Going to therapy when the world feels unsafe and hopeless

Many people coming into therapy right now aren’t asking, “What’s wrong with me?”They’re asking, “How am I supposed to be okay when the world feels like this?”

In the current political climate, that question makes sense.

For LGBTQIA2S+ people, BIPOC communities, immigrants, women, disabled folks, and others whose identities and rights are being openly debated, restricted, or targeted, distress is not abstract. It’s personal. It shows up in your body, your relationships, your sleep, your sense of safety, and your ability to imagine a future.

At Health Allies Counseling, we want to say this clearly:

Feeling anxious, angry, numb, hopeless, or exhausted right now is not a personal failure. It is a reasonable response to living in an unsafe and uncertain environment.

When the Stress Is Political — Not Just Personal

Therapy is often framed as something you seek when something inside you isn’t working. But many people right now are struggling because of external realities, not internal weakness.

We are living through:

• Attacks on LGBTQIA2S+ rights and bodily autonomy

• Increased anti-trans legislation and rhetoric

• Ongoing racialized violence and systemic inequities

• Fear and instability for immigrant communities

• A constant media cycle that reinforces threat and urgency
  

When your nervous system is responding to real danger or chronic invalidation, therapy isn’t about “fixing” you — it’s about supporting you.

When Bodily Autonomy Is Under Threat

For many women and people with the capacity for pregnancy, current political decisions around reproductive healthcare have brought fear, grief, and anger. Restrictions on abortion access and medical autonomy are not abstract — they affect safety, healthcare decisions, and a basic sense of control over one’s body.

When bodily autonomy is threatened, it’s common to experience heightened anxiety, anger, numbness, or despair. These reactions are not overreactions — they are nervous-system responses to real loss of safety and agency. Therapy can offer a space to process this impact, make sense of activated fear or past trauma, and reconnect with a sense of choice and self-trust, even when external systems feel unsafe.

Therapy Is Not About Tuning Out Reality

Some people worry that therapy will ask them to:

• Be less angry

• Be more “positive”

• Stop caring so much

• Accept things that feel unacceptable
  

That is not the kind of therapy we practice.

At Health Allies, therapy is not about gaslighting yourself into calm while harm continues. It’s about:

• Naming what is actually happening

• Understanding how your nervous system is responding

• Making space for grief, anger, fear, and exhaustion

• Finding ways to stay connected to yourself and others

• Supporting resilience without minimizing reality
  

You are allowed to be affected by the world you live in.

Why Therapy Can Help — Even When Things Don’t Feel Fixable

Therapy cannot undo legislation, erase injustice, or guarantee safety. But it can help with the very real impacts of living under constant stress and threat.

Therapy can support you in:

• Regulating a nervous system stuck in survival mode

• Processing fear, grief, and rage without being consumed by them

• Reducing shame around how hard things feel

• Reconnecting with your values and sense of self

• Strengthening boundaries with media, family, or institutions

• Finding moments of grounding and agency

• Staying connected instead of isolating
  

This isn’t about pretending things are okay. It’s about helping you keep going without losing yourself.

For LGBTQIA2S+ Clients: You Are Not Overreacting

If you are queer, trans, nonbinary, or gender-expansive, and you feel hypervigilant, exhausted, or afraid — especially if your identity is being publicly debated or legislated — your body is responding to threat, not imagination.

Therapy can offer:

• A space where your identity is not questioned or defended

• Support in processing fear and anger safely

• Help navigating family, workplace, or healthcare stress

• Care that understands minority stress and identity-based trauma

You should not have to justify your distress to be supported.

For BIPOC and Immigrant Clients: Your Context Matters

Many BIPOC and immigrant clients carry layered stress — racism, xenophobia, historical trauma, and the pressure to remain resilient while systems remain harmful.

Therapy that ignores this context can feel invalidating or incomplete.

At Health Allies, we believe:

• Your distress does not exist in a vacuum

• Cultural, racial, and historical realities belong in the therapy room

• You do not need to “focus on yourself” in a way that erases systemic harm

Therapy can be a place where your lived experience is named, honored, and understood.

When Hope Feels Too Far Away

You don’t have to feel hopeful to come to therapy.

Sometimes therapy is about:

• Surviving the week

• Getting through the night

• Finding one place where you don’t have to explain yourself

• Being witnessed without being fixed

Hope often returns later — quietly, slowly, and on your own terms.

Choosing Care Is Not Giving Up — It’s Resisting Burnout

Seeking therapy in times like these is not avoidance. It’s not weakness. And it’s not giving up on change.

It’s an act of:

• Self-preservation

• Community sustainability

• Refusal to let harm hollow you out

• Commitment to staying connected — to yourself and others

You deserve support because the world is heavy — not only when it feels manageable.

You Don’t Have to Carry This Alone

At Health Allies Counseling, we work with clients who are:

• Politically aware

• Socially conscious

• Grieving real losses

• Living with justified fear

• Still trying to build meaningful lives
  

Therapy with us is not about disconnecting from reality. It’s about staying human in it.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, numb, angry, or hopeless — you are not broken. You are responding to a world that is asking too much.

And you deserve care.