Like Me 

Women have suffered in this life.

In the 17th Century, the English playwright William Congreve coined a phrase we have used to this very day about a woman suffering; a fictional suffering, and in many ways today, more of a historical woman than fictional to be sure, but in so many ways, a woman still existent and alive today. The play was “The Mourning Bride” and line:

“Heav’n has no Rage, like love to Hatred turn’d
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.”

You must be reading this and going, “Drat, another drab feminism-esque article” but bear with me a little bit, otherwise, here is a fun article for you to read and have a good day. I want to talk about something you most definitely see around you, probably feel in yourself, and have heard through words- whether through your own or that of others.

If you bobbed your head to Alanis Morisette’s, “You ought to know” or still have Taylor Swift’s “TTPD” on repeat, you might have a better idea of the point I am trying to make. It’s about females for sure. But I think, it’s more about our culture within ourselves and by that, I mean all of our ourselves; because it’s the same movement Kurt Cobain also fuelled with “Smells like Teen Spirit.” So, first chill your boys- versus-girl rhetoric. I am not going in that direction either.

Growing up, I surmised, and in so many ways was conditioned to believe that whining about how inopportune it was to be a woman, was a thinking that exhibited  the likeness of a benevolent nature it had nothing to do with. Feminists were always the silent warning, blaring with the nuances of a failed maturity and required development of a female within her society. She was a dangerous, bitter, societal rebel perpetuating a dangerous and unnecessary counterculture; a cancer that didn’t know it was an abnormality? An angry emotional woman? Yes, and Yuck.

The strength of a woman has never been in dispute. With whatever women have gone through, be it a blessing or a struggle- the great emotional energies that were either a Tsunami of direction and determination, or a nuclear implosion of surging fury and brokenness we can definitely, agree that in every single such circumstance, there has always been shown what was already there- strength. However, the ways that  strength is  affirmed and acknowledged has always been predetermined and already qualified like a river commanded to gush in only one direction even after the heaviest rains have fallen. Women have been a commanded sort of thing, constantly conditioned to leave the matters of the generals to the generals when it comes to being.

Therefore at 29, in forceful capitulation, I have to make sense of my life in a very new way. As the pastors, motivational speakers and academic laureates assured us that the choices we made then, made the futures we would have later on, and that their testimony and attestation was credible to this end, I really was the wide-eyed credulous child drinking it all in. What I realise now is that some things were left out; like how it is important to be all of myself, even if some realities of that aren’t as demure and cutesy; and now, even if somehow I find myself today to be the random river with bursting banks and diverging straits, or the anomaly in the rest of my community and for sure something very akin to those dangerous, bitter, societal rebels, that encouragement to go out and be and change the world isn’t suddenly negated, is it?

Our existence and by that, I mean all of it; every breath, every action, every thought, every word is a chance for us to speak the life and joy and fulfilment in the existence of others and ourselves, its implications, the resulting responsibility and obligations; and most of all a celebration of all this that meshes us into the type of species that we are. The same impulse Archimedes had to run through the streets naked shouting “Eureka”, is a rather simple similarity to  a rage filled soliloquy. Every emotion through us demands to be felt. The good ones that we celebrate and glorify, as well as the ugly ones.

A friend of mine jokes that for a 29-year-old, I am rather “experienced” with life. With all these experiences  has come the good, the bad and the ugly. I have felt joy, gladness and the blessing of being. But as you would have it, there has been this bitterness and rage against the  very literal machine. There I am suddenly as an artist, sitting down to pour out of myself at the piano in songwriting and that’s all I have to offer. I suddenly find myself wondering if these feelings still have me staying true to the object of speaking life and joy and fulfilment in the existence of others? Right there and then, I often wonder how acceptable it is to let the world know or even imagine that I am or can be an angry emotional female.

I realise that privatising the true authenticity of my takes on life experiences to only that which is more seemingly palatable is a form of that self-destruction. Even if it means I might  automatically be deemed a rotten apple that warped the used of education in themselves by the intake of too much information, not to mention abusing the space and freedom of reformative thought, encouraged through education; all because I can express all of me, the catharsis moves me on to something else.

Many of us assume the encoded and perfectly practiced expression of nonchalance and impassivity when going through it, and many of us if not all of us, have gone through it. Maybe because it is difficult to feel “safe” and “accepted” expressing some of these ugly emotions we decide to repress them? Maybe even these feelings could inspire us to stand up and speak, or to sit down and write and say,  and to wrack our brains and finally think and cognise. Isn’t that our function as sentient things? Maybe this is the function of these emotions?

