Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can subscribe here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.

I’ve been thinking a lot about violence lately. Specifically, what’s stopping me? Bursts of rage and cravings for physical expressions of…you know, hatred explode through my brain like spicy popcorn in random moments. I never know when they’ll happen because they’re typically not triggered by what’s happening outside my brain. My brain itself seems to leak anger at times, and I bear the fairly cruel responsibility of keeping things contained. I am an iron-clad Tupperware, shielding the world from unspeakable destruction. The funny part is you probably think I’m kidding.
Something’s happening that I’m unable to reconcile, and I don’t even know if it’s fair to ask reconciliation of myself. It involves me being a front-facing internet person trying to change dating and singlehood culture for the better while being called “angry” and “bitter” for doing so, versus the actual anger that lives inside my head and has nothing to do with my work at all. These internet idiots are calling me angry for all the wrong reasons, ain’t that a bitch? For years, I’ve kept a lid on things, kind of like trying to wrap my arms around a hot air balloon as it’s being filled. More and more I find this practice exhausting. I think I do it because I assume my anger is wrong. But is it?