The Air We Breathe: Anxiety in times of upheaval

In times of political and social tension, the air itself feels uneasy, filled with uncertainty, grief, and vigilance. When surrounded by hostility or exclusion, many of us find ourselves living with a quiet but persistent sense of apprehension, if not utter terror or disgust. Even when our daily lives appear untouched, something in the atmosphere alters our internal rhythms. The world feels less stable, less trustworthy, and our bodies register this before our minds can make sense of it.

In Chicago, where we work and live, recent government enforcement actions have rippled through communities with deep consequences. In certain neighborhoods, people speak more softly, avoid their own language, drive more cautiously, or hesitate to leave their homes. People have been harassed, attacked, and abducted when buying groceries, attending school, looking for work, or going to therapy. Even if we are not personally threatened, we breathe in the shared restlessness.

Anxiety often arises when the “rules” of the world feel in threatening flux. In moments of instability -when rights once assumed are questioned, when familiar institutions are unreliable- we may experience a rupture in our internal sense of continuity. The stability of the external world and that of our inner world are deeply intertwined. Our anxiety is an emotional barometer for an external world that feels unsafe or unpredictable.

For those in communities historically targeted or marginalized, this anxiety can be particularly acute, even if the air they breathe has been polluted by segregation, mistrust, and violence for generations. Safety, belonging, and respect have never been evenly distributed or taken for granted. On the other hand, those who witness injustice from a relative position of safety and privilege may experience a different kind of unease, a type of moral anxiety -often leading to guilt and shame- born of witnessing suffering while feeling both implicated and powerless.

The intensity of annihilation anxiety and the paralysis of powerlessness can be overwhelming, so our minds will find ways to manage them. Our psyche will often turn inward, constructing defenses to preserve a sense of control. Some of us intellectualize, staying in analysis and abstraction to avoid the rawness of fear. Others dissociate, drifting into distraction, numbness, or overwork. Some respond by tightening the reins through big or small acts of control, hoping that they will make the world feel predictable again.

The Psychological and the Social

It can be tempting to separate the psychological from the social, to treat anxiety as a private matter detached from public life, but they are inevitably interdependent. Such separation is itself a kind of denial. Our sense of safety depends on the conditions of the environment we inhabit, the place we occupy in it, and the nature of the opportunities and relationships available to us. Taking a deep breath is of limited use when the air is toxic. When basic dignity or human rights are under threat, whether for ourselves or others, our inner world will register the disturbance, consciously or not.

It can also be tempting to split the psychological from the social in the opposite direction, attributing the entirety of our individual reactions to the state of the world around us. The notion that stress, anxiety, or even trauma are “normal reactions to an abnormal environment” is important, but insufficient. It can ignore or overlook the particular nuances of our individual experience. The ways in which we respond to present pressures and changes in our social environment are mediated by the complex layers of our psychology and rooted in our own personal history.

This goes beyond the conscious aspects of our personality, whether in the form of beliefs, values, or motivations. Our mind has its own complicated unconscious history of negotiating power, authority, and danger. During childhood, long before any of us engaged with politics, we learned what it means to depend on forces beyond our control. When the larger social order becomes unpredictable, it can awaken and echo those early sensations of helplessness or fear. Even if our childhood was shaped by reliable and consistent care, the uncertainty of the present may create a distress our minds are not used to.

This is one of the reasons why collective anxiety can feel so personal. We may find ourselves irritable, restless, or fatigued without fully understanding why. We may absorb the tension of the moment not only as citizens, but through everything that gets stirred up in our internal worlds. The political climate becomes a mirror reflecting or distorting our early relationship with dependence, trust, agency, and safety.

How Can Anxiety Therapy Help?

Therapy can offer more than support or coping strategies through challenging times. Psychodynamic anxiety therapy can deepen our understanding of the impact that the external world is having in us, and how that interacts with our deeply seated patterns of personality and relationship. Therapy does not make us indifferent to injustice or aims at turning systemic problems into a personal ones. It’s not about turning inward as a means to turn away, but about allowing us to hold multiple truths: that we live in a world that generates real fear, and that the way we metabolize that fear depends on our personal histories.

Therapeutic work helps us approach these patterns with compassion rather than judgment. Anxiety often masks a longing for connection, stability, and fairness, both within ourselves and in the world around us. By exploring what our anxiety is communicating or defending against, we begin to uncover the fears and hopes that live underneath.

Finding steadiness in an unsettling political climate is not about detaching from the world. It’s about deepening our capacity to remain emotionally alive and connected with ourselves and others. In therapy, this transformation begins with curiosity about our internal experience. The work of therapy is not to quiet the world inside us but to help us listen to it. To appreciate the complexity of our experience, to recognize that the unease we feel in turbulent times is not only a symptom of distress but also an expression of our individual and shared humanity.

If you would be interested in embarking in. this journey, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our anxiety therapists today.

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Photo credit: Santiago Delboy