Fear is not something I’m used to living in.

Not like this.

But lately, it’s been sitting in my chest—heavy, constant—triggered by things I’ve seen and then watched disappear. Videos. Stories. Accounts that were there one moment and gone the next. Women. American women. Mothers. Crying. Their children taken from them. Some of them trying to get answers, only to be detained themselves.

When I went back to share one of those videos with someone—because someone else needed to see it too—the page was gone.

Deleted. Vanished. Like it never existed.

And suddenly I felt like I was back in a familiar place: being gaslit by a narcissistic ex. That quiet, nauseating realization of I know what I saw, but I’m being told it didn’t happen.

I already know what some people will think reading this.

She’s crazy.
She imagined it.
She’s dramatic.
She used to be a junkie.
She’s paranoid.

You can think whatever you want.

But none of that changes what I saw. And more importantly, it doesn’t change what I felt. And I’m not alone in that feeling. Other Americans are catching glimpses of this too—brief moments before the curtain drops again.

Call me a conspiracist. Call me a problem. Call me a terrorist if that makes it easier to ignore the discomfort.

But history doesn’t care what you call people right before things go wrong.

We’ve seen this before.

Not exactly like this—history never repeats itself neatly—but close enough that our instincts should be screaming. And yet, here we are. Turning away. Scrolling past. Silencing ourselves before anyone else has to.

What scares me most is that we aren’t just being silenced from above.

We are silencing each other.

Friends. Family. Neighbors. Anyone who asks uncomfortable questions or refuses to pretend that everything is fine. We bully dissent into submission because it’s safer than standing out. Because standing out feels dangerous.

And as a mother, that fear hits differently.

I have children. I have a home. I have something to lose.

I find myself worrying about things that would have sounded absurd to me not that long ago—like the idea that my kids could be questioned, detained, or taken simply because they don’t carry documentation on them at all times. I know how that sounds. I do. But a lot of what’s happening right now sounded impossible once, too.

In places like the Twin Cities in Minnesota, there is an increased and highly visible presence of ICE and other federal agencies—what authorities are calling Operation Metro Surge. Whether you see that as necessary enforcement or a warning sign depends on where you’re standing. From where I’m standing, it feels less like safety and more like a restraint.

A demonstration.

A lesson in what compliance looks like.

And that’s where the fear deepens—because this doesn’t feel like it’s about protecting people anymore. It feels like a witch hunt. Like power flexing simply because they can.

We are also watching our government involve itself aggressively in international conflicts, projecting force outward while so many issues at home remain fractured and unresolved. That imbalance matters. It always has. History tells us that too.

Our military, our agencies, our systems are built on obedience. That isn’t an accusation—it’s a structural reality. Orders are followed because survival depends on it. And most people comply not because they agree, but because suffering is the alternative.

I understand that instinct.

I’m stuck in it myself.

I don’t fear many things. I’ve survived addiction. Abuse. Loss. Reinvention.

But I fear this.

I fear that we are being conditioned to accept more and question less.
I fear that silence is being normalized as maturity.
I fear that empathy is being framed as weakness.
I fear that by the time it becomes undeniable, it will also be unavoidable.

And still—despite all of that—I believe something else too.

That fear is not madness.
That awareness is not betrayal.
That caring is not the same as causing harm.

Because if we stop caring, if we stop paying attention, if we stop asking hard questions simply because they make people uncomfortable—then history doesn’t just repeat itself.

It accelerates.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
— Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

I care.
Even if my voice shakes.
Even if it costs me comfort.
Even if fear sits beside me while I write this.

And maybe that’s the point.

Author’s Note:
This post reflects my personal thoughts, emotions, and fears based on what I have seen, felt, and observed. It is not intended as a factual report or a call to action—only as a human reflection on the state of things and how it feels to live inside this moment.