Oh, I am fucking there. The menopausal rage is real. I don’t have outbursts. Maybe I should, but the burning rage at the fucking injustice, misogyny, and inequality makes me want to spit fire.
I was taught to repress my anger, so much that it turned to sadness. Sad Lisa, they said when they saw photos of me as a kid.
Thanks for writing about your experiences. It’s discussions we need to have because once, they’d just burn us.
So true! My biggest hope for my daughter is that she'll be able to claim and be all of herself in a way most of the women who've gone before her have not been allowed to be!
This has really resonated and given me a lot to think about. As a mother of teenagers, the anger brought about through hurt and a want for them to achieve their potential in happiness and dreams is hard to control. As a social worker working with some young people who have no knowledge of how to manage their anger and why it is present (often directing it at us because we do care) I am angry at myself and the system for letting them down. As a working parent who has never asked for anything from her employers and who always gives as much as she can, I am angry that I have to pay £173 a month to buy extra annual leave to take my son to appointments. These are just the everyday things I am angry with, the issues going on in the world are another level. I am going to think this over, re-read your words and order Hagitude.
I think you'll love Hagitude, it's a great book! I also so massively feel for teenagers in today's world - there's so much anger at that age anyway, what with all the hormonal changes and trying to figure out who you are, then on top of that they've been left such an impossible task in making their way in the world!
I have been tempted by it for a wee while so this has confirmed I do need to read it. Absolutely, there is so much coming at them all the time, scary news, "perfect" lifestyles etc. My husband is a secondary teacher and he says the changes in these generations coming up are frightening .
I wrote recently about all the ways I order my life to avoid being angry in my son's proximity, not really at him but I think that'd be the only way he could understand it (https://vitaincognita.substack.com/p/placing-the-guardrails). I'm trying to figure out places in my life where my anger can be more enlivening, more like fuel to get to where I want to go as a mother. Thanks for normalizing the fact of our rage as a natural response to what we encounter daily; helps me remember I'm not always overreacting.
I’ve always repressed my anger. It’s an emotion that I have a really hard time releasing. I go into freeze mode most of the time, overwhelmed and tearful . I wrote about it on Substack before, in poetry form. Like you, I’m also a Scorpio, half Italian half English, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve lost my temper. I’m 63! When I did lose it, it wasn’t pretty and I was so exhausted I had to go to sleep. I process my anger through writing, and sometimes I scream in the car when I’m alone! I wrote a piece yesterday which is angry though, about the rise and rid of fascism, and the assholes in power, and I’m proud of it (We are all Beyond the Thunderdome). I found motherhood hard, and now they are both grown up, and some aspects get easier of course, but others still do your head in and worry you to death. And yes, we have a lot of be angry about, and it’s not going to get any better soon, which is basically what I just wrote about, and we need to do something but I don’t know what. Great post,Allegra. And you have a gorgeous name. xx
Ahh thank you! I was very nearly called Francesca until my mum had a last minute change of mind! 😊 I don't think you're alone, by a long shot, at struggling to release anger. We're just never taught, or given permission, to do it. I know mine flares up, but it's usually at unhelpful times, and I think it's because my ADHD removes the impulse control that would otherwise keep it suppressed. And I often struggle to recognise when I'm angry at first, which means I get frustrated and upset and tired without knowing why. I feel like there needs to be so much more education around anger. I know they teach emotional literacy in schools now, but it still seems to be focused on calming it - so getting rid of it - rather than understanding it and processing it, which is what we really need.
I’ve screamed in the car before, very loudly down the motorway at the same time as hitting my steering wheel repeatedly. I’ve never felt so much anger erupt and explode before. I had no idea that was I was angry about had filled me with so much of it. I was so glad noone else was in the car!
I've just started reading 'Women are angry' by Jennifer Cox (only this morning, so only on Chapter 2) and have literally just written a post about anger on LinkedIn about it too. So this article? Expresses amazingly the anger I am (lots of us) are grappling with. Thank you!
