As the child of immigrants, I have always understood identity as layered. Culture, language, history, and generational story shaped my early understanding of who I was long before I encountered the simplified categories often used in broader American conversations.
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on that layering as I sit with clients who feel increasingly overwhelmed. The emotional climate right now is intense. The news cycle feels relentless. Social media collapses distance between global events and our nervous systems. Even when we are not directly affected by what is happening, our bodies absorb the tone of the environment.
Clients describe fatigue, irritability, difficulty sleeping, or, in some cases, numbness. Others feel morally overwhelmed — unsure how to care, how much to engage, or whether they are responding “correctly.”
This is not simply psychological. It is physiological.
This is not simply psychological. It is physiological.
When we are repeatedly exposed to threat — whether direct or mediated — the nervous system mobilizes. Over time, that mobilization can become chronic. The body begins to live in a state of ongoing activation.
But overwhelm is not only about volume.
It is also about identity.
Identity shapes how threat is processed. Race, culture, immigration history, exile, generational trauma, language, and assimilation all influence how safety and belonging are experienced in the body.
In many American conversations right now, identity is framed primarily through a racial lens. That lens is important. Racialized stress is real, and systemic inequities have measurable impact on health and nervous system functioning. Ignoring that would be incomplete.
At the same time, identity is often more layered than what is immediately visible.
Some people may be racially categorized one way while carrying cultural or immigration histories that shaped their early development differently from dominant American culture. Others may share a racial identity but have profoundly different generational narratives. Language, displacement, community context, and family story all shape how the nervous system encodes belonging and threat.
When identity is reduced to a single axis, something subtle can tighten.
The nervous system longs for coherence. When our lived experience does not feel accurately reflected in the social mirror, it can create a quiet but meaningful strain. Being mischaracterized — even unintentionally — can increase activation rather than reduce it.
Overwhelm decreases when complexity is allowed.
So what helps?
First, regulate the body. Limit media exposure. Slow the breath. Increase real-world sensory input. Reorient to what is directly in front of you.
Second, contextualize your stress. Ask: What about this feels personal? What about this connects to my history? What part of my identity is activated?
Third, allow nuance. It is possible to acknowledge systemic realities while also recognizing that culture, immigration, exile, and generational narrative shape experience in ways that are not always visible.
As clinicians — and as human beings — our task is not to collapse identity into categories, but to help people locate themselves inside their full story.
The nervous system settles when experience feels accurately named.
In a time of loud narratives and rapid reactions, nuance is not avoidance.
It is regulation.