The Invisible Black Woman

If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you may have noticed that my Saturday posts tend to focus on what happened since I went on a medical leave of absence from work. The in-between posts during the week are a mix of everything else that is happening on top of that, or topics I want to give my $0.05 on. Saturdays will be a continuation of the previous Saturdays. So if you wanna get up to speed on what the T (or topic) is for today, check out last week’s post here. I can’t promise that the non-Saturday posts will be more frequent than once per week, but if the spirit moves, you’ll get more than one.

So with that said, let’s jump on in, shall we?

Talking to Carrie and listening to what she had to share made me feel like we were old friends. And it wasn’t just the fact that she got me as a fellow Black woman. I learned that we shared a similar heritage and upbringing. That alone made me wish we had met under different circumstances. I hope our paths cross again when this is all but a distant memory and we can be friends in real life. I think we’d have a ball.

“Emotional health is not an ethnic trait; it’s a cultural trait. As people who are brave and go into these spaces learn these skills, this is generational wealth that you’re building in this area.”

“I hope so.”

“We can inhabit these spaces too and hold our own. It takes time, but we can be here too.”

I nodded vigorously in agreement. I truly felt like she overstood in more ways than one and you’ll never be able to convince me otherwise.

“So what do you like to do for fun? What brings you joy apart from writing and being a boss?”

That last bit made me poke my chest out proudly more than a little bit.

I told her about some of the things that sparked joy that weren’t work or writing related, and some of the rituals I looked forward to on a weekly basis.

I imagine she was getting me more and more comfortable so she could slip in the next question.

“Now that you’ve been out of work for a bit, what does a typical day look like?”

“My typical day is I get up, read something encouraging, then get to work. I’ll start writing, manage my Facebook page, post content, schedule it out, and then work on promoting my business.”

I wasn’t going to get off that easy. Carrie kept pressing.

“Let’s talk about work a bit. You mentioned that you were being asked to do too much at your job without the appropriate title or compensation.”

“Exactly. It got to the breaking point because it wasn’t just three to five jobs, it was seven jobs at my one job. I was being asked to do things not in my scope, without resources, and I was being exploited. It wasn’t sustainable.”

“So you took a break. Either you make a decision or your body will.”

“Pretty much. Ultimately, it affected my performance in school. I should have taken the semester off, but I thought I could power through. I was distracted and missed due dates. One class really suffered because I turned in good work late. I didn’t want to play the ‘feel sorry for me’ card. I should have said something,” I admitted.

“Sometimes independence can be a barrier to getting what we need.”

Preach.

The “one class” that “really suffered” wasn’t even one of my core classes. It was a damn elective. And not that the class was an easy A, but there was no reason for me to be doing as mediocre as I was doing. But the professor had no tolerance for late work. Like, none. On my final project, she legit graded my paper, showed what I would have gotten had I turned it in on time, then did the minus way too many damn points to show me what happened because I turned it in late. I can’t prove it, but I suspect she got some sadistic pleasure out of it. That’s what I choose to tell myself to feel better.

“Overall, are you in good standing with school?”

“Yes, I’m good.”

“And in school, did you need any assistance with anything?”

“I need to talk to my advisors about moving my schedule around about once a week. They know I’m doing this around my schedule and should be okay with it.”

“Any recent transitions in your life apart from needing to take off work?”

“No, that’s it.”

“Alright, let’s talk about your strengths. What do you have within you that helps you on your journey? Who are you? What keeps you going?”

“I think I’m a survivor. I bounce back for sure. I’ve been through a lot, so it puts things in perspective. I’m a fighter, and I don’t accept ‘no’ or ‘can’t.’ My faith is a big part of who I am. It has helped me survive a lot.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m intelligent. I own that. If I’m doing seven people’s jobs, it’s not just competence that keeps me there. It’s how I think, my perspective, creativity. I like my brain. I like how I see things. I have a good 50 books in my head that I need to put on paper. I like what I’m working with up here,” I said, tapping my head.

“Now, if only the people at the job would see the value.”

“Exactly. My plan was to stay there until I got my doctorate and then leave. But now I’m not so sure.”

“What about some barriers? What’s getting in the way?”

“I recognize that I’m intelligent and unique, but I have a lot of self-esteem issues. I push myself because I put my worth in what I do. It’s something I can control and excel in. But I’m not where I want to be health-wise, and that affects my self-esteem. The rejection from work also affects me, especially the last performance review. It feels like they’re telling me I’m not good at my job, the one thing I thought I was good at.”

“What is a goal you might have for the program, considering your self-esteem and productivity issues?”

“I think it would be great if I didn’t tie my self-worth to things. I want to find value in who I am as a person, not just in what I produce. And I know I have bad eating habits. I’m struggling more than ever with my weight. This is the biggest I’ve ever been. I’d love to feel like I’m making progress.”

“What’s a measurable, achievable goal related to that? Because running two marathons during IOP isn’t realistic.” Carrie said with a smile.

“I feel like during the day, I’m model behavior with eating, but around six or seven o’clock, I start snacking a lot. It’s emotional eating. I go from my everyday disciplined persona to the Tasmanian Devil quick when it comes to my eating in the evening.”

She nodded and let me continue my rant.

“It’s more tied to what I’m feeling in the moment. If I’m having a really bad day, I will snack and drink and eat until I put myself in a food coma and crash.”

“Mm-Hmm. So it’s like, there’s that crappy thing that happened at work again. It’s how you’re coping. It’s not healthy coping.”

Tell me about it.

“It’s about building better coping skills to be able to manage well and seeing food as nourishment rather than this thing that will make me feel better.”

I looked like a bobblehead doll at that point, agreeing with every word.

“Next week we’ll talk about the impact of stress on the body and how it is tied to all these metabolic issues, independent of the mental health.

We talked a bit more about my goals and what would come next as I continued in the program. The time really flew by.

“Guess what? We’re done. So I’ll give you a break before group starts in about 10 minutes or so. So take a break. Go to the bathroom, get some coffee, and then head over to the meeting room.”

And just like that, she managed to burst my little bubble and remind me that while I’d just had hands down had the best session since I started IOP, I still had 3 hours to go of group therapy in T-minus 10 minutes.

Fraggle Rock my life.