The Invisible Black Woman

When I got home at close to 3 AM, I decided to email work and let them know I wouldn’t be in that day. I’d only been given a single day to “return to work,” which seemed unusually low, but what did I know? So I fired up my laptop, got ready to write my email to let my boss know I wouldn’t be in the next day. The strangest—or maybe not so strange—thing started happening as I sat there formulating what should have been a pretty simple note saying I would be out sick the next day (technically, in a few hours since it was already morning). My heart started beating out of my chest, just like right before when I was slated to meet with my supervisor.

I started and stopped a 3-sentence email for the better part of an hour. Rationally, I had no reason to be alarmed. I was a model employee who had taken sick days only when warranted. I won’t even get into the last time I took a vacation. Well, maybe I will. A 2-week vacation for the first time in 2 years ended in me working for 11 of the 14 days (yes, including weekends). So it was less staycation and more naycation, I guess?

So there I was, trying to write an email and feeling an overwhelming sense of dread. Not because my request was unwarranted, but because of the response I got when I took the “2-week vacation” after 2 years of no vacation. It wasn’t, “I hope you have a great time, it’s well deserved.” The first words out of my boss’s mouth were, “we’re in the middle of Project X.” I should add that the only reason I requested the time off was at the insistence of my mentor, who took one look at me during our last 1:1 and said, “What’s wrong? You don’t look well.” And ended with, “you need to take some time off.” I felt myself very much on the brink of a burnout when I finally decided to take the time off.

Still, I felt guilt, compounded by the response, “but…” All I could muster was, “I’m so tired. I need a break.” There was no empathy, no “you’re right, you do, given your 120-hour biweekly average.” There was just a resigned, “ok.” And perhaps that’s what led me to log on every single day to “check in” with my team, to the point that when it was all said and tallied, I’d taken the equivalent of 3 days off. Three days out of 14 planned.

And the thanks I got? A meeting with my entire reporting line and another department, where there was a whole presentation about me being the single point of failure. Even jabs at me having the sheer audacity to take vacation without “redundancies in place.” Fun fact: I have been saying for 2 years I was the single point of failure. That I needed help. My current workload was not sustainable. Nobody cared. In fact, they only cared when it came down to saving face in front of another division. I got to sit there, 3/14 vacation days later, and hear the subtle and not-so subtle jabs at the failures for being the designated (“shhhh! Don’t tell anyone!”) workhorse. I got to sit there while everyone feigned surprise that having someone do the work of 5+ people for 2 years was doomed to fail.

And the piling on never stopped. It got worse, actually. I found myself on the receiving end of unfavorable feedback. My attempts to challenge it were for naught. And the reward for the audacity to question it? More work. Retaliation. Disdain. Emboldenment. So perhaps it’s no surprise that on the day I learned there would be no recourse for the feedback, I had to meet with my boss 3 times, the first being that morning. Then again that afternoon for an impromptu meeting, then again for an hour with another department.

So in replaying the tape, I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised where I found myself 30 minutes before the second meeting. Or where I found myself at the crack of dawn, trying to formulate what should have been a simple letter. This despite the fact that the ER doctor had given me the day off. Even still, it took everything in me to convince myself that taking a sick day would be ok.

I finally wrote the email, checked it for typos (yes, I checked for typos), then went to bed. My sleeping attempts didn’t get me very far—despite the Zzzquil and Benadryl cocktail I took. So after tossing and turning for a few hours, I finally caved and got out of bed. Since I wasn’t required to provide a doc’s note for being absent a day, I instinctually decided to hold back the note.

I putzed around for the most part that morning, then finally decided to start making some calls on these referrals. First up, cardiologist. The soonest they could see me was in 2 weeks, so I went ahead and scheduled that appointment. Then it was time for the other one.

The idea that I survived 11 months with an abusive, alcoholic father—with little food—yet here I was about to make an appointment for behavioral health because “my boss was mean to me,” seemed so absurd to me. The level of malnutrition I experienced those 11 months with my father was so bad the doctor marveled I was still alive. Yet here I was, in need of behavioral health services because of work. It sounded so far-fetched and fantastical in my head. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it no matter how hard I tried.

I decided to stop overanalyzing and schedule an appointment. After a few tries, I figured out that the assessment center I needed to go to did not take appointments, only walk-ins. As long as I got there an hour before they closed, I’d be okay. So I made a note to go there on Friday. I worked pretty early hours, so I figured leaving work around midday should be all right. I could always make up the time later.

Yep, believe it or not, I still thought I’d be back to work the next day, just like the ER doctor said. Somewhere along that day, my body had other ideas. The more the clock inched closer to tomorrow, the more my heart began to gallop. I periodically glanced at my Apple Watch. It fluctuated wildly between 90 and 131 beats per minute, and other equally wild spikes in between. The chest tightness, the trouble breathing, it was all rushing back. And I was just sitting looking out the window, thinking about what I’d be facing the next day.

