Share & more
The past six months of bombs, geopolitical tensions and the looming threat of a wider conflict have created a suffocating sense of uncertainty for many Iranians. And it’s not just about the airstrikes. Young people say the period since the US and Israel first struck their country in late February has been one of anxiety-inducing limbo, with their futures put on hold indefinitely.
The New Humanitarian spoke to five young Iranians in the capital, who shared what it feels like to be trapped, watching their best years slip away. From cancelled weddings and crushing unemployment to never-ending news updates and the vanishing of simple pleasures, their stories offer a window into what it is like to live through a war that has taken away their ability to plan for tomorrow.
In Tehran and across the country, fresh US and Iranian strikes this week were a stark reminder that, after half a year of bombing and a war of words between the US and Iran, ceasefire talks remain stalled. The Strait of Hormuz remains largely shut, while the core issues driving the conflict remain unresolved.
Iranian citizens have been left bracing for hostilities to resume at any moment. In the 40 days after the US and Israel launched attacks in late February, more than 3,500 people – including hundreds of civilians – were killed, according to the Iranian government.
While Iran’s economy has struggled for years amid sanctions, US economic pressure and the war have compounded the pain. Iranian officials have put the economic damage from the war at more than $270 billion, though the figure is a preliminary estimate. Inflation reached nearly 88% year-over-year in July with the rial hitting a record low on 2 September, while sweeping corporate budget cuts have triggered mass layoffs; more than a million people in a country of 87 million are believed to have lost their jobs.
Even when the skies over Tehran are quiet, the five young people whose words are featured here – Ziba, Nima, Fatema, Sima, and Amir Ali* – say the agony has shifted beyond the bombing itself. What weighs most heavily now is the paralysis of not knowing what comes next.
Names have been changed due to security concerns, and words have been translated, condensed, and edited for clarity.
Ziba, 27, watched her wedding plans fell apart
“Every major milestone in my life has been frozen”
My morning routine now begins before my feet even touch the floor. The very first thing I do when I wake up is grab my phone and open my main news channels. I have to scroll through everything posted overnight. The news cycle here changes by the minute. You might go to bed reading that a diplomatic agreement is imminent, only to wake up and find out that infrastructure was bombed while you were sleeping. I have to know exactly what reality I am waking up into.
The initial shock we felt when this first started has morphed into something else, but there are still moments that completely rattle me. It’s terrifying when I go outside and see massive lines of people panic-buying fuel at the petrol stations. I look at them and think, “What will happen to the city if they strike tomorrow?”
My nights are consumed by a different kind of anxiety. A few months ago, I didn't even know what [the live online flight tracker] Flightradar was. Now, before I can attempt to sleep, I am on the app monitoring the airspace over the Middle East. I check to see if civilian planes are still flying over Iran, or if flights are still landing in Israel. If I see commercial planes in the sky, I tell myself it's safe enough to close my eyes.
Even our family group chats offer no escape; they are a constant stream of terrifying rumours. Someone will forward a fake message claiming a nuclear strike is coming tonight, alongside advice to hoard food or buy power generators.
To cope with the overwhelming dread, I downloaded half a dozen mindless puzzle games on my phone. But the stress gave me such severe insomnia that I used to wake up multiple times a night just to check the news. Now, I have to take sleeping pills. When the anxiety becomes too heavy, I put on a podcast and play the puzzle games for hours, waiting for the medication to finally make my eyes heavy enough to sleep.
Every major milestone in my life has been frozen. My fiancé and I got engaged exactly 40 days before this recent wave of conflict began. We were deep into planning the wedding, but it completely fell apart. How can you book a venue, buy a wedding dress, or put down deposits when you don’t know if a war will break out tomorrow? We have stopped all planning and will probably just move into our apartment quietly without a celebration. It breaks my heart because I had to let what was supposed to be one of the best nights of my life go.
Even my smallest daily joys have vanished. I used to be obsessed with online shopping and skincare routines. I haven't bought anything in months. I am literally scraping the last drops out of my old makeup containers. Every time I think about restocking, I stop myself. I need to hoard every rial in case the economy collapses and I get laid off. And honestly, what is the point of a skincare routine if a war breaks out?
When I hang out with my friends, the panic has been replaced by a heavy numbness. Six months ago, we took every threat seriously. Now, if someone reads a headline out loud about an impending attack or a peace talk, we just laugh. We have become completely desensitised. Underneath that numbness is a profound grief. The prime years of our youth — the years we should be growing and experiencing life — are being destroyed by the egos of global powers who do not care about regular people.
