Anger is unproductive, but I’m angry anyway

Like most people, I’ve been watching the Conservative party leadership contest with interest. I want to stay informed. I want to care about this country and what will happen to it. I am also so very tired of politics. Not just this contest, but all of it. I am tired of this dreadful, ugly world.

Today I feel angry and disillusioned. I am sick of activism. I am furious that living in this world that is not made for me takes so much effort. I do not want to put in the effort to only receive scraps in return. I am so fucking furious that I spend every day of my life begging to be viewed as a whole, worthy human being, knowing that I may live to grow old and never be treated that way, not by everyone.

It is possible that in three years time I will have completed a PhD in law, human rights law to be specific. Human rights law concerning disabled people. Today I am asking myself what is the point? What is the point of the paper I will write, carefully organised into chapters, years and years of research. Years of love and care and rage and stress and desperation that something will change. But it will not change.

I have spent my entire life fighting. I am absolutely exhausted from every tiny interaction turning into a stand off. Every little request becoming a demand. See me. Give me my rights. Let me be a part of this, of something, of anything. I never get to switch off because if I do, I will not get anywhere. If I am complacent, people will exclude me without a second thought. And once that happens once it will happen again. I demand to be seen and included and valued, or at least for people to pretend to value me. But these constant, necessary demands have left me drained. I do not get to rest though, because if I do what will happen next?

I fought to study a masters degree. I fought the Student Loans Company and won when they violated my right to access their application as others do. I fought to access lecture materials, often putting in hours of my own time to try and adapt them using the software I had. I fought to receive the adjustments I was entitled to. And when I finally graduated, I was ignored and discriminated against at my own graduation ceremony, so now I must fight again to get some kind of justice.

All I see in the news is disgust. Disgust for anyone who is other. Disgust for those of us born without money lining our pockets. It makes me angry. It makes me burn inside; it is a blaze that cannot be put out, eating me up with every day that passes. Because it is not just the news. It is not just politicians. It spills over beyond a channel I can switch off and ignore. It is everywhere.

But I keep being loud and demanding. There is a chance that it may come to something, that one day disabled people won’t have to fight so much. It is that little bit of hope that keeps me going. Hope, and disappointment. Because I did not have that life. From the moment I was born I had to prove to the world that they should take me seriously. Is it such a crime to want an easy life? To want for more?

The prospect of doing this for the rest of my life and perhaps seeing no return, or worse, seeing us slip backwards, is utterly demoralising. If I hear one more person tell me to engage in self-care I may actually scream. Because what will that do? Absolutely nothing. It is a little plaster on a gaping wound.

Tomorrow I will keep on with this work. But today all I have is anger that I even need to do it.