Bambi, listen to your pastors because Jesus is coming back; but the thing I am realising now is firstly that, it is possible to be all of myself. Secondly, I am realising how healthy it is to be all of me, even the parts of me raging against societal expectations and inner dissonance. I have learned that self-denial is a self-destruction. You tick and tock like a time bomb. It must come out and be expressed. The feminists must rage for a time, to be. The acceptance of that very specific type of Frankenstein’s monster must be allowed to rage for the same reason we celebrate the acceptable and less antagonising sort of woman.

I might be the poster child for growing up to become the ultimate adult fixer upper, but the reality is that there are some things life has handed us, and the only thing left to validly express, is a version of dramatic monologue. I can real assure you that there are some things no one has gone through Like Me. Maybe artistically I can fetishize some of that, the same way I have always done- descriptively and emotionally in the music you hear from me and know from me as an artist. Maybe because of what I feel when I express that no one has gone through it like me, my advocacy burns more distinctly against any injustices I can relate to? Or maybe as Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie says, when you look into my bag of ***** to give, there are just none now and now I have the random courage to stand up on the roof top and assure everyone that no one has gone through it LIKE ME because I can now finally allow my rage to be valid, and so, I can let it go? Maybe this is the blessing of my rage?

Whether male or female, the point is, as pyscho-social beings, we feel, we hope, we long for and when we are stifled in our feeling, when our hopes are dashed, when we are denied, we despair and we rage. The imposition of nobility and a prim-and-proper approach for some of these emotions therefore and especially female rage, is lacking a bit of persuasion.

A function of my anger: to rage.

A function of my rage: to feel.

A function of my feeling: to be.

So, if you needed the indirect permission; if you needed to have a console and know you aren’t alone regarding some of the thoughts I have spewed, there you go.

So, I shall assure y’all and let you all know, “No one went through it like me…” But it is tiring to rage, to burn and to radiate feelings so unusual and different from what we hope to feel. After the rage has burned through us, leaving ashes where fury once raged, there comes a moment of stillness—a moment where we realize that healing does not demand that we forget or erase the fire.

Healing begins with acknowledgment, a recognition of the wounds left behind, and the way they have shaped us. This is not to glorify the pain, but to give it a place, a chapter in the story. We cannot move forward by pretending the storm did not rage, but rather, we must walk forward with the knowledge that we survived it, that we are still standing in its aftermath, scarred but alive.

This is where healing begins: in the acceptance of what was, so we can start to imagine what can be.

Healing, then, is not a passive state of waiting for the universe to piece us back together. It is an active process of rebuilding ourselves with intention and tenderness. It is learning to breathe in moments of peace without feeling the weight of guilt or expectation.

We rebuild by giving ourselves permission to experience joy, however fleeting it may seem at first. We stitch ourselves back together, thread by thread, by reclaiming our narratives, by choosing new paths, and by nurturing the parts of us that were neglected in the chaos. It is slow, sometimes imperceptible work, but with each step, we reclaim our right to live fully, to love wholly, and to be unapologetically ourselves.

And so, we begin to heal.

Not because we have been restored to some former version of ourselves, but because we have transformed into something new—something stronger, something wiser, something more compassionate. Healing is not a return to what was; it is the creation of what will be. And in this new state, we find that the anger that once consumed us now serves as a reminder of our resilience, rather than a weight we carry. We learn to release it, not out of defeat, but because we understand that we are no longer defined by it. We are defined by our ability to rise, to rebuild, and to move forward with grace, knowing that healing is not the end of the journey, but the beginning of a new chapter—one where we own our power, our softness, and our story.

Even though the anger feels like a necessary shield right now—something that has kept me standing, kept me fighting—there’s a quiet voice within me that’s starting to believe there’s more.

Maybe this is the first sign that I’m on the edge of something new? I don’t have to rush it but knowing that healing could be the next step is a small light in the distance.

There’s a part of me that isn’t ready to let go of that defence, to stop burning with that raw energy. But there’s also another part, maybe a smaller one, that’s whispering that this can’t be the whole story.

That maybe, just maybe, there’s something beyond the rage that’s worth exploring.

I am learning that raging, in its own way, is a form of healing too. It’s the rawest expression of everything I’ve held inside, everything that was silenced or ignored. In allowing myself to rage, I’ve given a voice to my pain, my frustrations, and my deepest wounds.

There’s a release in that—a purging of the weight that’s been bearing down on me for so long. Every time I let that rage out, it makes room for something else, something lighter. It’s as if the act of raging is clearing a path, even if I don’t fully see it yet.

The fire of my anger isn’t just about destruction; it’s about burning away what no longer serves me, what’s kept me bound. And in that clearing, healing has the space to grow.

So, in a way, the rage isn’t separate from healing—it’s the first step, the necessary release, that will eventually lead me there.

So yes:

A function of my anger is to rage.

A function of my rage is to feel.

A function of my feeling is to be heal.