The Invisible Black Woman

Previously, on The Invisible Black Woman…

A dear friend reminded me I have a bunch of unresolved cliffhangers. Reading back the previous posts, I see somewhere between being MIA and Hubbygate, I got majorly sidetracked. If y’all recalled in Just that quick, we were talking all about the first week of IOP. Then nothing. It is a six-week program, so what happened? Did I run for the hills, did I graduate? Well, let’s find out together, shall we?

Last we discussed, I dove into the first few days of IOP, how I was trying my best to get through the sessions without getting pulled too deep into my feelings, or walking off from the sheer annoyance of it all. My last therapy session right before IOP had been heavy, and facing my reality was harder than I anticipated. After opening up about my reluctance to return to work and my fears around what that would mean for my mental health, I left the session feeling raw, unsure of where things were headed. Just in time for IOP the next day…

There I was, trudging into the group room, ready to mentally check out for an hour. It wasn’t that I hated being there—I’m kidding: I absolutely did hate being there. Above all because it was so exhausting. Like, emotionally exhausting. One day I was trying to process life’s mess, and the next, they had me trying to figure out my place among a bunch of strangers who seemed to have more in common with each other than I did.

Madison, the therapist running the first session, greeted us with her usual energy—too chipper for my current mood.

“Let’s go around and share a high and a low from today.”

I’d rather we didn’t.

Annie went first. She shared that she’d been productive, picking up her medication and getting some things done, but that she felt worn down. I nodded along silently, feeling her pain but not quite ready to dive into my own.

Then Adam, the oldest among us, took his turn.

“Low day all around,” he said. He didn’t elaborate much, but honestly, he didn’t need to. It was written all over his face.

When it was my turn, I kept it brief.

“It was a weird day.”

“Weird how? Like how?”

Of course she would ask me that.

“My mood in general, just waiting on hearing on some things. I think I just had a  kind of anxious and maybe more frustrating day—maybe that’s the right term: frustrating.”

“Okay.”

She said it and kept looking at me to continue.

“It ended on a high note. I got some good news right before I came in today, so that’s my highlight.”

I didn’t bother mentioning what that high note was: getting the letter about my leave extension into the new year, giving me a bit of breathing room. I wasn’t ready to unpack all the feelings that news stirred up, so I left it at that.

Madison smiled. “It’s all about how you finish, right?”

Sure, whatever gets you to move to the next victim person.

Once everyone took their turn, she told us what the menu options were for the day: hot potato, song sharing, or songwriting. The majority voted for the last option and I was more than a bit intrigued. As a writer and a poet, I thought this might be not entirely something I would hate doing.

She handed out paper and pens and explained the rules.

“The songwriting, which sounds like maybe a little intimidating.  It’s like, chill songwriting, like basically like a parody. I’ll give you the start of the lyric, and then you just complete the rest of it. And the song would be about whatever you want it to be.”

Okay, I could get with this.

At first, I tried to keep it light—maybe write something funny or random. But the words that spilled out were far from light. Before I knew it, I was writing about regret, lost time, and the overwhelming apathy that had settled in lately. How did we get here? How did this escalate so quickly? It really wasn’t supposed to be that deep.

“Does anyone want to share what they’ve written so far?”

Of course, I wasn’t the first to jump in. Annie shared her piece about identity, which hit deep. She was grappling with her sense of self and the journey of being seen for who she really was. I wasn’t ready to relate to that level of vulnerability just yet, but it was powerful nonetheless.

Then Adam shared a line that struck me: “All the roads are empty, and the lights are off.” His words felt heavy, like they carried years of untold stories. It made me think about the roads I’d been avoiding in my own life.

“Anyone else want to share.”

Before I could say otherwise, my hand shot up. Madison looked as surprised as I was—as did everyone else.

“I started light, but it went dark real fast.”

“That happens more often than you’d think. Okay, so whenever you’re ready. You don’t have to sing the lyrics unless you want to.”

As if.

I took a deep breath, then shared what I wrote.

And all the roads we’re on lead to tomorrow.
And all the lights can signal pain or sorrow.
There are many things I should’ve, could’ve, would’ve done,
But I know that time is now gone.
Because someday, I’m gonna push past my apathy,
And after all, I’m still tomorrow’s baby.

It wasn’t what I expected to write, but it was honest. And the truth was, I was still wrestling with the feeling that I’d wasted too much time—stuck in a place that didn’t appreciate me, not moving forward, and losing sight of who I was. The weight of that realization was overwhelming, but putting it into words somehow made it feel more manageable.

As the session wrapped up, I couldn’t help but reflect on how writing had been my outlet for years. It was ironic, really—I’d tried so hard to avoid my feelings, but here I was, pouring them out in lyrics like I was auditioning for some kind of emotional reality show.

Madison congratulated us on our “songwriting debut,” and we took a break before the next session. I spent most of the break processing what I’d just shared. Writing had always been my way of coping, of making sense of the chaos in my head. But there was something different about doing it in front of a group of strangers—like laying all your cards on the table and hoping no one judges you for the hand you’ve been dealt.

And that’s when it hit me: maybe this was part of the healing process. Maybe this was how I’d finally start to make peace with everything I’d been avoiding. I didn’t have to have all the answers right now.

Dammit, was IOP seeping in!? Is this how it happens? I felt very much like a real-life version of the mind-blown emoji at that moment.

Maybe, just maybe, I was gonna make it through however many more weeks of IOP I had to go.