Daily routines seem undisturbed: children attending school, adults going to work, vendors opening their businesses. Beneath this facade lurks anxiety, fear, and frustration, with some even taking preventative measures against a possible attack amid the tension between the United States and Venezuela.

A woman who asked to be identified as Victoria for fear of reprisals has lived alone in western Caracas since her two children left the country and currently works in commerce. She describes her routine in recent months as marked by uncertainty, with each day bringing unsettling developments that rob her of peace of mind. Although she hasn’t stopped doing her daily tasks, Victoria confesses that this state of alert, with the constant question of what might happen next, has disrupted her sleep. Sometimes, she says, she gets up in the middle of the night and starts checking the news on her phone, even though she acknowledges that doing so makes it harder to fall back to sleep.

“There’s a confrontation in which we, ordinary citizens, have nothing to do”, she says, referring to the potential conflict between her country and the Trump administration. “We try to carry on with our daily lives, we try to carry on with our daily activities, but that’s always interrupted by the whole situation we’re experiencing, which undoubtedly affects us”. Victoria says she has to take natural sleeping pills to fall asleep, that she doesn’t want to talk to anyone, and that she’s even experienced physical discomfort as a result. “Only those of us in these shoes feel it”, Victoria says. Venezuelans are “hardworking, good-hearted people. They don’t deserve everything that’s happening to u”, she says.

The prolonged political tension between Venezuela and the United States has affected the mental health of Venezuelans in recent months, according to Yorelis Acosta, a clinical and social psychologist and research coordinator at the Center for Development Studies of the Central University of Venezuela. (CNN)