Anger

On fuming for months & months

Somehow, at some point in my life, I found myself surrounded by people who felt proud that they, “didn’t get angry.” So much so, that I decided I would write a literature review on anger. I purchased Anger and Forgiveness by Martha Nussbaum (I got through a few chapters before I remembered that philosophers never stop yapping), I researched historical views on anger, and so on.

And to the credit of my readings, many go straight to discussing equanimity in the face of torture and extremes. So why was I so freaking annoyed by all of them? Probably, because it wasn’t about the readings. Because most people surrounding me weren’t being tortured, they weren’t even really being inconvenienced, and yet they were clearly pleased with themselves. Ok, that’s mean. It’s more like, they’d read of equanimity and thought, “I like that, I can do that, does that make me better than others? I don’t know for sure that the answer is yes, but I also don’t know for sure that the answer is no.” They weren’t listening to me. And also, I don’t even care about historical views on anger. And I hate reading philosophy texts.

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After my rape, and the aftermath, and subsequent harassment at work, I entered a many-months period where I was internally fuming. Like, I would get up on a Sunday morning, put in my headphones, and stomp around Oxford for three hours. Then, I would call my partner and rant for four hours, and then journal for another two in all caps, and then go to bed.

I’d never in my life written poems, but my notes app was now full of them, and they were all quite cutting. I would rant to Claude, but Claude’s tone annoyed me and it always told me to go talk to my therapist, so I bought a chatGPT subscription and started ranting to chatGPT. Sometimes, I would have genuine questions. And sometimes, I would ask the LLM why there were so many 28 year old men apparently hoping to one day be adopted and raised by me. In response, it began earnestly discussing the loneliness epidemic and the impacts of COVID on that age cohort.

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After a rape investigation with the Thames Valley Police that spanned 1.2 years, I walked into the station to receive an update from my detective. In my hand was a thank you card.

“They’re not pressing charges,” she said.

I didn’t really feel anything, but I profusely cried the rest of the conversation. Two uncontrollable, constant, parallel streams. I walked home shaking slightly. I remember her saying, “this doesn’t mean I don’t believe you, I believe all my victims.” But, she wasn’t supposed to believe me because the Thames Valley Police now personally believed victims as a policy, she was supposed to believe me because I was literally telling her what happened and there was a ton of evidence.

She gave me the card of her boss, George Atkinson. I called Detective Inspector George. He told me that things would be different if I had just gone to the police immediately. They needed a toxicology report. They’d tried to get around it, but they’d failed. He told me the expert witness just wasn’t enough. They had asked him, in writing, “is there a dosage level of [redacted substance] where it’s possible to be unconscious, but appear conscious?” to which the expert had simply replied, “yes, it’s possible.” I pointed out that the question seemed incredibly leading and ill-specified. What does it mean to “appear conscious”? Open eyes? Muscle twitches? Do you have to be able to make sounds? Or form sentences? George did not know the answer. He did not see why he should have to specify a definition for appearing conscious.

The UK is constantly criticized for its inability to charge rape. “Home Office statistics for the year ending March 2024 indicated that the proportion of rape offences assigned a charge/summons outcome was 2.6%.” At that point, is rape even illegal, I wondered to George? A year after such a damning statistic, perhaps George should have learned how to answer questions like mine? Instead, George re-explained the concept of reasonable doubt to me, for the 3rd time. I had always sort of thought my pursuit of justice would eventually be crushed by an evil person, but instead, it was just George. Everything he said was a bit stupid. At one point, I tried to explain why I felt some of the other questions posed to the expert witness didn’t make sense, and that a proper prosecutor could navigate this and do a much better job. Also, who even was this expert witness? Seriously, who was this guy? I could do a much better job. I made specific points about [redacted substance], based on my research. In response, he said, “look, I don’t know about that, I’ve never taken [redacted].”

At that point, I burst into tears. I hadn’t realized charging required George to personally experience the circumstances of the case, though presumably he’s never been murdered either.

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There is a type of person who does not get angry. Or, they get angry about abstractions and never on their own behalf. But, if I had suppressed my anger it would have killed me. Because there is also a type of person who is being treated like they don’t matter.

Whenever I felt angry, underneath it, I felt the part of me that deeply cared about myself. That had expectations for others. That wanted things. That had finite emotional energy, which was to be saved up for achieving a sense of safety and personhood. That had a lot of things to say.

My therapist told me, “a lot of the actions you take are consistent with the belief that you don’t matter.” Okay girl, say more. And it’s exactly what you’d imagine. Struggling to trust myself, punching myself metaphorically every time I was even the slightest bit terse or rude or sharp in the face of enormous pressure and constant cross-examination, monitoring myself 24/7, apologizing over and over and over. If you look to others to check whether you matter, you can easily find people who will confirm that you don’t. Usually because their worldview sucks and they don’t have enough emotional intelligence to surpass random chance in saying something insightful.

My therapist said, “I think you intellectually know you matter, but you don’t feel it and you don’t act like it, except for when you get angry. So, why don’t you try acting like you matter. And the next time you’re deciding what to do, ask if the thing you’re doing is the action of someone who matters.” I think someone who matters would be angry at George. And at their workplace. And at the UK. I’ve seen the victims who don’t get to be angry. I’ve seen what it does to them.

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During my medical leave, I played a lot of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, because I found catharsis in fighting. But, like all RPG games of non trivial difficulty, I eventually became solely interested in buying cute outfits and taming wild horses, and I could not progress.

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Some people don’t need anger and some people do. Anger does something important for someone like me. Sometimes, I felt insane and I was scared the anger would never pass. And I didn’t feel like it was lasting for a chic amount of time, I felt like it was lasting for a “crazy woman,” amount of time. But it lasted as long as it lasted, and it comes when it comes, and it goes when it goes. And I think it helped bring me here.