Therapy is not just for White people. Let me say it again: THERAPY IS NOT JUST FOR WHITE PEOPLE.
In the two complete years we as a world have been in this pandemic, I can tell you that I have been broken and said, and at a complete loss. From thinking if I could survive this pandemic while being the mother of Black children–Black daughters, at that.
There were many a night where all I could do was cry. I couldn’t believe that my life had come to such a point: divorced, half-broke, no car, and sleeping on the floor again because my bedframe had bedbugs in it. I mean, I had bites from them! One on my arm, and the other on my right ankle. At 38, I couldn’t couldn’t believe this was my life.
There are were times where I could only handle day to day–hour by hour. I cried in the shower because I couldn’t–I didn’t want my daughters to see that their mother was not okay. And I didn’t know if or when I would be okay!
I knew I wasn’t okay–but I went back to what I knew: writing. Like Lin-Manuel Miranda said, in Hamilton, “I wrote my way out.” I had to! I felt that all of me was melting, spinning and I just might die in all that was happening. I mean, I didn’t even have the extra money through sliding scale therapy.
No, that’s not entirely true.
I chose to take care of my kids rather than myself. I chose them, over me. Forgetting that they need me in order to be okay. My mother told me, “If you go down, who do they have?” That held me together. I prayed for strength all the time…needed all that He would give me. Everything was spinning, and I was not okay.
I was not okay.
In looking back on my diary entries from a year ago, I realize how hurt I was. And how badly it hurt! Sometimes the only way to get that out was to cry where no one could see me; not leaving the bed on my days off; emotionally eating; keeping all the lights off when the kids weren’t home. I just wanted quiet–the quiet helped me to rest. Not sleep, but rest.
There is a different pandemic for Black women: being strong at the cost of ourselves. The cure for that is patience and love–the same love we give to the world, we need for ourselves.
The Ideal Firestarter 