We left here last month/year speak­ing about pur­su­ing in­ner calm and “peace on Earth” and re­turn to­day, hav­ing wit­nessed re­ports of “high­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions” in Venezuela, a cul­mi­na­tion of the grow­ing con­vul­sions from in­or­di­nate US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in Caribbean wa­ters for months.

In the small hours last Sat­ur­day, covert op­er­a­tions re­sult­ed in Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro and his wife Cil­ia Flo­res be­ing “kid­napped” from their beds and trans­port­ed to the US as pris­on­ers. On Mon­day, they were ar­raigned in Man­hat­tan and both plead­ed “not guilty” to nu­mer­ous fed­er­al charges.

All the de­tails are avail­able to us on­line or con­stant­ly on live TV in a throw­back to CNN in Bagh­dad in 1991, and our in­tro­duc­tion to the first live, con­tin­u­ous war cov­er­age. We could not have known then how live re­port­ing would evolve as deep trig­gers im­pact­ing peo­ple’s well-be­ing and peace.

Our Gov­ern­ment quick­ly dis­tanced this coun­try from the US ac­tions (in a 5.42 am post on so­cial me­dia by our Prime Min­is­ter), which said we were “NOT a par­tic­i­pant in any of these on­go­ing mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions” and that T&T “con­tin­ues to main­tain peace­ful re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela”.

That day too, the T&T Gov­ern­ment, through For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, reaf­firmed our sup­port for the US mis­sion “aimed at dis­man­tling all el­e­ments which fa­cil­i­tate transna­tion­al crime in the Amer­i­c­as”. The min­is­ter re­it­er­at­ed that while T&T did not par­tic­i­pate in the mil­i­tary ac­tion, the Gov­ern­ment “main­tains its strong part­ner­ship and fra­ter­nal re­la­tions with both the peo­ple of Venezuela and the Unit­ed States.”

Liv­ing next to Venezuela can­not be a se­cure sit­u­a­tion in 2026 for any T&T cit­i­zen who has kept their radar on the con­tin­u­ous clash­ing be­tween sov­er­eign states and the skirt­ing of ac­count­abil­i­ty to our cit­i­zen­ry.

Per­son­al­ly, our Gov­ern­ment has made in­suf­fi­cient ef­forts to al­lay my dis­com­fort. Al­le­ga­tions of us be­ing a stag­ing ground for this en­tire im­broglio, as host of US mil­i­tary-grade radar sys­tems, pro­vide at least ques­tion­able neu­tral­i­ty of T&T and leave my stom­ach knot­ted. So now, with per­ceived bias from a tiny is­land state and no idea if re­tal­i­a­tion is a fac­tor, every noise that hits the roof trans­lates in­to reprisal to my sleep­ing mind.

And, seem­ing­ly with no gov­er­nance plan be­yond the “cap­ture,” while the US gov­ern­ment tests out nar­ra­tives on tele­vi­sion for what may hap­pen in Venezuela go­ing for­ward – from “tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment” to the US “run­ning” Venezuela, to threats to Del­cy Ro­dríguez, Venezuela’s new in­ter­im pres­i­dent, that she may face “a worse fate than Maduro” if she does not co­op­er­ate – like many, I feel like a sit­ting duck. This is clear­ly un­com­fort­ably close.

I woke up off-cen­tre on Mon­day and saw a friend post an apt de­scrip­tion: “Feel­ing off my ax­is… strug­gling to fo­cus amidst low grade de­pres­sion and anx­i­ety.”

So, I re­gen­er­at­ed my cop­ing strate­gies. I am “pa­tient ze­ro” in this sce­nario. This is my ad­vice to me. It is a re­minder of what works for me, shared with you.

Cop­ing strate­gies

Ac­knowl­edge your feel­ings: Recog­nise that in­ter­na­tion­al events of the mag­ni­tude of the US in Venezuela cause stress and deep anx­i­ety, and some­times trig­ger hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises. Write down your emo­tions: “To­day I am feel­ing…” and name what you feel. This is a first step in cop­ing.

Lim­it me­dia ex­po­sure: I un­der­stand be­ing un­able to ig­nore cur­rent events. To stay up to date, though, set a fi­nite amount of time for news, rather than “doom­scrolling” on so­cial me­dia, and check re­li­able sources at spe­cif­ic times. Avoid con­stant up­dates and no­ti­fi­ca­tions and re­sist news close to bed­time to im­prove sleep.

Know what’s in your con­trol: Recog­nise your lev­el of in­flu­ence and use time and en­er­gy to fo­cus on per­son­al ac­tions that ben­e­fit you. Es­tab­lish or main­tain bet­ter rou­tines of ex­er­cis­ing or work­ing.

Con­nect with close friends or fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly when feel­ing help­less.

Be open: There are rel­a­tives, friends and trust­ed ac­quain­tances who will lis­ten and may even share your anx­i­eties. Talk­ing helps re­duce fears, feel­ings of iso­la­tion, and pro­vides sup­port.

Prac­tice ground­ing tech­niques: Mind­ful­ness, med­i­ta­tion, prayer, or deep breath­ing ex­er­cis­es help me man­age strong emo­tions. Con­nect­ing with my en­vi­ron­ment im­proves my aware­ness and helps me stay in the present mo­ment.

Fo­cused self-care: Ba­sic is­sues such as ad­e­quate sleep, nu­tri­tious and time­ly eat­ing, and reg­u­lar phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are key to striv­ing and sur­viv­ing. Do what re­lax­es you—I paint, write, gar­den, and dab­ble in self-care/beau­ty so­lu­tions. These bring me joy. And hav­ing a com­pan­ion pet is sooth­ing.

Help some­one else: Vol­un­teer­ing can pro­vide a sense of pur­pose. Since be­ing among peo­ple of­ten prompts so­cial awk­ward­ness for me, I en­joy bak­ing bread for oth­ers or cook­ing a meal for a fam­i­ly, from time-to-time.

Still, it re­mains im­por­tant to stay alert since the desta­bil­i­sa­tion of Venezuela could trig­ger geopo­lit­i­cal spillovers that im­pact T&T.

Men­tal health

sup­port in T&T:

Seek pro­fes­sion­al help if ad­verse feel­ings per­sist or are over­whelm­ing.

• Life­line (Toll Free): 800-5588 or 866-5433.

• Na­tion­al Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Hot­line (Toll Free): 800-COPE (2673).

• Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (NFSD): Free coun­selling and psy­choso­cial sup­port: 800-CO19 (2619) or vis­it an of­fice.

• Child­Line: Chil­dren and youth up to 25 years old, call 131 or 800-4321.

• U-Mat­ter Chat­line: A 24/7, free, anony­mous What­sApp text ser­vice for youth ages 15-29 years at (868) 763-7336.

• Find­CareTT @ find­carett.com. A di­rec­to­ry of lo­cal men­tal health and psy­choso­cial sup­port ser­vices.