War, conflict, and organized violence

Experiencing unjust deportation or harmful immigration enforcement

Being deported from a country that was your home. Having family members deported or detained. Being separated from your children or parents by immigration enforcement. Living for years under the constant threat of deportation. Being held in immigration detention. The particular violence of a state deciding you do not belong in the only place you have ever known.

If some version of this is part of your story, you already know that the hardest part is rarely the memory itself. It is carrying it in a world that mostly does not want to hear about it. This fellowship exists so you do not have to carry it alone, and so you never have to explain it to someone who has no idea what it means.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Clinging or shutting down in relationships Attachment is the system that governs how we connect with other people, how close we let them get, how we respond when they pull away, how we handle being needed. Complex or ongoing trauma and its effects When trauma happened repeatedly, over a long time, or at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you, the effects go deeper than a single event. Shame or feeling like something is broken in you Not guilt about something you did. Fear of being abandoned Not just not wanting people to leave. Becoming whoever someone needs to keep yourself safe When the nervous system learned that the way to survive threat was to appease it, some people learned to become whatever the threatening person needed them to be. Hypervigilance or always waiting for something bad The nervous system that learned to scan for danger all the time. Flashbacks and reliving what happened After certain experiences, the brain can get stuck, replaying what happened through flashbacks, nightmares, or sudden intense reactions to things that remind you of it. Not knowing who to trust Trust that was broken, repeatedly, by people who were supposed to be safe.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

Find a meeting Join the fellowship

Need support right now?

Related experiences we cover

See everything we cover