In the early days of a ceasefire, there is an expectation – almost a demand – that relief should follow. That normal life will resume. But for many civilians in Israel and across the Middle East, that is not what happens.
After weeks of sustained threat – sirens, displacement, and profound uncertainty – the mind and body do not simply reset. They have adapted to survive under pressure. People learn, often unconsciously, to live in what I describe as an “in-between state”: continuing daily routines – working, parenting, making decisions – while simultaneously anticipating the next alarm. This dual awareness becomes a new baseline.
In this context, a ceasefire does not necessarily register as safety. It registers as a pause. And psychologically, a pause can be deeply destabilising. When danger is immediate, the body mobilises with clarity: there is something to do, a direction to move in. When the threat becomes ambiguous, the mind remains active, scanning for what might come next. The question shifts from “What do I do now?” to “When will this start again?”
This also differs in important ways from what is commonly understood as post-traumatic stress. PTSD is typically associated with an event that has ended. Here, the stressor is not fully in the past. The nervous system remains engaged because the possibility of renewed danger is real. The body is not malfunctioning. It is making a rational calculation based on available information.
At the same time, people continue to function. This is often described as resilience, but it is more accurately understood as adaptation under constraint. Individuals maintain responsibilities, care for family members, and participate in daily life while carrying a persistent undercurrent of vigilance. The cost of this adaptation is cumulative: fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and disrupted sleep are common, even when there are no immediate sirens.
One of the defining features of this period is the coexistence of contradictory signals. On the surface, there may be quiet as schools reopen and work resumes. Yet internally, many people do not experience a corresponding sense of calm. The external environment suggests stability; the internal system remains prepared for disruption. This mismatch can be disorienting, not only for those experiencing it, but also for observers who expect a more visible return to normal.
It is important to recognise that this response is not a failure to “recover.” It is an appropriate and adaptive reaction to prolonged uncertainty. When exposure to threat is repeated and unpredictable, the body does not easily relinquish its state of readiness. Nor should it be expected to do so immediately.
A ceasefire can create the conditions for recovery, but it does not, in itself, produce it. Psychological decompression takes time, and it unfolds unevenly. For many civilians, the period after active conflict is not defined by relief, but by this complex, suspended state – caught between what has happened and what might still come. This is not pessimism. It is physiology.
After weeks and months of sustained threat, sirens, displacement, and profound uncertainty, the mind and body do not simply reset. They have adapted to survive under pressure. People learn, often unconsciously, to live in what might be called an in-between state: continuing daily routines, working, parenting, making decisions, while simultaneously anticipating the next alarm. This dual awareness becomes a new baseline. And a new baseline does not dissolve overnight because a political agreement has been reached.
To understand the mechanism: when the brain's alarm system, the amygdala, is chronically activated over a prolonged period, it suppresses the hippocampus, the structure responsible for memory, time, and narrative continuity. Days blur and the present feels unmoored. Sleep, disrupted by months of sirens and anxiety, compounds the damage, since it is during sleep that the nervous system consolidates experience and recovers equilibrium. That deficit does not resolve in a day. Some people report hearing sirens in their dreams, or in moments of quiet, sometimes merging with tinnitus, so that the boundary between the body's own sounds and the sounds of alarm becomes difficult to locate. The threat, once external, has moved inward.
It is important to name this clearly: the response is not a failure to recover. It is an appropriate and adaptive reaction to prolonged uncertainty. A ceasefire can create the conditions for recovery. It does not, in itself, produce it.
Psychological decompression takes time, and it unfolds unevenly. For many civilians, this period will not be defined by relief, but by a complex suspended state, caught between what has happened and what might still come. Recognising that state, naming it, and not rushing past it is the first condition for genuine recovery to begin.
Dr. Cathy Lawi is a trauma therapist, international trainer of mental health providers and the founder and CEO of EmotionAid, an Israeli-based organisation providing first response to emotional distress
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