Ahhhh sacred rage… I didn’t know it fully until I became a mother. I have much to say about this amazing piece, but I’m also exhausted and don’t have the capacity to type it all out. So I will simply say, I see your anger as transformative power and I think you are channeling it beautifully towards change in the world. Everything you wrote I felt so seen by, especially the part on motherhood. I have been very much navigating this all recently as I’m on the receiving end of pretty unpleasant words and behaviour and a ‘supposed’ to just ‘take it’! I often think if anyone else treated me the way my children do I would cut them from my life!!! But equally in helping normalise anger in themselves it is healing parts of me and teaching me so much. There is much to be angry about and if we didn’t have this fire I don’t think there would be as much creativity and expression in the world. I need to get my hands on Hagitude! Thank you Allegra xxx
Thank you lovely! I see you - it's so flipping hard, and you are doing amazingly, not just in motherhood but in so much that you give to the world. And yes, I think trying to make space for my daughter's anger and resisting the impulse to urge her to just suppress it is helping me grow. But it's not easy! I guess growth never is.
Thanks Allegra, you have reminded me that I am furious too! It is an emotion that I didn’t feel anywhere near as strongly until I became a mother. Perhaps because I hadn’t experienced the patriarchal construct of motherhood which has sparked many realisations. I remember attending a maternal rage seminar in very early motherhood but tbh I hadn’t felt even one percent of it at that point. Like you, anger rises when I feel unseen and undervalued (oh and also when I am being screamed at/hit/kicked by small children…!) and I think the unseen/undervalued are fury-inducing themes that exist in both my daily life as a mother and also in the wider context of mothering in a patriarchal society. Arghggg so angry but also glad to feel and care xx
Really honest, open piece and wow, so very well said! I’ve often said, I don’t get angry and fill with rage and I can testify to actually seeing red. I do believe that rage is important and a woman’s rage is a massive point of fear for the patriarchy. This is something I’ve spoken about on my podcast as well in my discussions on perimenopause and narrative and something I will continue to delve in with the next few episodes on feminism! Thank you for writing this piece.
For what it's worth, the truth of my own experience is that if I create a space to sit with my anger, my sacred rage, and I recognize, "it's like this," it transforms into strength. And if I sit with any hate that may arise, if I contain it, and recognize 'hate is like this,' it transforms into power. And I subscribe to Thich Nhat Hahn's assertion that the one right use for power is to help to alleviate suffering in oneself and others. may this serve the evolution of consciousness that's happening all over the world right now♥️🙏🕊️
Oh I hear you. I found the sources of my rage through becoming a mother. I find viewing this process through the lens of patriarchal motherhood so helpful - for shining a light on the tough terrain we mother in and how we can free ourselves from its chains.
I am so angry so often. I started with perimenopause at the relatively early age of 37, and now at nearly 44 the embers of the fire are still there, but I am tired. So tired.
We really are not supposed to talk about how difficult parenthood is, and yet we are. Which, I think, may be part of why many of Gen Z are choosing a different path. The world simply isn't set up to ease your way when you become a parent. I have long conversations with my brother, who is a low middle earner supporting three daughters. He loves them, yes, but he is not finding as much joy in it as he has hoped, and an awful lot of stress and worry cloud his days. I feel lucky to only have one whenever I speak to him.
Sorry I missed your comment at first! I totally hear you. It is so tiring and draining. Like you say, so many young people are choosing different paths now, and the world is panicking about it, so society might have to start to figure out how to fix the problems people are facing if it doesn't want serious issues in future!
While you felt "unseen in motherhood" and that stoked your anger, for me, I felt overlooked by the world itself, which pushed me to create a space for myself. I don’t have children, not because I didn’t want them, but because I knew, from my own childhood, I couldn’t bring a child into an unhealed world carrying the weight of my own unhealed wounds. I had to raise myself first, become my own parent, so I could fully be me—as a writer, as a creator, and as someone capable of growth.
Thank you for your powerful piece, Allegra! It so resonates!
I wrote a piece called I am f*cking angry too! I also saw Sharon blackie speak in feb and bought her book - huge fan!❤️🔥
My anger surfaced on the back of chronic illness and the monumental healing journey that took me on. Eventually a year long deep dive into learning emotional regulation (the aspect that took me beyond what is medically believed possible).
Anger was the last to surface.
I had so much anger come up at being suppressed for so long, so much anger over past traumas, so much anger over the medical system not teaching about all that which has long since been known about.
I am also the most deeply triggered when I do not feel seen, heard or witnessed. When there is no space for me.
I’ve been really fortunate to have the space thrust upon me so that I can do this work, the opportunity for which I now see as a gift🙏🩵 yet, still the work continues on. But at least my health improves as it does.
I’m yet to read Unwell Women, I’ve heard that will bring up a lot of rage so I’m biding my time after the last read “All In My Head” by Paula Kamen.
