What is war anxiety? And how to deal with it

In 2020, during the pandemic, Arthi J, a 39-year-old HR professional from Chennai experienced a cocktail of strange emotions.

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An extrovert who loves going out, she found it stifling to be locked indoors. “I was scared; I felt like crying everyday. Finally, I met a psychiatrist who prescribed a short dose of anti-depressants. Eventually, things got better,” she says.But last week, when a war-like situation broke out between India and Pakistan, she could feel those emotions coming back. She kept waking up repeatedly at night, and was angry, sad, and even fought with her family for no reason because of the anxiety. “What if we got locked in again because of the war? This thought brought back dark memories. What is the future going to be? What about all our plans? I even had thoughts of our cities being bombed and what if we had to leave the homes we have known,” she says.

“Those four days were full of horror,” says Shamima Mir, a resident of Srinagar. “People had heart attacks, there were blackouts, there was too much stress. Over the last two years, the economy had picked up, there was employment. Our anxiety had gone, we could move and breathe freely. But all that has changed now,” she says.Shamima says many residents of Jammu and Kashmir do not know what is happening. Situations like these disrupt education, work, tourism, normalcy. And this uncertainty results in depression, mental stress and anxiety, she says.Activists hold placards and shout slogans demanding peace and justice for victims of the Pahalgam attack. File