This isn’t writing, this is fingers stamping on computer keys with the distracted force of 10 feet in shoes too tight. People often describe moods as clouds, dark and damp, hovering, but I have worn a corset in my life, and that feeling of restriction and breathlessness is a more accurate description. Yeah, I’m in a bad mood, consider this my coming out.

Because such an admission is almost taboo right now, in these days of Blitz spirit and blessings counted, when, after the New York Times described Britain as “reeling” following the terrorist attacks, the correct response was deemed to be a universally dismissive snort. Across the internet, people who wanted to show they were completely fine, actually, shared examples of things that really made them reel, like tea made in the microwave and people who eat KitKats wrong.

The threat level went to critical and down tumbled that famous British humour like an Only Fools and Horses chandelier

And while I enjoy a nice internet joke as much as the next sub-millennial chancer, the absolute denial of emotion, the infuriating tweeness has, if not left me reeling, certainly sent me a little spinny.

It happened too when the official threat level was raised to critical. Down tumbled that famous British humour like an Only Fools and Horses chandelier, with the hashtag #BritishThreatLevels. Lots of jokes about queues and meetings and tea, obviously. “A rail replacement bus service can be found outside the station concourse.” “Unexpected item in the bagging area” #BritishThreatLevels. Call me a joy-sucking, doom-bathing grinch made of rust, but I didn’t get it. There was a genuine threat and people died, and God, the version of Englishness displayed was all about smallness and mundanity. For the people it cheered, lovely. For me, feeling angry, sad, and sometimes scared, along with the roaring reminders that unless we laugh they’re winning, it meant I burrowed away a little deeper.

I dug into the soil of my mood. I got it under my nails. Walking through the world with this mood in my blood is like being born again, you know something nobody else does, the true bitterness of a suburb on a Sunday, the lazy arrogance of a wheeled suitcase. I’ll be trundling through the supermarket when the mood will take me again, encase me in its horrid cuddle. Corsets don’t just make your waist smaller, they compress organs, including, if tightly laced, your heart. You feel a permanent sort of grief, in a corset, as if you’re being dumped every half hour by someone you like.

The worst side effect of Britain’s Keep Calm and Chuckle About Tea mentality, I’m finding, is that it ends up feeling dehumanising, on quite a personal level. You’re not allowed to just feel… pissed off. It lets the side down. To feel annoyed about a bad dinner, because of “Trump”, or to get irritated about lateness, because, Eva, there are bigger problems in the world. In order for life to go on as normal, the thinking is, we all need to be as one. One jolly, amorphous, hashtag-enjoying, stiff-upper-lipped nation, laughing in the face of terrorism as only Brits can. Which leaves very little room for being an individual, with all the fear and pain that implies.

I want to be able to admit to feeling scared at rush hour, even if it’s not rational and there’s more chance of what, being shat on by a poisonous pigeon than being murdered on the Northern Line? I want to be able to say it’s terrifying without being told that simply saying that is playing into the terrorists’ hands. I even get angry about other people’s anger. I get caught in cycles of dick. I see somebody behaving dickishly, which angers me, but then the pile-on of alterna-dicks telling them why they’re wrong, the bonfire of the dicks, angers me even more. I’m sure I’m not alone.

So, if your colleagues make jokes that make you feel empty, join me. If the anxiety of your daily commute fills you up like carbs, join me. If you feel lost in yourself, if yesterday made you sad, if tomorrow makes you nervous, if you’re considering shouting at a stranger on the bus unless he moves his elbow right now, Sir, join me. If all this makes you feel lonely, or hopeless, or simply scared, join me. If you’re down and troubled, and you need a place to scream into a pillow for a very long time, join me. The bad mood club is open.

Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @EvaWiseman