“I Feel Like I’m Watching the Country Unravel and No One Cares”
“I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like every day there’s something else—Trump targeting universities, trying to deport international students, making it harder for immigrants to stay, letting the Capitol rioters walk free. And people are cheering him on. I feel like he’s dismantling the Constitution in plain sight and no one seems to care. I’m so angry and scared I can’t sleep.”
Dear Aaron,
There’s a weight in your words that I recognize. It’s not just political—it’s personal. When the world you thought you lived in starts to fracture in real time, the mind spins, but the body knows. The tension builds, the chest tightens, and sleep slips away because your nervous system is trying to process a threat that feels both abstract and dangerously real.
You’re not being dramatic. You’re responding like a person who sees the warning signs clearly and can’t understand why so many people are still pretending it’s business as usual. That contradiction—between what you see and what others refuse to name—creates a kind of internal rupture. And it’s exhausting.
What you’re describing is the psychological cost of witnessing systemic collapse while being told to stay “reasonable.” When education, immigration, and constitutional rights are being undermined in plain sight, your reaction is not just appropriate—it’s a sign that your moral compass is still intact.
But that doesn’t make it easier to carry.
Political grief is a real thing. It shows up like personal grief—confusion, sadness, rage, helplessness—but we’re not given language for it. We’re not taught how to mourn the slow erosion of a country we believed in, or the betrayal of principles we thought were shared. And when the perpetrators are celebrated, the sense of unreality compounds.
You’re not just upset about policies. You’re watching people be dehumanized. You’re watching the institutions that shaped your life—education, justice, public discourse—be stripped of their integrity. That isn’t theoretical. That’s trauma.
So what do we do? How do we keep going?
We start by refusing to normalize this. Not by yelling louder, but by staying grounded in what we know to be true. We let our heartbreak sharpen our discernment, not numb it. And we find ways to tether ourselves to reality—not the one being manufactured by fear or propaganda, but the one rooted in empathy, history, and memory.
You are not alone in feeling this way, even if it feels like you’re shouting into a void. Others see it too. And sometimes just knowing that can help you hold your line.
You may not be able to stop what’s happening on your own, but your outrage, your clarity, and your refusal to go numb are forms of resistance. Let them matter.
-RJ