Confessions of a libra

Unpalatable | Credit: Here

14.06.25

The term ‘High-Functioning’ is a term used to describe the absence of visible crisis. The problem with this label lies here, health professionals aren’t trying to bridge the gap for outcomes. I have experienced this as a Black woman, where my health professionals never assumed that I had depression or anxiety. Whenever it’s acknowledged, it’s been with minimal assistance and resourcing. Sometimes Black men and women just aren’t believed about our experiences within our own bodies. Especially because our signs of distress don’t mirror conventional white society.

Any society that fails to treat everyone’s mental health equally, cannot be called a fair one. Many Black people have mastered performing being okay, because for generations before us – there was no room for Black people being less than useful to society. Talk therapy has been a problem for me because of the amount of times a therapist has told me I was doing okay. They would ask me about my problem, and when given a chance to speak I would overexplain. I would tell them about the problem, the root of the problem, the reasonable options ahead of me and I would receive back “Well, it sounds like you’re on the right track there!”. Thanks Susan.

All the while my existence is ungrounded as a coping mechanism, I feel numb, I feel like I am being used and abused but lacking the ability to overcome the cycles. This is an experience I have had in workplaces and friendships alike. My ability handle extreme stress, makes people think I should just pick myself up and keep going. There is no accounting for the wear and tear on my mind, and on my ability to continue functioning at this high-level. Worse still, I am very open about my struggles, which means where I should feel safe – I feel unheard.

Many Black women generationally had grandparents, great-parents or older in the lineage, in forced servitude taking care of other people. This attitude that Black women are so strong as not to need anyone, comes also from colonial roots as well as the intentional use of Black women in early media as “Mammies”. We raised White people’s children, weren’t allowed to just have a sick day or a vacation willy nilly. Many Black women globally were raped and forced to have children at the will of their White masters. So now, as time has gone by there is this attitude that Black people have a stronger constitution. As such, they can take whatever is thrown at them. While other people get grace the moment they cry for being accused of throwing microaggressions your way.

My tears are seen as an inconvenience to the daily runnings. My depression an annoyance or treated with little sensitivity. Not once in my years of self advocacy has anyone ever offered me to see a Psychiatrist. And many a Psychologist I have found to be lacking in their one dimensional approach to therapy. I have been failed in one-on-one therapy. I have been failed in couple’s counselling when the therapist contradicted her earlier messaging to ease her ego about the failure of her therapeutic process. I have just been (this week) dropped by a therapist for my demand avoidance and dissociating. So being failed medically is something I am intimately , brutally and keenly aware of.

As the eldest African child, my childhood looked like obligation. Especially in my teenage years. Often I would arrive home and want to crash, but there was a certain amount of hours until my mum was home from work and I was expected to have dinner ready. No was not a complete sentence where elders were concerned, especially as a child. So often, my exhaustion and my feelings were made secondary to what others needed in the home. Times where I wanted to relax I was demanded to do something. Often the bulk of the work. Often blamed when things went wrong because I was the easier scapegoat. The easier child to guilt into apologising and correcting it.

I spent my teenage years in such a deep, dark depression. I kept telling people and being ignored or redirected. I was learning to manage raging emotions spurred by teenage hormones, and swallowing so much rage about the gender disparity I saw everywhere that was already impacting my mental health. I was navigating the memories of sexual assault, while getting retraumatised during that time period, while trying to manage getting good grades because I unashamedly enjoyed it and experiencing a lack of autonomy.

I also grew up under the threat that my non-conformance in the home would be bounds for my being kicked out and abandoned, so that created an extra edge to fights where I stood up for myself. So yes, despite that my attendance was nearly perfect. I even got awarded one time halfway through the year in High School for being one of two people who hadn’t taken a sick day. Once I realised I was being punctual due to trauma but at the expense of myself with everyone already taking liberties – I took my first sick day within a few weeks from that announcement.

