'I haven't slept for days': Iranians describe mounting desperation after a month of war

Warning: this article contains details which some readers may find distressing.

Until that moment the war was something happening in other parts of Tehran.

It had not touched the lives of "Setareh" and her colleagues. Then she heard an ominous noise and vibrations reached into the office.

She called out to her workmates: "I think it's a bomb." They left their desks and climbed the stairs to the roof of the building.

"We saw smoke rising into the sky, but we didn't know what place had been targeted," she recalls.

"After that, everyone working in the company panicked. People were shouting and screaming and running away. For one to two hours the situation stayed like that complete chaos." That same day her boss shut the business and laid off his staff.

Despite strict state censorship, the BBC has been able to use trusted sources on the ground to obtain testimony from a range of Iranians in different parts of the country.

We cannot give Setareh's real name or say what kind of work she does - no detail that might possibly identify her to the regime's secret police. But we can say that she is a young woman from Tehran who loved going to work, where she could meet her friends, share stories of their lives and, of course, there was the guarantee of weekly wages.

Now the nightly bombing has stolen her ability to sleep naturally. She lies awake worrying about the present, and the future.

"I can honestly say I haven't slept for several nights and days in a row. I try to relax by taking very strong painkillers so I can sleep. The anxiety is so intense that it has affected my body. When I think about the future and imagine those conditions, I truly don't know what to do."

By "those conditions" she means economic hardship and her fear of future street fighting between the regime and its enemies. The war has cost Setareh her job and she is running out of money.

Millions of Iranians are in a similar position. Even before the war, the economy was in deep crisis, with food prices rising by 60% in the previous year. Setareh describes mounting desperation as people run out of resources to survive.

"We cannot afford even basic food. What's in our pockets does not match market prices... Iran has also been under sanctions for years, and the problems created by the Islamic Republic means that during this time we couldn't build any savings, at least enough to survive now or depend on something. To put it simply, the people I thought might have money to lend also don't have anything."

Economic hardship spurred the huge nationwide protests of late 2025 and early 2026, and Setareh believes it will happen again.

"I don't know how this massive wave of unemployment will be handled. There is no support system and the government will do nothing for all these unemployed people. I believe the real war will start if this war ends without any outcome." The outcome she wants is the end of the regime.

We received information from sources on the ground in six different cities. These were conversations with individuals from a cross-section of society - shopkeepers, taxi drivers, public sector workers and others.

All described growing economic pressure and most spoke of their hope that the war might bring about the fall of the government.

"Tina" is a nurse in a hospital outside Tehran and is worried about shortages of medicine.

"The shortage is not yet widespread, but it is starting," she says.

"The most important issue is that this war must not reach hospitals. If the conflict continues and infrastructure is targeted and medicines cannot be imported, then we will face very serious problems."

She is haunted by the images of war that she's witnessed in recent weeks. In the aftermath of bombings, bodies arrived at the hospital "that were not recognisable... some had no hands, some had no legs - it was horrifying".

A recurring memory is the pregnant young woman caught in an air strike early in the war.

"Because of bombardment in her area - her home was close to a military centre - their house was damaged. When they brought her to the hospital, neither the mother nor the foetus was alive.

"Both had died. She had been just two months away from giving birth but sadly neither she nor her baby survived. It was a very terrible situation."

It is an image made more poignant by stories from Tina's childhood. Her mother was pregnant with her during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and told her of having to flee to bomb shelters as Iraqi missiles struck their city. Nearly a million people - Iranians and Iraqis, military and civilian - are estimated to have died in the conflict, with Iran suffering the greatest number of casualties.

The war's legacy made Tina want to work as a nurse.

"Hearing those stories always made me stop and think, to imagine myself in those circumstances and place myself in her situation. Now, I find myself in the same kind of situation my mother once faced. I cannot believe how quickly history repeats itself."

Any public show of dissent in Iran is extremely dangerous. The regime has deployed its internal security forces and loyal supporters to patrol the streets. There are arrests, torture and executions. Iranians have no doubt about the danger they face if they speak out.

During January's anti-government demonstrations, the regime killed thousands of its own citizens and "Behnam" - a former political prisoner - believes it would easily do the same again.

He keeps a supply of antibiotics and painkillers in his flat in case there is renewed street violence. He is still in hiding after being shot during the last protests. Holding up an X-ray of his torso, Behnam shows the metal fragments that remain lodged in his body.

"They ambushed us in one of the alleys - the alley leading to the square. They fired bullets and tear gas," he says.

"Once you see how easily your life can be threatened - that a simple incident or a twist of fate can mean death or survival - after that, your life no longer holds the same value for you. And that experience makes you care less about yourself."

As a child, he listened to his parents' accounts of regime violence. Fear was the defining factor in their lives. There were stories of family members having fingernails pulled out by the Revolutionary Guards. He heard about the humiliation and agony of a male relative who had heavy weights tied to his testicles during torture.

"We all grew up knowing someone talented in our family - a cousin, an uncle, an aunt - whose future was destroyed just because another relative had been involved in banned political activity," he says.

"I will not heal until the day we are free and in a free world [can] look back on the suffering we endured in an unfree world, and in the end laugh at it. I am certain that day will come."

One month into the war, with US President Donald Trump threatening to bomb Iran "back to the stone ages" and regime repression tightening, the time of laughter seems very far away.

Additional reporting by Alice Doyard