Right around 5 PM, I decided I couldn’t go back to work the next day—or the rest of the week. It seemed an impulsive decision and one I definitely made because I felt like I was in the flight end of fight or flight. I just wasn’t ready. So I took the rest of the day to just focus on me. I reached out to my primary doctor, and decided my email breaking the news to work could keep until later.

I sent my “out the rest of the week” email that evening and got an eerily instant response from my boss. There was no, “sorry you’re not feeling well.” It was a “thanks for your prompt update, let me turn you over to HR for any ‘accommodations’ you may need.”

The response seemed like such an unwarranted escalation, not to mention insincere. She was handing me off while putting me on notice that this would now be turned over to HR. I was no longer her problem and she couldn’t be bothered to even know or care if I was ok.

The next day, having not heard from my doctor the day before, I decided to do a telehealth visit to extend my sick leave. I got on a virtual call with a “delightful” doctor who told me it wasn’t about whether I was ready to go back to work. I didn’t know what to say to that. Begrudgingly, he wrote me a note and said I could go back that Monday “without restrictions.” I didn’t know how someone who’d barely spoken to me for 5 minutes could decide I could go back to work without any restrictions.

Mercifully, my primary care physician got in touch. I was able to do a consult and send him all my paperwork. I even managed to tell him what I was feeling at that moment. He said, very matter of factly, “sounds to me like you need a new job.” I laughed. But I don’t think I was really listening at the time. Maybe my brain wasn’t ready to process what he was saying.

He looked over my ER discharge notes, and decided I needed to have a full battery of tests done. And he ordered for me to go on leave for 30 days. Thirty days. This to the person who couldn’t manage to take 14 days. He wanted to cover all bases before signing off on me going back.

I think deep down, my soul was glad. My brain went into a bit of a panic. How would I break the news? What would this mean? What would I do? What would they say? What about my job? Would they take me back?

I even thought of holding back the note and just seeing “how I did” and how I felt on Monday. The crippling symptoms that came in surges said otherwise. I decided to spend the rest of the week just trying to keep calm and not stress out about work. Even though I knew I’d gotten a note ordering me to take a month off and focus on figuring out what was wrong, I decided to wait until Monday. Surely by then I’d turn the corner and this would just be one big misunderstanding.

The weekend came and went and every time I thought about going back to work, the anxiety and fear came rushing back in. I realized that there was no way I was in any condition to be at work and that my doctor might actually be onto something.

So that Monday, I sent my note to HR and asked them what I should do since I hadn’t told my boss. And oh, could they do me the favor of keeping the reason confidential? My doctor had written broad strokes on my note, but more than I cared to share with a person who had little interest in my wellbeing. They were super awesome and directed me to what I should do next.

So I submitted my paperwork as requested, and I signed off for 2 entire days. I deleted the Outlook app from my phone. I removed all work-related apps from my iPad. And I completely shut down my laptop. I wanted to see what life could be like when I completely and deliberately unplugged from work and focused on my health.

I finally bit the bullet and planned my assessment for that Friday. Now that my leave of absence was official, it was no longer a matter of just seeing “what happened.” I had documents to submit so my short-term disability could be approved. So I promised myself I would leave no stone unturned. No matter how terrifying or how dreadful, I was going all in…

The stigma around mental health in Black households—especially religious ones—is incredible. You’re not depressed, you have a spirit. Prayer and anointing will fix it. In fact, if Jesus can’t fix it, there’s something wrong with you. That is the burden of growing up in a Black, churchgoing household. Growing up as a Black woman? Ooof. We are strong. We are beasts of burden. We carry not just the world, but the universe and entire galaxies.

And here I was, feeling like I was broken. But not in a typical sense where one isn’t well and needs help. I felt defective. I failed at being a Black woman and I should hand in my Black card immediately. And having the audacity to be a Black Caribbean woman? I began to question my lineage. This wasn’t supposed to happen to someone like me. Not after all I endured. Not after all I was taught and how I raised. I was unbreakable. I was resilient. I was mighty. I was Black woman magic. I was… mentally deficient? Impossible.

I spent the better part of that week grappling with who I was supposed to be and who I was in that moment. And I couldn’t make the two parts match. I felt like a fraud. Like I’d let down my ancestors. My race. My family. My husband. Myself. I found the following questions playing on repeat in my head, What’s wrong with you? Why are you this weak? How is this the thing that breaks you? Over and over and over again.

And then the moment of truth finally arrived. The day I was to have my head examined by a complete stranger. So off hubby and I went to get me psychiatrically assessed.

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect or even if I should expect anything. All I knew is I was scared. What if they find I’m so broken they admit me and throw away the key? What if they find nothing’s wrong with me and I’m back to square one? What if? What if? What if?

At least as I headed to the center to be assessed, my crippling anxiety had been completely overshadowed by my wondrous ability to think every single thing to its utter death.