I’ve been navigating ruptured cruciate ligament tears in my left leg. The entire experience has been nothing short of excruciating. Especially in the medical system. Since October 25th last year I have been through the following; I have been refused an MRI when I was entitled to it, sent to a Surgeon who took my $300 for 5 minutes of lip service (so I had to get a new one), refused a case manager by Insurance because it was close to Christmas, become a laughing stock by a select-few evil people, been demoted, been treated like scraps, tracked like a fugitive, kicked out of my last place of residence, been backstabbed by someone I looked up to, had to drop my oldest friendship because of betrayal, been pressured to produce/perform while injured prompting legal advice, been cut open for the surgery and have to talk to people about my body on an almost weekly basis.

With all of that, I have people who only want to talk to me to ask when I can be of service again. When can I show up in their face and tap dance like the entertainment monkey that I am. Fuck the cumulative load of my last 8 months injured. This blog has become my lifeline, in a situation that should honestly have never happened to me. I wouldn’t wish it to happen to anyone. As a Black woman I scream and scream about my mental health and society doesn’t care. I have told my bosses, my ex-lovers, my friends new and old. This is the reason I cry when someone shows genuine non-performative empathy with me. I have fought for my brother’s mental health, with the righteous fury it deserved when I felt his own cries for help were being ignored. I know it’s not just me who has this experience. I have many friends who exist in Black and Brown bodies whose pain is simply an unfortunate consequence while the next White person can complain about an aching pinkie and be told to go home and ice it.

Capitalism, White supremacy and the patriarchy are all happy when you show up everyday while overriding your body’s natural inclinations. When you take that pause before calling your boss because you wonder if you go in, maybe it’ll all just be fine by lunch and once it’s lunch it’s basically another 4 hours left and then we do it the day after, then it’s the weekend. Right? That’s normal. I’m sure everyone has a manager who breaks their own back to be at work almost daily. I’m sure more than half of those very same managers have little regard for your pain when they override their own or medicate.

When you choose softness, when you choose a mental health day – you are rebelling being treated like a machine. You are re-asserting your personhood. Yes, it is lonely constantly explaining my mental health and being ignored. But I do it anyway, because I literally have no options. Who will fight for me otherwise? It’s taken a lot of physical illness to get to a place where I can have hard boundaries like I do now. In fact, I still think I overdo before I self-correct. I always have this silent hope that one day I won’t have to fight so hard to be seen. So now, I tell my Physiotherapist I will come to physio as much as I can, but I will not override my body. If I cannot leave the house, I cannot. Sometimes I barely leave my own bed, or my room. I am working through it, in my own way. I’ve had to learn to.

I appreciate when I meet health professionals that care about their job, but as long as they don’t override my own insights about my healing. For some reason it’s radical that I might want to listen to my body on how much is too much exercise or whether my mind needs more nurturance than my body that day. I’ve also become difficult to access when I am healing. This happens naturally when I get into a state like this. It is no one’s fault but I will take offense to being contacted without proper thought or reverence. If I am already distancing myself, you’d better be contacting me because you are being genuine. It’s not enough for you to appease your own ego. I will know if you contact me so you can tick your quota that you asked me how I’m going. People are never as slick as they think they are.

I am asking for help as much as I can, but I just have to wait for a day where I have the emotional will and fortitude to withstand the level of talking and self-advocacy I often need to do for myself. This is exhausting. I have been accepting help where possible. My Leo bestie A.J. came over and helped me clean my room. I feel like I am always running behind so she just helped me feel more human and her care was well and truly noted. The ancestors have been thanked for such a kindness.

My body is the standard to which I measure my readiness, not a to-do list. My healing has never been linear but it’s no less important. If I can have even one therapist read this, and make adjustments to how they are treating their Black patients, then I’ll have done my job. Same for all the other medical professionals. To every woman they praised while ignoring her trembling hands — I see you. To every Black girl they celebrated while secretly starving — I’m with you. We were never meant to ‘function.’ We were meant to be held.