Nima, 21, fears his attempt to leave Iran has set him back
“The sheer terror of being completely left behind”
For the past two years, my life has been defined by a single, obsessive goal: to emigrate from Iran by the time I turn 21. I took a massive risk and dropped out of university to make this happen. I work in video production and editing now, and every decision I’ve made since leaving school – every late night staring at editing deadlines, every rial I’ve desperately managed to save, every expensive language class I’ve paid for – has been dedicated to preparing for a visa interview at the French embassy and securing a way out. But since the conflict escalated last year, and with this endless, agonising cycle of ceasefires and new threats, my carefully constructed roadmap has been thrown into absolute chaos.
The uncertainty we are living through isn't just an abstract political talking point on the news; it is a solid brick wall standing between me and my future. I am supposed to be finalising my paperwork right now, but I wake up every morning paralysed by questions I cannot answer. If I am finally ready for my visa interview next month, will the foreign embassies in Tehran even be open? Are they quietly evacuating their diplomatic staff right now? Will any country even issue visas to young Iranians right now, or are we considered too high-risk? You just don’t know, and that not-knowing is suffocating.
The uncertainty we are living through isn't just an abstract political talking point on the news; it is a solid brick wall standing between me and my future.
Beyond the geopolitical anxieties, there is the grinding financial exhaustion of trying to survive here. Every single day, just staying afloat becomes harder. The economic fluctuations are tied to the military news cycle. You walk into a local shop and suddenly a pack of cigarettes is exponentially more expensive because of a headline about a potential strike; tomorrow the tension might ease and the price drops slightly, only to shoot up again the next day. We live completely at the mercy of breaking news alerts.
My absolute deepest fear is the very real possibility of losing on both fronts. I sacrificed my university degree for this emigration dream. I held back from fully committing to long-term career progression in the local video industry because I was saving all my energy and resources for a life abroad.
If this state of violent limbo drags on, what happens to me? I won't have my degree, I won't have advanced my career here, and I won't have successfully emigrated either. It’s the sheer terror of being completely left behind, stuck in a void. That is the heaviest burden I carry right now: the creeping realisation that while I wait for the world to decide our fate, my youth is just slipping through my fingers.
Fatemeh, 26, is being squeezed by inflation, job losses, and rising rents
“Watching the prices skyrocket day by day has been terrifying”
The first direct hit I took when the conflict escalated was deeply personal. My partner and I used to work together, but as the economic panic set in, our company began downsizing, and he was laid off. Almost overnight, we were forced into a long-distance relationship. The emotional toll of losing that daily proximity, combined with the crushing stress of his sudden unemployment, put a massive strain on both of us. But that was only the beginning.
Then came the hyperinflation. Watching the prices skyrocket day by day has been terrifying. To give a specific example: During the height of the tension, I wanted to buy a pair of sneakers that cost around four million tomans ($20). Before I could save enough, the price shot up to nearly seven million.
Food prices have increased by 100%. I’ve had to completely eliminate things from my grocery basket that I used to buy without a second thought. Something as simple as a tub of ice cream or snacks? I don’t even walk down those aisles in the supermarket anymore. I just can't justify the cost.
But the absolute hardest blow has been the threat to my basic security: my housing. The inflation resulting from these cycles of war and peace has forced everyone into survival mode. I am working much more now than I was before the conflict just to stay afloat. My roommate realised that staying in a fixed-salary job like she had was financial suicide, so she decided to pivot to doing skincare and facials because service prices and wages inflate and shift alongside the economy.
We live in central Tehran, in a neighbourhood filled with students and bookstores. It’s not the right demographic for premium beauty services. So she decided to move to west Tehran, to a neighbourhood where people have more disposable income. Her plan is to rent a one-bedroom apartment and convert half of it into a skincare studio.
Her decision left me completely stranded. The relentless inflation has wiped out my ability to save anything. I am left hovering between the earth and the sky. I don't have enough money for a new deposit. If I want to find a place of my own, I will have to drown myself in loans and borrow from everyone I know. Even then, my monthly rent will increase by 100%.
The scariest part is the logic behind my roommate's move. From the outside, taking such a massive financial risk in this unstable economy seems insane. But she firmly believes that if she doesn't make this leap this year, she will never be able to do it. The future looks so overwhelmingly dark and unpredictable that her mentality is literally now or never. She is convinced things are going to get so much worse that soon, even taking a risk will be impossible.