Oh I will check out your post! There are so many books I want to read that I'm putting off because I know they'll make me furious! Maybe I need to put some time aside in a beautiful location to settle in for some rage reading!
I have been contemplating an oracle deck for some time now, and looking at yours gives me ALL THE FEELS! Really hope it comes to fruition 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
As for anger... Whoooah that's a kettle of boiling water. Righteous anger can be my undoing since with too many buttons pressed I am very likely to tip into burnout. I want to do good in the world, but I have to keep reminding that it cannot all be on me to fix. My helium hand is my undoing! I've learnt that when I overcommit, especially on causes, it's a powerful signal that I'm actually close to collapse ("so much needs doing, it's all important to me, I'll volunteer!"... And now I'm in bed in total meltdown and even less good is being done 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️).
Nevertheless there is MUCH to be angry about. And much that NEEDS doing. Humanity cannot go on as we have. The injustices are too awful to tolerate, facilitate, ignore...
Ahh thank you! I hope it does too. I actually just really want a deck of cards for myself! 😆
And I so relate - I get completely paralysed thinking about all the things that need to be done, and either try to do too much or just get overwhelmed and don't do anything at all. I'm trying to remind myself to just find one thing and start where I can. But it's not easy!
Phwoooar 🔥 this is so good and so timely, Allegra! I resonate deeply with everything you say here. I’m Sicilian on my father’s side (a fact I only discovered when I was about 16). Everyone thought this accounted for my spicy temper. Yes to the Catherine Wheel! I learned through therapy to recognise that tiny moment between stimulus and response (it honestly used to feel like I was possessed with no control over what I said or did in a moment of white hot rage), and now I can usually take a deep breath and channel my anger in more constructive ways. SAYING THAT, there is a lot to feel angry about right now and I feel that rage of motherhood deeply - I appreciate you not saying “but I wouldn’t change it for the world” cos god I struggle with that need to book-end my mummy rage with that disclaimer too. You are right - it is FUCKING hard and a lot of it is thankless, monotonous and infuriating. Here to fuck shit up with you!
Oh, I am fucking there. The menopausal rage is real. I don’t have outbursts. Maybe I should, but the burning rage at the fucking injustice, misogyny, and inequality makes me want to spit fire.
I was taught to repress my anger, so much that it turned to sadness. Sad Lisa, they said when they saw photos of me as a kid.
Thanks for writing about your experiences. It’s discussions we need to have because once, they’d just burn us.
So true! My biggest hope for my daughter is that she'll be able to claim and be all of herself in a way most of the women who've gone before her have not been allowed to be!
This has really resonated and given me a lot to think about. As a mother of teenagers, the anger brought about through hurt and a want for them to achieve their potential in happiness and dreams is hard to control. As a social worker working with some young people who have no knowledge of how to manage their anger and why it is present (often directing it at us because we do care) I am angry at myself and the system for letting them down. As a working parent who has never asked for anything from her employers and who always gives as much as she can, I am angry that I have to pay £173 a month to buy extra annual leave to take my son to appointments. These are just the everyday things I am angry with, the issues going on in the world are another level. I am going to think this over, re-read your words and order Hagitude.
I think you'll love Hagitude, it's a great book! I also so massively feel for teenagers in today's world - there's so much anger at that age anyway, what with all the hormonal changes and trying to figure out who you are, then on top of that they've been left such an impossible task in making their way in the world!
I have been tempted by it for a wee while so this has confirmed I do need to read it. Absolutely, there is so much coming at them all the time, scary news, "perfect" lifestyles etc. My husband is a secondary teacher and he says the changes in these generations coming up are frightening .
I wrote recently about all the ways I order my life to avoid being angry in my son's proximity, not really at him but I think that'd be the only way he could understand it (https://vitaincognita.substack.com/p/placing-the-guardrails). I'm trying to figure out places in my life where my anger can be more enlivening, more like fuel to get to where I want to go as a mother. Thanks for normalizing the fact of our rage as a natural response to what we encounter daily; helps me remember I'm not always overreacting.
