THE four-day Pakistan-India conflict in May has had favourable outcomes for Pakistan. On the international stage, Pakistan has re-established itself as a serious force to be reckoned with. On the diplomatic side of things, the country’s reputation seems to have been reinvigorated as relationships with important countries, including the US and those in the Middle East, have been greatly enhanced. One cannot help but assume that our performance against a much more powerful foe is at least partly responsible for these developments. Domestically, there is a patriotic fervour the country has not seen in many years, creating opportunities and political capital to tackle issues that may not have been possible earlier. Pakistan gallantly defied Indian aggression, with Pakistani content creators in overdrive, taking social media by storm with their humour and memes. X was also unblocked to unleash Pakistan’s social media warriors. But, at the other end, there was fear, especially among people living in areas that had experienced the conflict first-hand. At least two generations of mainstream Pakistanis had never heard threatening sounds in their airspace. While these experiences and emotions across mainstream Pakistan are still fresh in the nation’s memory, we must highlight an issue that has for far too long been unaddressed. The recent stand-off lasted a mere four days. Now imagine the state of mind of a population exposed regularly to the buzzing sounds of drones, the thumping noise of artillery rounds, the whirring of gunship helicopters and the roar of jets bombarding nearby targets all while living in conditions of restricted movement and varying degrees of brutal militant control for the past two decades. This has been the reality for many living in KP’s Malakand Division, or Swat, and the merged areas of Pakistan, which many know as simply ‘former Fata’. On selected platforms, there has been some discussion about the human loss and infrastructure destruction in these areas. Sadly, there has been very little recognition of or conversation about the psychological trauma that continues to dog large parts of this populace. While the donor community, recognizing the trauma, has carried out limited interventions, there has been hardly any significant project by the government that comes to mind.