I live in the United States, but not the America you might imagine from across the Atlantic – the one of endless opportunity, comfortable suburbs and the illusion of stability. I live in the version that terrifies me daily. Every day, I wake up afraid – not of violence or war, but of policy decisions. Because in America, a budget line item can erase your already precarious security.
I am a single mother to a profoundly autistic, non-verbal six-year-old boy. He is the light of my life, but caring for him is a full-time, emotionally and physically demanding job. He needs structure, support, and someone who understands his needs every minute of every day. That person is me. And the only reason I can be that person is because of the public programs we depend on – programs that are constantly under threat in today’s America.
Lifeline support
My son and I rely on programs that aren’t luxuries – they’re lifelines. I rely on SNAP (food assistance) to keep him fed with the specific, calming foods he can tolerate. I rely on SSI (Supplemental Security Income) to survive without being forced into a job that would require me to abandon him. Because in America, if you cannot work 40 hours a week, you’re seen as a drain, not a mother doing her absolute best. Medicaid covers essential medical equipment and therapy. Housing assistance ensures we have a roof over our heads.
Social programs allow me to stay home to care for my son, who cannot be left alone, and is at high risk for abuse if left in the wrong hands. These supports are not “entitlements”, as they’re often labelled with disdain by politicians – they are the thin threads keeping us from unravelling completely.
Government gaslighting
Under the current administration, I live in a state of quiet dread. Budget cuts are dangled in front of the public as if they’re noble acts of fiscal responsibility, but to me they sound like eviction notices, medical neglect, and hunger. Every political decision made by people who will never have to sit up all night with a screaming, overwhelmed child, or weigh the price of incontinence supplies against groceries, feels like a personal threat.
I’ve already lived through abuse, and now I feel the government doing the same thing: gaslighting, withdrawing support, punishing dependence, and then blaming me for the struggle. I do everything I can to keep my son safe, stimulated and regulated. I prepare for each day like a tactical operation. There are no breaks. There’s no village. There’s just me and him, and the fragile scaffolding that holds our lives together.
The thought of that scaffolding being ripped away isn’t abstract. It’s a daily fear. If supports are gutted, there is no backup plan. What happens when the systems we depend on are treated like political chess pieces rather than essential services? What happens to children like mine – who can’t speak, who can’t advocate for themselves – when they become too expensive to be seen as worth supporting? There is no line of professionals who know him like I do, who understand his meltdowns, who can anticipate his needs when words fail him. There is just me. And I’m terrified that in the eyes of my government, we are expendable.
Return to abuse?
One of the most terrifying developments is Project 2025, a policy plan backed by the current administration. It talks about releasing non-violent prisoners from federal prisons as part of criminal justice reform and budget cuts. But in practice, it threatens to undo the fragile safety my son and I have found.
My husband is one of those inmates. He is serving time for a non-violent crime – but that charge does not reflect the full truth. He got away with the violence he inflicted on me for years. The abuse was real, constant and devastating, but prosecuted as a minor offence. If he is released early under this policy and I am forced – by legal default, housing dependency, or custody – to live with him again, my son and I will be right back in the trauma we barely escaped. A policy like that doesn’t just ignore victims like us, it puts us in direct danger.
There’s a bitter and terrifying irony at play. Homelessness is being criminalised across the country. If this administration succeeds in cutting or privatising public housing, I could end up homeless with my child, while the man who abused me for years could walk free. The same system that failed to protect me then could now punish me for surviving. That’s the America we’re facing: where escaping violence and living in poverty makes you a target, and where I am forced to choose between living with my abuser again, or facing similar abuse and cruelty in prison.
From safety net to barbed wire
With every shift in government, every policy proposal, every speech from this administration that promises “reform”, my stomach tightens. Reform never means more help. It means cuts, restrictions, punishments, for being poor or disabled or simply surviving in a system built on conditional worth. It means governors sending back federal aid. It means social safety nets turned into barbed wire.
And what happens when those supports are pulled out from under us? Where do we go? There’s no magical institution waiting to care for my son if I can’t. There is only more abuse, neglect and trauma.
You may not understand what it’s like to plan your life around whether your child will keep his clothes on, scream through the night, or smash his head into walls from overstimulation. You may not understand the exhaustion of trying to survive when everything around you, from healthcare to housing to food, is treated as a privilege instead of a human right. But I’m asking you to listen, because what’s happening here isn’t rare, and it isn’t just an American problem. It’s what happens when a society stops valuing its most vulnerable.
I’m told to be grateful I live in a country with “freedom”. But freedom without safety is a hollow thing. It means nothing when you’re just one administrative decision away from losing the ability to feed, clothe or care for your child.
The UK: on a precipice
To readers in the UK, I say this: your debates about the NHS and social programmes aren’t trivial. You are standing on a precipice we fell from long ago. I’ve seen what happens when privatisation and political cruelty masquerade as reform. I’ve felt it in my bones. Fight for your public programmes. Cherish your NHS. Protect your disability rights. Because once those systems are gone, the people most dependent on them don’t just fall through the cracks – they disappear.
I do not write this for pity. I write it because fear like mine is not rare – it’s rising, quiet, and crushing. And when it becomes normalised, it becomes invisible. We are still here, clinging to the edge. I hope the world still sees us.
My son cannot speak. But I can. And I need the world to hear this: families like mine are not political fodder. We are human. We are tired. And we are holding on by a thread.
More in world.