I’ve always repressed my anger. It’s an emotion that I have a really hard time releasing. I go into freeze mode most of the time, overwhelmed and tearful . I wrote about it on Substack before, in poetry form. Like you, I’m also a Scorpio, half Italian half English, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve lost my temper. I’m 63! When I did lose it, it wasn’t pretty and I was so exhausted I had to go to sleep. I process my anger through writing, and sometimes I scream in the car when I’m alone! I wrote a piece yesterday which is angry though, about the rise and rid of fascism, and the assholes in power, and I’m proud of it (We are all Beyond the Thunderdome). I found motherhood hard, and now they are both grown up, and some aspects get easier of course, but others still do your head in and worry you to death. And yes, we have a lot of be angry about, and it’s not going to get any better soon, which is basically what I just wrote about, and we need to do something but I don’t know what. Great post,Allegra. And you have a gorgeous name. xx
Ahh thank you! I was very nearly called Francesca until my mum had a last minute change of mind! 😊 I don't think you're alone, by a long shot, at struggling to release anger. We're just never taught, or given permission, to do it. I know mine flares up, but it's usually at unhelpful times, and I think it's because my ADHD removes the impulse control that would otherwise keep it suppressed. And I often struggle to recognise when I'm angry at first, which means I get frustrated and upset and tired without knowing why. I feel like there needs to be so much more education around anger. I know they teach emotional literacy in schools now, but it still seems to be focused on calming it - so getting rid of it - rather than understanding it and processing it, which is what we really need.
I’ve screamed in the car before, very loudly down the motorway at the same time as hitting my steering wheel repeatedly. I’ve never felt so much anger erupt and explode before. I had no idea that was I was angry about had filled me with so much of it. I was so glad noone else was in the car!
I've just started reading 'Women are angry' by Jennifer Cox (only this morning, so only on Chapter 2) and have literally just written a post about anger on LinkedIn about it too. So this article? Expresses amazingly the anger I am (lots of us) are grappling with. Thank you!
Ooh I'm adding that to my reading list!
Ahhhh sacred rage… I didn’t know it fully until I became a mother. I have much to say about this amazing piece, but I’m also exhausted and don’t have the capacity to type it all out. So I will simply say, I see your anger as transformative power and I think you are channeling it beautifully towards change in the world. Everything you wrote I felt so seen by, especially the part on motherhood. I have been very much navigating this all recently as I’m on the receiving end of pretty unpleasant words and behaviour and a ‘supposed’ to just ‘take it’! I often think if anyone else treated me the way my children do I would cut them from my life!!! But equally in helping normalise anger in themselves it is healing parts of me and teaching me so much. There is much to be angry about and if we didn’t have this fire I don’t think there would be as much creativity and expression in the world. I need to get my hands on Hagitude! Thank you Allegra xxx
Thank you lovely! I see you - it's so flipping hard, and you are doing amazingly, not just in motherhood but in so much that you give to the world. And yes, I think trying to make space for my daughter's anger and resisting the impulse to urge her to just suppress it is helping me grow. But it's not easy! I guess growth never is.
Thanks Allegra, you have reminded me that I am furious too! It is an emotion that I didn’t feel anywhere near as strongly until I became a mother. Perhaps because I hadn’t experienced the patriarchal construct of motherhood which has sparked many realisations. I remember attending a maternal rage seminar in very early motherhood but tbh I hadn’t felt even one percent of it at that point. Like you, anger rises when I feel unseen and undervalued (oh and also when I am being screamed at/hit/kicked by small children…!) and I think the unseen/undervalued are fury-inducing themes that exist in both my daily life as a mother and also in the wider context of mothering in a patriarchal society. Arghggg so angry but also glad to feel and care xx
Really honest, open piece and wow, so very well said! I’ve often said, I don’t get angry and fill with rage and I can testify to actually seeing red. I do believe that rage is important and a woman’s rage is a massive point of fear for the patriarchy. This is something I’ve spoken about on my podcast as well in my discussions on perimenopause and narrative and something I will continue to delve in with the next few episodes on feminism! Thank you for writing this piece.
Thank you, Tamara! And yes, the patriarchy is afraid of female rage, and that should tell us how much power it has!
For what it's worth, the truth of my own experience is that if I create a space to sit with my anger, my sacred rage, and I recognize, "it's like this," it transforms into strength. And if I sit with any hate that may arise, if I contain it, and recognize 'hate is like this,' it transforms into power. And I subscribe to Thich Nhat Hahn's assertion that the one right use for power is to help to alleviate suffering in oneself and others. may this serve the evolution of consciousness that's happening all over the world right now♥️🙏🕊️
Oh I hear you. I found the sources of my rage through becoming a mother. I find viewing this process through the lens of patriarchal motherhood so helpful - for shining a light on the tough terrain we mother in and how we can free ourselves from its chains.
I am so angry so often. I started with perimenopause at the relatively early age of 37, and now at nearly 44 the embers of the fire are still there, but I am tired. So tired.
