In self defence

The most dangerous time is when you say ‘no’. When you try to get out, or run away, or resist the pressure to do as you are told. The time when you call them out for breaking the law. I’ve done it, and I’ve watched others do it. It doesn’t matter if you’re thinking about abusive partners, malevolent companies, bullying bosses, irresponsible landlords… the time they are most likely to seriously hurt you is the point at which you stop going along with their bullshit.

I’ve heard the other stories too, the people who keep their heads down and do as they are told. The ones who accept a change to the rules, and another, and another, until there’s nowhere left to go. The trouble with bullies, in every walk of life, is that the more you acquiesce, the more able they feel to keep doing it to you. Stand up to them and you will incur their wrath, but sometimes, it is possible to win through, get out, get justice.

It’s a pretty terrifying sort of process though. The more we do it, the more we refuse to accept those who would walk over us, the less it happens to other people, too. I keep telling myself this every time I get into one of these fights… it’s not just about me. It’s for the rights of those people who are not able to fight, who are too beaten down already, too abused to realise that what is happening to them is not acceptable.

Here we go again, to the theme music of Professor Elemental’s Fighting Trousers and Talis Kimberly’s Belling the Cat. Anthems for a hard day. Raw, exhausted, running on empty, too tired to work, needing to work. Too tired to fight and having to fight. Forgive the shortness of blog.