Filed under: American, anger, resistance | Tags: anger, dragon, fury, gag rule, Grito, Kavanagh, rage, scream, silent scream, Women's March
A year ago I was so angry, I felt like I could destroy villages with my fury. The Kavanagh hearings gave me a powerful rage. I’d never felt anything like it. I really did feel like a dragon.
But over the last year, despite many awful, infuriating things happening, I have not felt the same fire-spitting rage in a while. The rage doesn’t usually feel good but I have noticed that it is energizing and this last year has felt just low level horrifying – like poison dripping. My rage is just sort of simmering. I’ve become almost numb to it. I read about another atrocity and instead of wanting to kick something, I just shake my head and say, “Oh, this now?”
I worry that the relentlessness of the horrors and bad behavior has immunized me to things that really should make me rage. I feel like this is happening to a lot of us. We can’t reconcile the relentlessness of the news so we sort of numb out.
That numbing out, that pushing aside of the nightmares has not been good for me – not for my physical or mental health. I actually think I was doing better when I was kicking mad. So, I decided I needed to find a way to adapt to these screwed up circumstances. I decided to scream every time I read or heard some new infuriating fact. Screaming is releasing and physical and expressive. I thought it might help get the fury out of me rather than letting its poison build up in there.
But. I do live in a dense urban area. And probably my neighbors don’t need the extra worry of a woman screaming all the time. So I’ve implemented the Silent Scream response.
A Silent Scream has the physical benefits of a voiced one without the sound that might make the neighbors nervous or damage the vocal chords. The Silent Scream can be small or large. It can expressed through just the face or the whole body.
News about a moat filled with alligators? Silent scream. Story about the gag rule’s impact on the country? Silent Scream.
I silent scream so many times a day now. Sometimes I forget and I read some bit of news and start to feel a sinking sensation of hopelessness – but once I notice it, I open my mouth and scream silently and I feel a bit better – more powerful – more energized – less hopeless.
So this is your invitation to join me. Throw your head back and let it out. And maybe eventually we might start doing it in public. The women’s march might feature an epic simultaneous silent scream. Or a voiced one.
I read about a Mexican tradition wherein the population has a good collective shout on the fifteenth of September at 11 o’clock for an hour in honor of independence.
I don’t know if I could scream for an hour – but I do know that a good collective scream (silent or voiced) might just be the thing I need.
This post was brought to you by my generous patrons on Patreon.
They also bring you the podcast version of the blog.
You can find the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Every podcast features a song at the end. Some of those songs are on Spotify, my website, ReverbNation, Deezer and iTunes
*
Want to scream along with me?
Become my patron on Patreon.
Click HERE to Check out my Patreon Page
*
If you liked the blog and would like to give a dollar (or more!) put it in the PayPal digital hat. https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartist
Or buy me a coffee on Kofi – ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
Songs for the Struggling Artist 