Why I had to unfollow @everydaysexism

If there was a way I new on Twitter of following someone without their posts appearing in my feed, that is what I would do for @EverydaySexism. I had to unfollow them today. I wish I hadn't needed to, because I wholeheartedly support what they are trying to do, their drive to show the world how prevalent sexism still is across our society.

It's just that I find the whole thing triggering. Because so much of what they share has happened to me, and reading those statements brings back all those feelings that I've had to train myself over years to deal with and hide.

**Trigger Warning**

When I was 16 I was walking down the street in Athens, in the middle of a crowd of my friends, and a guy walking in the opposite direction grabbed my chest. I pushed him away. My friends only noticed me pushing him, they questioned what I had done, and when I explained the situation I felt that I was still blamed for my reaction.

That night I had my first panic attack. As an asthmatic from the age of 11 I didn't know what was happening, I felt like I was never going to breathe again. My panic attacks got worse over the next 6 months or so, largely due to a number of other incidents. It's like a blinding white light in your head, the proverbial rabbit caught in the headlights, I'd be unable to function. Like feinting without the loss of conciousness, a complete lack of control over my entire body until something in my head clicked. It's ok now. You can come back.

It's just about a thousandth of that feeling that I get reading the retweets from @everydaysexism, but that's more than I need. I really hope they succeed. That by drawing attention to all these things that are happening in the world around us right now, all these events that are making other people feel just like I did, that we can stop them from happening.

I'm already angry, I'm already frustrated, and I already want to see change. That's why I want to fill my Twitter feed with the solutions and not the problems. I want to be inspired when I log on in the evening, not bogged down in my past emotions.

So if you're not already angry about sexism - follow @everydaysexism. And when the day comes when you feel like you can't see any more reports like the hundreds they retweet every week, do something to stop them.

In the nicest possible way, I want to put @everydaysexism out of business.