The purpose of this article is to explore how we might understand "bad feelings" and their place in academic activism. The article begins with a proposition that higher education scholarship reproduces certain habits of thinking about affective practices and their political utility. Often "strong" feelings such as hope, anger, and frustration are associated with political agency, whereas "weak" feelings such as depression, numbness and anxiety tend to be written off as political liabilities. This article draws upon queer and feminist debates on affect in order to disrupt these habits of thought. Rather than rushing to pathologise "bad feelings" as politically useless, this article lingers with them, in order that they might teach us something about the complexity of political practice in the contemporary university. By interrogating affective-political norms, this article hopes to expand the pool of affective resources that may be available for academic activism in the present.