Sina, 20, lost the job he hoped would lift his family out of poverty
“A relentless exercise in overthinking”
I come from a lower-income, working-class family. My father is a labourer who has done gruelling physical work his entire life just to feed the family. For a brief moment, I truly thought I was going to be the one to break our family's cycle of poverty.
I had worked hard and managed to land a great, professional job. It was my golden ticket to pull myself up, build a real career, and finally change my social standing. But when the threat of war escalated and the economic shock hit, budget cuts followed immediately. I was one of the first people laid off, and my entire trajectory collapsed.
For the past five or six months, my existence has been reduced to desperately searching for work. I have sent out between 150 and 200 résumés. I’ve gone to countless interviews, but the answer is always the same. Because of the geopolitical situation and the shrinking economy, companies aren't hiring; they are completely frozen or downsizing.
Waking up every day as an unemployed 20-year-old in Tehran is a relentless exercise in overthinking. You wake up with nothing to do but obsess over what is going to happen next. Will prices go up again? You set a goal to save money to buy something basic, and by the time you reach that amount, the item has become drastically more expensive.
But the absolute hardest part is the sheer humiliation and guilt of losing my financial independence. I try to strip my expenses down to the bare minimum so I don't run out of the little money I have left. But sometimes, when I hit absolute zero, I have to ask my father for cash just to get by. At 20, with the pride of a young guy who thought he had finally made it and was supposed to start helping his family, it is a crushing feeling. Having to ask a tired, aging labourer for money just so you can buy a coffee? It completely destroys your dignity. I look at how hard he works, and the guilt eats me alive.
My biggest fear for the next year is that the inflation will spiral so far out of control that we won't be able to afford breathing. The most normal routines from a year ago are now impossible luxuries. Going out for dinner or to a cafe is something you can maybe do once every 10 days now; if you did it every night, your entire month's salary would vanish in two weeks.
People ask if I am afraid of a war breaking out. Honestly, no. I am not afraid of things coming to a head and our fate finally being decided. What genuinely terrifies me is this endless, paralysing limbo where my youth is wasted, and I am dragged right back to the bottom.
Amir Ali, 26, has seen his ambitions shrink after losing his job
“My only strategy is to do absolutely nothing”
At first, I told myself I wasn't bothered by the sound of missiles or the endless talk of war. But slowly it crept into my psyche and took over everything. My baseline level of stress has skyrocketed. I find myself becoming aggressive, snapping at things that used to be completely normal. There is this constant, heavy feeling that my basic safety is under threat.
But honestly, the hardest part isn’t the threat of war itself; it’s the absolute uncertainty. It’s the sheer paralysis of not knowing. You wake up in the morning and ask yourself, “What will happen today?” You check your phone and the news says things are calming down. Half an hour later, a new headline breaks, warning that everything is about to get worse. That relentless whiplash strips the life out of you because it makes it impossible to make a single long-term decision.
“The hardest part isn’t the threat of war itself; it’s the absolute uncertainty.”
The most immediate blow I took from the conflict was to my livelihood. I lost my main job and the steady income I relied on. That single event derailed every plan I had for the future. I had been diligently saving money for months just to upgrade my car. I wasn’t going to buy something luxurious, just a normal step forward. But with the economic shock and my lost wages, that plan evaporated. I couldn't pull the trigger.
Now, just changing my car feels like the absolute ceiling of my ambitions. Buying a house? That is a total pipe dream. Unless you have some miraculous exception, no one can buy property here on a normal salary anymore. Even the thought of getting married has been completely taken off the table. The inflation is so aggressive and the costs are so astronomical that you just give up. I genuinely don't know what to do anymore.
People ask if I have ideas to start a business or invest if things ever quieten down. The truth is, our economic environment is so deeply unhealthy and unpredictable that starting a business feels like walking into a trap.
In this climate, my only strategy is to do absolutely nothing – just freeze, keep my head down, and try to protect the little I have. You can't get a bank loan, because how can you commit to monthly repayments when you don't know if you'll have a job next week? That shadow hangs over every daily routine. I am terrified of being laid off again because no position is secure. And the saddest part is that it’s not just me. Look at anyone in my friendship circle. We are all deeply exhausted, trapped in this exact same limbo, totally clueless about what to do with our lives.
This journalist who authored this piece writes under a pseudonym due to security concerns.
This article was produced in collaboration with Egab. Edited by Amanda Sperber and Annie Slemrod.