Anger and exhaustion

I. Am. Enraged.

I am exhausted.

I tried to take a break from Twitter over the last week as I just couldn't do it any more. The outpouring of rage and grief from women from a lifetime of fear, or of learning to fear, just got to me. Every time these kinds of outpourings happen it is an emotional load that spills over into everything else, and over the last few years we've had so many of them.

It wasn't really until female colleagues at work began to check in with each other that I realised that I wasn't ok. I am so, so angry about the murder of Sarah Everard. But it wasn't really about her. It was about her being murdered on her walk home. Like so many women, I have experienced sexual harrassment walking down the street, been leered at and jeered at while cycling around, had men grope me on public transport and in clubs, and sat frozen for fear something might happen, even when it didn't. 

For those of us who have been working from home for the last year, those walks are all we have, they're the only thing keeping us mentally well after a year of living on edge. In cities our lives have become smaller, the streets near our homes more familiar. Being told as a woman to stay home for fear of murder, rather than just Covid, is just adding one restriction too many.

It's another example of feeling powerless. Of needing to process rage and grief among a collective of people feeling the same. Of not being able to because of a global pandemic that could kill my loved ones if I didn't take more precautions. So the only protests I've been to over the last year have been doorstep ones. And that doesn't feel enough.

Because I haven't felt this angry since the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests last year.

And I haven't felt this angry since Belly Mujinga died.

And I haven't felt this angry since a colleague's racist harrassment.

And I haven't felt this angry since police officers were accused of taking selfies with the bodies of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry.

And I haven't felt this angry Shamima Begum's citizenship was ripped up.

And I haven't felt this angry since the last thing the government did to try to strip trans people of dignity.

And I haven't felt this angry since learning about the undercover policing scandal.

And I haven't felt this powerless since Iuliana Tudos was murdered walking home on Christmas Eve through the park near my house.

Anger isn't unhealthy, it's a natural reaction to the injustices around us. More than anything though I need to know that I can protest. That I can use my voice, my power in some small way that isn't screaming through tweets, or sitting in tears reading about people's trauma over and over again.

It's why the government's attempt to ban protest, to make protest 'less disruptive' is wrong. Protests are a normal part of a functioning democracy. They alert those in power to knowing there is something people are angry about. Where are you meant to put it, if not the streets and the ballot box?