The teachers talk about the murdered students and cry during recess.College students boycott final exams in honor of their fallen classmates.Young men and women say they struggle with survivor’s guilt.
Mariam, a 54-year-old designer, said she panics every time her teenage son leaves the house because he had friends and classmates who were shot and killed in the protests.
“The truth is that we feel very bad,” he said.”I have never experienced this kind of collective pain and instability. We don’t know what will happen in the next hour.”Like many of the people interviewed for this article, Maria declined to be identified only by her first name for fear of retaliation.
Protests demanding the ouster of Iran’s authoritarian clerical rulers have ended.But many Iranians say that feelings of rage against the government and anxiety about the future permeate every aspect of life, and that nothing seems normal anymore.
The government’s continued repressive measures and arrests of dissidents, including prominent political figures from the reformist faction, contribute to the feeling that the confrontation is not over yet.
As Iranian leaders struggle to suppress dissent at home, they face pressures beyond their borders.President Donald Trump has been marshalling US warships in waters near Iran, ready to carry out potential attacks if ongoing talks between Washington and Tehran fail to reach an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities.
Teachers say they and their students are traumatized. Nafiseh, a 35-year-old high school teacher in the capital, Tehran, said that during recess, she and other colleagues discuss the uprising and cry.
“The students are very distracted and scared,” he said, adding: “At the slightest sound of an ambulance or airplane siren, they tremble with fear.”
The Iranian government has attributed the killings to terrorist cells linked to the United States and Israel.It claims that armed operators infiltrated the protests, necessitating the government’s militarized response, and that terrorists killed many of the protesters.
But more than a hundred videos and images, verified by The New York Times, show the extent of government violence, including videos of uniformed and motorcycle-riding security forces shooting directly at unarmed protesters.
The government said some 3,400 people had died, including 200 children and minors and 100 university students, and at least 500 security agents.
Human rights groups such as US-based HRANA say at least 7,000 protesters have died and the number is expected to rise as more deaths are verified.
The sheer number of deaths — most in the span of three nights in early January, the deadliest unrest in Iran’s modern history, according to rights groups and a historian — has shocked many Iranians.
Some therapists said they are offering free online workshops to help people cope.
Psychologists said their patients show chronic anxiety and deep anger and mistrust.
“In recent weeks, the emotional atmosphere in Iran has changed radically,” Bita Bavadi, a psychologist in Tehran, said in an email. “In my clinical work, I observe an intense mix of indignation, fear, helplessness, and unprocessed collective grief.”
The threat of war with the United States, which has deployed warships near Iran’s territorial waters, adds another layer of uncertainty.
President Trump has said that if Iran does not agree to a deal to suspend its nuclear program and limit the range of its missiles, he would consider attacking the country.He has also said that a regime change in Iran would be beneficial.
Iranians, both supporters and opponents of the government, are reflecting on a war waged by the United States and whether the regime and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would survive.
“The priorities of the people are different from the priorities of their rulers,” Mohamad Renany, a cleric who has spoken out against the government’s repressive measures against protesters, said on social media.
“When the people’s priority is bread, and the regime’s priority is political ideologies and extreme interpretations of their own beliefs, a serious confrontation arises between the people and the regime,” he added.
Some Iranians say they are so angry and hopeless about internal change that they favor US military intervention to free them from this regime.
Others say they oppose war because it could lead to even more instability, displacement and violence.
Kamran, a 49-year-old businessman, said the violence he had witnessed during the protests had altered his views on the war.
“After the massacre, many of us feel that we are prey in the hands of a predator, not people who live under a government,” he said.“So our eyes are on the sky, waiting for the bombs to kill them and Iran to be free.”
Elaheh, a 52-year-old from Tehran, said in an interview that, although he opposed clerical rulers, he was against foreign military interference and did not believe that democracy would come through bombs.
“We have enough problems already,” he said.“We cannot tolerate a war capable of destroying our infrastructure, dividing our country and killing even more people.”
Iran’s economy, already in a dire state due to international sanctions and corruption, has taken further hits since the uprising began in late December.The currency has plummeted and the government’s internet blackout has hurt commerce.
Reza Alefnasb, head of the e-commerce workers union, told Iranian media that those who make their living online had experienced an 80 percent drop in income.He also said that the combination of continued internet outages and uncertainty about the war was causing Iranians to spend less on non-essential items.
Sattar Hashemi, Minister of Telecommunications, told Iranian media last week that digital business losses amounted to $3 million a day and that the country’s economy as a whole was losing $35 million a day since the uprising.
Many small business owners specializing in crafts, baking, fashion and music took to social media last week pleading with people to buy so they could stay afloat.Some said they had suspended work out of respect for the murdered protesters, but added that this was not sustainable either.
Reza Badri works as an accountant in a furniture store.He said in an interview that sales had been practically paralyzed for a month and that the owners were laying off workers and reducing production.In a social media post, he asked if anyone could put him in touch with exporters outside Iran.
“The murder of so many compatriots, many of them my age, and the skyrocketing prices are exhausting us mentally, emotionally and physically,” Badri said in the interview.
Sephideh, 35, an English teacher in Tehran, said in an interview that her virtual classes have been completely canceled due to internet blackouts and that she has had no income for more than a month.
“I cry almost every day and I feel like I’m in the most vulnerable state possible,” she said.“At the same time, I also feel anger.”
© The New York Times 2026.