We really are not supposed to talk about how difficult parenthood is, and yet we are. Which, I think, may be part of why many of Gen Z are choosing a different path. The world simply isn't set up to ease your way when you become a parent. I have long conversations with my brother, who is a low middle earner supporting three daughters. He loves them, yes, but he is not finding as much joy in it as he has hoped, and an awful lot of stress and worry cloud his days. I feel lucky to only have one whenever I speak to him.
Sorry I missed your comment at first! I totally hear you. It is so tiring and draining. Like you say, so many young people are choosing different paths now, and the world is panicking about it, so society might have to start to figure out how to fix the problems people are facing if it doesn't want serious issues in future!
While you felt "unseen in motherhood" and that stoked your anger, for me, I felt overlooked by the world itself, which pushed me to create a space for myself. I don’t have children, not because I didn’t want them, but because I knew, from my own childhood, I couldn’t bring a child into an unhealed world carrying the weight of my own unhealed wounds. I had to raise myself first, become my own parent, so I could fully be me—as a writer, as a creator, and as someone capable of growth.
Thank you for your powerful piece, Allegra! It so resonates!
I wrote a piece called I am f*cking angry too! I also saw Sharon blackie speak in feb and bought her book - huge fan!❤️🔥
My anger surfaced on the back of chronic illness and the monumental healing journey that took me on. Eventually a year long deep dive into learning emotional regulation (the aspect that took me beyond what is medically believed possible).
Anger was the last to surface.
I had so much anger come up at being suppressed for so long, so much anger over past traumas, so much anger over the medical system not teaching about all that which has long since been known about.
I am also the most deeply triggered when I do not feel seen, heard or witnessed. When there is no space for me.
I’ve been really fortunate to have the space thrust upon me so that I can do this work, the opportunity for which I now see as a gift🙏🩵 yet, still the work continues on. But at least my health improves as it does.
I’m yet to read Unwell Women, I’ve heard that will bring up a lot of rage so I’m biding my time after the last read “All In My Head” by Paula Kamen.
https://warriorwithin.substack.com/p/i-am-fcking-angry-how-the-hell-are
Oh I will check out your post! There are so many books I want to read that I'm putting off because I know they'll make me furious! Maybe I need to put some time aside in a beautiful location to settle in for some rage reading!
Rage reading, I love it! I’m in a beautiful location next week, perhaps I’ll take that book with me🤔🙂
It feels like a good way to balance out the vibes!
I have been contemplating an oracle deck for some time now, and looking at yours gives me ALL THE FEELS! Really hope it comes to fruition 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
As for anger... Whoooah that's a kettle of boiling water. Righteous anger can be my undoing since with too many buttons pressed I am very likely to tip into burnout. I want to do good in the world, but I have to keep reminding that it cannot all be on me to fix. My helium hand is my undoing! I've learnt that when I overcommit, especially on causes, it's a powerful signal that I'm actually close to collapse ("so much needs doing, it's all important to me, I'll volunteer!"... And now I'm in bed in total meltdown and even less good is being done 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️).
Nevertheless there is MUCH to be angry about. And much that NEEDS doing. Humanity cannot go on as we have. The injustices are too awful to tolerate, facilitate, ignore...
Thank you for this piece.
Ahh thank you! I hope it does too. I actually just really want a deck of cards for myself! 😆
And I so relate - I get completely paralysed thinking about all the things that need to be done, and either try to do too much or just get overwhelmed and don't do anything at all. I'm trying to remind myself to just find one thing and start where I can. But it's not easy!
Wow. Just wow! 🔥 What a brilliant piece. Thank you for sharing 💜
Thank you! ❤️
Phwoooar 🔥 this is so good and so timely, Allegra! I resonate deeply with everything you say here. I’m Sicilian on my father’s side (a fact I only discovered when I was about 16). Everyone thought this accounted for my spicy temper. Yes to the Catherine Wheel! I learned through therapy to recognise that tiny moment between stimulus and response (it honestly used to feel like I was possessed with no control over what I said or did in a moment of white hot rage), and now I can usually take a deep breath and channel my anger in more constructive ways. SAYING THAT, there is a lot to feel angry about right now and I feel that rage of motherhood deeply - I appreciate you not saying “but I wouldn’t change it for the world” cos god I struggle with that need to book-end my mummy rage with that disclaimer too. You are right - it is FUCKING hard and a lot of it is thankless, monotonous and infuriating. Here to fuck shit up with you!