Thanks. I live in an area where I get lots of street harassment when I walk my dog. Mostly it’s just annoying but it builds up to a generalized resentment towards all things male over time if I don’t kinda decompress. Sometimes though, it’s truly hairy situations of threat level, if you know what I mean. So I get the PTSD effect when it gets really bad.

Also for me, not to the point where I’ve felt the need to call the police on someone but from experience, I can relate to how a woman could get to that point though.

I’ve definitely been paranoid though. My dog is female and she reacts to it too. There’s been a recent incident that really rattled Jupiter. I was more annoyed, but she was terrified. She was shaking so bad when we got home.

Weirdly, when the pandemic hit, harassment stopped carte blanche. Maybe not so weirdly, but it felt like it at the time. We had great, leisurely walks. I actually miss quarantine in that regard. But . . . things are back to normal now. Worse, actually. Somebody fired a gun down the street we were walking on while we were out. I don’t think they were shooting at us, just harassing cause they definitely saw us. Some guy threw a fast food bag out a car window at Jupiter and laughed, some guy swerved at us like he was going to hit us (that was really hilarious), and some guy followed us making noises and tossing rocks. That’s just been since the national quarantine lifted. And doesn’t count the general cat calls and whistling, just the over the top stuff.

Seems pretty clear that men have just been spoiling to get out and make sport of us. Glad they’re amused.

Yeah, I’m definitely struggling with hyper awareness right now. I don’t think it’s going to get any better for a long while.