I think I can speak for a lot of Black women when I say that 2022 really put me through the ringer. The ongoing trauma of the pandemic combined with an all-out assault on reproductive rights and a never-ending news feed of gun violence across the U.S. (all against a backdrop of climate catastrophe and rising inflation) made for an incredibly difficult year.
Witnessing the new wave of misogynoir, or misogyny specifically directed towards Black women (coined by Black feminist scholar Moya Bailey), fueled by social media algorithms was the so-called “icing on the cake.” By mid-2022, I was completely depleted.
The sad part is, no one could tell from the outside. Besides my partner and my therapist (I started therapy again in March 2022), everyone thought I was fine. I am fortunate enough to work from home, so I would log on to my laptop every day, attend my virtual meetings, cross off my daily tasks, and crawl back into bed once the day had ended. In other words, I was going through the motions of life — but I was depressed.
As is the case for many Black women, because my productivity level hadn’t declined, no one knew that that the pain and rage that had been brewing inside me for months (ok, years) had reached its boiling point. I knew I had to make a drastic change to prioritize my mental health and save my life.
After being encouraged by my therapist, I decided to do something radical. Something I had put off out of fear that everything around me would collapse: I decided to put myself first. (Spoiler alert: Nothing collapsed.)
Instead of pushing myself to just get it together when I felt overwhelmed and “unproductive,” I allowed myself to rest and just be, following guidance from Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry. I withdrew myself from spaces that were draining my energy and joined new communities that breathed life into me and provided much-needed inspiration.
One of those communities was From Burnout to Bliss, a group coaching program for Black women planning a career break led by Roshida Dowe (who also has an amazing YouTube page). Drawing on the advice of Black women in this group, I did something I never thought would be possible as a first generation college student with mountains of student debt — I took a career break to preserve my mental health and reclaim my peace.
Because I had been diagnosed by my therapist as having Major Depressive Disorder, I was able to utilize 11 weeks of Family and Medical Leave Act (or FMLA) leave to take time off from my job to rest and re-center. During this time, I traveled internationally for the first time ever and gained a new perspective on the everyday traumas we endure in American society as Black women.
I finally had confirmation that the aggression and hostility…