Let’s be completely honest: opening your phone these days feels less like catching up on the world and more like bracing for impact. Between the relentless 24-hour news cycle, polarizing administration shifts, and policy changes that hit close to home, collective burnout is at an all-time high.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a crucial time to look at the invisible weight so many of us are carrying. To understand the real-time toll of today’s cultural climate, we looked into what everyday people—teachers, therapists, parents, and students—are experiencing.
The consensus? The boundary between public policy and personal well-being has completely vanished. Here are 18 raw, gutting confessions that reveal exactly how politics affects mental health in modern America.
1. The Therapy Takeover
“It takes up 75%, if not all, of my weekly therapy sessions. All of my normal self-care and mental health focuses have been put on the back burner because my mind can’t wrap my head around what is currently happening.”
2. The Heavy Burden of Parenting
“As a parent, I’m experiencing horrible anxiety. I am increasingly pessimistic about everything this administration is getting away with. From gutting resources we’ve had for decades to ignoring climate change, we are slowly watching our children’s futures turning into uncertainty. If we were able to stop this train, we would’ve already done it.”
3. When Stress Turns Physical
“It has made me feel stressed out constantly, which is affecting my physical health. I have Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune condition of the digestive system, and stress makes it so much worse. My inflammatory markers are sky-high right now, and a severe flare-up left me incredibly sick for weeks.”
4. Skyrocketing Med Dosages
“I’ve had to up my anxiety meds by 150mg. I can’t leave my house without being paranoid of ICE, and my psychosis has been significantly worse.”
5. The Normalization of Hate
“I’m having trouble sleeping and I’m very stressed out. The current rhetoric is amplifying everything bad—advocating for racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny. It has made hatred mainstream. I am sad for our democracy, our Constitution, and our country.”
6. Terrified Clients in Conservative States
“I’m a therapist in a conservative state, and my trans clients are terrified. The amount of energy and brain space the current political climate takes up for them is devastating. Reactions I would normally categorize as anxiety-based are now completely prudent, like preparing to flee the state or country. It breaks my heart.”
7. A Stolen Youth
“My friends and I (ages 16–18) aren’t spending our time at malls or parks just hanging out and enjoying our youth. We are working to help our parents keep the lights on and just trying to afford food. My Hispanic friends are so terrified of immigration raids that they skip school. Older generations call us lazy, but we are just exhausted.”
8. Lacking Faith in Humanity
“The worst part is losing the ability to think the best of people. Knowing that coworkers, neighbors, and family members have willingly defended what feels like fascism is unbearable. I cannot imagine ever being able to forgive them for destroying my faith in humanity.”
9. Mental Health Professionals Experiencing Secondary Trauma
“I’m a therapist who specializes in neurodivergence and trans youth. There are days that the weight of my grief is overwhelming, and I simply can’t be someone’s therapist that day. I’ve cried in sessions with clients terrified of ICE. I know parents who have ‘escape routes’ ready in case their child becomes a governmental target. Practicing healthy media consumption is a daily battle.”
10. The Endless Fight Against Depression
“I try very hard NOT to think about politics, because just when I think things can’t possibly get worse, they always do. I have to actively work every single day just to keep my depression from completely taking over.”
11. Gaslighting Myself to Function
“I’m on scheduled anxiety meds for the first time in my life. From worrying about loved ones being criminalized for medical care to testing my own tap water to ensure it’s safe to drink, it’s a lot. My spouse and I face constant layoff threats while wages fail to match inflation. I literally have to gaslight myself daily that everything is going to be OK just to function.”
12. The Targeting of “The Helpers”
“I work at a major nonprofit that relies on federal funding. We’ve had to intensely justify every single reimbursement request due to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), delaying our vital work. My mental health is deteriorating because it seems like this administration is doing everything it can to eliminate the helpers trying to support underserved communities.”
13. Feeling Constantly Punched in the Stomach
“As someone who struggles with mental health issues regularly, it really f*cks with me. I absolutely hate politics, but I try to stay informed. Reading the news is like getting punched in the stomach repeatedly. The thing that gets me down the most is how completely and utterly helpless I feel all the time.”
14. Anxiety in the Classroom
“When I am not worrying about my husband keeping his job amid government layoffs, I worry about how to scrimp and save when SNAP benefits inevitably get cut. Then I worry about my students, who hear rumors of raids, miss school, or come to class grieving deported parents. It is a never-ending anxiety in every aspect of my life.”
15. The Academic Dread
“I am a Constitutional scholar and an expert in modern authoritarian governments. I’m dying inside.”
16. A Fractured Family Dynamic
“I’ve been feeling incredibly depressed ever since this political clown show gained mainstream popularity. My father, a Vietnam vet, suffered a long, drawn-out illness before passing away, while I suffered through constant, agonizing debates with him on what these ‘values’ would mean for our country.”
17. Putting Big Milestones on Hold
“My drinking has gotten out of control, and I can’t get a job. My husband and I want to start a family, but it feels deeply irresponsible to bring a child into this world right now. I am so disappointed in America. I cry every day because of this.”
18. Living in a Dystopian Novel
“My mental health has not been the best, mainly from these crazy headlines. It’s making me feel like we are living in a dystopian society. We have to be different, and things need to change. It’s basically like living inside the book 1984 by George Orwell.
