A deportation at the UK border
Perhaps it's a generational thing.  The OP and many posters here on HN had very nice, supportive parents who told them that the world is on their side, that they would succeed in whatever they tried to do, and that people are generally good-willed.<p>I on the other hand am afraid of figures of authority.  I fear the police.  I don't think that things will necessarily go well.  And I'm especially afraid at the border.  I answer the officer's questions as laconically as possible, usually in monosyllables.  Things usually go well.<p>Imagine a thought experiment, where the OP's middle class white mind was teleported into an African American's body, dropped into a poor part of town, and stopped by the police.  She would have been just as traumatized.