

Silence can protect relationships and preserve stability, but it often comes with its own weight. People report feeling complicit, guilty, or helpless. There is a sense of watching something unfold while holding your breath, unsure how to intervene without causing harm, to yourself or to others.

This creates a painful internal bind:

Speak and feel unsafe or destabilized
Stay quiet and feel morally distressed

Neither option feels good. Neither feels fully right. And this is where many people get stuck.

It’s important to name something clearly here: many people aren’t disengaged, they’re trying to survive this moment without breaking.

What can look like apathy from the outside is often self-preservation on the inside. What can look like avoidance is sometimes the only way a person knows how to stay regulated, connected, and functional.

When this bind goes unacknowledged, people tend to turn on themselves. They question their character. They wonder if they’re doing enough, being brave enough, caring enough. But the truth is, the nervous system does not thrive in forced choices where neither path feels safe.

Recognizing this bind doesn’t solve it, but it removes shame. And removing shame is often the first step toward finding responses that are sustainable, humane, and aligned with both care and capacity.

Caring Without Breaking

When the world feels heavy, many people assume that “making a difference” must look a certain way, louder, faster, more visible. But in times of collective stress, care that is forced or unsustainable often leads to burnout, numbness, or collapse.

Caring without breaking means recognizing that there is more than one legitimate way to respond.

Caring Looks Different for Different Nervous Systems

People respond to threat based on how their nervous systems are wired and what they’ve lived through.

Some people feel regulated by action. They protest, organize, call representatives, or speak publicly. Doing something visible helps them discharge energy and restore a sense of agency.

Others care through expression and connection, writing, posting, educating, or creating spaces for dialogue.

And some people go quiet. They limit exposure. They step back. They choose silence not because they don’t care, but because staying regulated requires it.

None of these responses are failures of care. They are adaptations.

When we assume there is only one “right” way to care, we unintentionally shame people whose nervous systems need something different. Communities don’t need uniform responses, they need resilient ones.

Regulation Is Not Avoidance

There is a difference between avoidance and regulation, though they can look similar from the outside.

Regulation is a conscious choice to protect mental health so that compassion remains possible. It might include:

Limiting news or social media exposure
Choosing when and where to engage
Staying within trusted, emotionally safe containers
Focusing on local or relational acts of care rather than global overwhelm

These choices don’t mean someone is disengaged. They mean they understand their capacity.

Staying regulated allows empathy to stay online. It allows relationships to remain intact. It allows people to respond with thoughtfulness rather than reactivity.

In moments like this, care that preserves the nervous system is not a retreat, it’s a form of stewardship. Because the people who remain grounded are often the ones who quietly hold communities together.

If You Need Less Exposure (Because of Trauma or Capacity)

For some people, engaging more is destabilizing, not empowering.

If you carry a trauma history, immigration-related fear, chronic stress, burnout, anxiety, or depression, your nervous system may already be working overtime just to get through the day. In those circumstances, constant exposure to distressing events, images, and conversations can push the system beyond what it can safely process.

This does not mean you are weak. It means your body is responding appropriately to overload.

Many people living with trauma learned long ago that safety depends on vigilance, quiet, or withdrawal. Others may feel a deep, personal fear connected to immigration enforcement, whether for themselves, loved ones, or their community. For some, years of caregiving, activism, or emotional labor have already led to exhaustion. And for those navigating anxiety or depression, even small increases in stress can feel overwhelming.

In these situations, needing distance does not mean you don’t care.

It means your nervous system needs protection.

Protecting mental health might look like:

Limiting news intake or taking intentional breaks
Avoiding graphic or emotionally charged content
Choosing private forms of care over public engagement
Focusing on stabilizing routines: sleep, movement, nourishment, connection
Allowing yourself not to have an opinion ready at all times

This kind of care is not selfish. It is preventative. It allows people to remain present in their lives, their relationships, and their communities, rather than becoming overwhelmed or numb.

There will always be voices willing to say more, do more, or push harder. But there must also be room for people whose work right now is simply to stay regulated, compassionate, and intact.

Caring for yourself is not separate from caring about the world.

It is how many people continue to care at all.

What Does Help Right Now

When stress is collective and ongoing, people often look for the rightresponse. But what helps most in moments like this isn’t intensity or certainty, it’s containment.

Containment means having places where feelings can exist without needing to be solved, debated, or justified.

For many people, this begins with shared reflection spaces. Being with others who can name fear, grief, or confusion without immediately turning it into argument can be profoundly regulating. These spaces don’t require agreement. They require presence.

Spiritual or emotional processing also matters. Whether through prayer, meditation, journaling, therapy, or quiet inner work, tending to the emotional and spiritual impact of what’s happening allows the nervous system to release what it’s been holding. This is integration.

Another essential support is nervous system regulation. Practices that slow the body, breath, grounding, guided imagery, hypnosis, time in nature, gentle movement. These help signal safety when the external world feels unpredictable. Regulation doesn’t make us passive; it makes us available for thoughtful, compassionate response.

Finally, many people need to be witnessed without debate.

To say, “This is hard,” without being challenged. To express fear or grief without being corrected. To exist as a human being, not a position.

Being witnessed in this way restores dignity. It reminds us that we are not alone, even when solutions feel distant.

None of these supports erase what’s happening. But they make it possible to stay present without becoming overwhelmed and to continue caring without losing ourselves in the process.

An Invitation to Rest and Connection

Because so many people are carrying this quietly, I want to offer a few spaces of support.

Not spaces for debate. Not spaces for persuasion. But spaces where the nervous system can soften and people can feel less alone.

I’m offering two free group hypnosis sessions, open to anyone who feels the weight of this moment and needs care rather than commentary.

Both sessions are designed to support nervous system regulation, restore a sense of inner safety, and gently release the accumulated stress many of us have been carrying, usually without realizing how heavy it’s become.

To make this accessible to different schedules and energy levels, the same session will be offered twice:

There is no expectation to speak or share. You may simply arrive, settle in, and receive support in a calm, guided space.

You don’t need to explain yourself. You only need a place to breathe and be human.

*Note: if these sessions are helpful, I will schedule more and they will always be free.

Staying Human in Heavy Times

Caring without breaking means choosing responses that allow us to stay present, compassionate, and intact both within ourselves and with one another.

There is no single right way to respond to a moment like this. Some people speak. Some people act. Some people step back to stay regulated. None of these paths cancel out the others.

We don’t all need to do the same thing. We just need ways to stay human…together.

In times of collective stress, staying human is not a small thing.
It’s how we endure.

Author’s note:
This piece was written with care, restraint, and emotional difficulty. I share it not to inflame division, but to name the mental health impact of living in a time of collective fear. And, to offer spaces where healing, regulation, and connection can begin.

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