Motherhood – The Office Black Girl

Therapy Journey (Part One)

May 11, 2023by The Office Black Girl3 Comments

Last night, I reached a breaking point.

Google had told me that one of my oldest accounts was maxed out on storage, and I needed to clear space for storage or pay for it. That led me down the rabbit hole of old videos and pictures of my son.

My ovaries ached a little bit, looking at this little person I spent so much time with as a stay-at-home mom. And his little voice just hit me in the heart. But the longer I watched the videos, my mental state started crumbling.

Suddenly I wasn’t seeing a happy little toddler on my phone screen, but a flood of bad memories of things that happened during those years. Years of me feeling like I was failing as a young mother (thoughts I still struggle with now) while I was struggling to figure out my life.

Perspective and social media are amusing because they both can give you the false idea from the outside that everything is perfect for someone else. I look back on old memories and see comments of people reflecting positively on a happy moment in time that I shared. But I was struggling for years.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t as if I never had a happy moment. I had plenty of them.

But last night made me realize that despite my growth as a woman, a mother, and a wife, I still have demons that I have only managed to quiet at times with noise. During the quiet, unexpected moments…they definitely rise against me.

Despite all of the change in practices and views on mental health, people often overlook the simple thing of cost and time that comes with taking care of your mental health. Even online therapy costs money, and spending time trying to find the right therapist causes me anxiety at the thought of spending time and money trying to find the right one before I even get help.

I finally looked into my healthcare options and started the process today to book my first session. My insurance offers options, thankfully, but they are a bit limited. I am hoping that this will be the first real step in healing the wounds I merely bandaged for years.

Today, I really hate where my desk is positioned. I have been crying as I type this, and I am exposed to my coworkers and people coming into the office. One delivery guy just made a comment about allergies…my eyes must be red (just checked, they are a little). But it is just a confirmation that I finally need to do something to heal myself because time doesn’t heal all wounds.

Have you gone to therapy? What has been your experience in tackling your mental health issues?

Mental Health Journey, Motherhood

A Needed Phone Call

Featuredby The Office Black GirlLeave a Comment

This was not my original blog post idea for today.

But it is the blog post I want to share…today.

As a black woman, I feel this constant pressure to suck shit up and handle things. But the reality is that narrative is forced upon me as a black woman that I constantly struggle with. I struggle with the idea of dropping the ball, asking for help, and even not pushing myself harder.

While this era of social media is now showing that this is a problematic idealogy, my timeline hasn’t shown me enough women still struggling to find the right balance. It seems as though my timeline is filled with black women who are doing the damn thing (which I applaud them) and others who have managed to break through that crippling ideology and voluntarily remove things from their plates.

Then there is me, stuck somewhere in the middle.

While I struggled with the guilt of not going to the gym again today, not completing my story update (I just did before I typed this post), and not pushing myself to finish my never-ending to-do list…

That all went out the window when I got an unexpected call from my son’s teacher.

My son finished the first half of the school year, failing most of his classes. As any mom will understand, failing your kid is the biggest blow (even if the failure is an imagined one). So my husband and I bit the bullet and enrolled our son in tutoring. A cost that we feel every month. But I refuse to let my kid fail because I didn’t do all that I could to help him succeed.

I feel like I am constantly bogged down as a black mother because there seems to be no room for error. Because I am raising a black son that will eventually be a black man, any of his shortcomings fall on me and are multiplied by a skewed perception. I’m not even a single mother, and I was disgusted by the remarks of Jason Whitlock in regard to single, black mothers. Like how do you even reach to make that connection?

With that being said, my son’s teacher called me and told me that she didn’t know what we were doing at home, but my son’s grades had made a dramatic improvement since they returned from Christmas break.

While it seems like such a small thing, I found myself in tears.

It is bizarre to me that someone can fix their lips to generalize black women and black mothers under some distorted, negative narrative. I know so many amazing black women (single and married) who do so much for their kids, and they do it without praise.

To those mamas, I see you.

Today, I felt seen. I have had many conversations with my son’s teacher about his grades, and it was how she delivered the news that made me realize she saw that I was trying to do my best for my kid. And it was exactly what I needed today.

Married Life, Uncategorized

No Job, New Content

April 20, 2020by The Office Black GirlLeave a Comment

Almost a month ago, I lost my job due to the massive impact of the coronavirus on the restaurant industry. While I was not surprised to be let go, it is inevitable repeat of history that causes me the most stress.

I never wanted to be a stay at home mom. In fact, my mom spent many of my informative years telling me not to become one despite her unfortunate fate of becoming a housewife.

Over the length of my child’s life, I have spent massive amounts of time being a stay at home mom. While I am eternally grateful to be able to spend time with my son when he was a baby/toddler, there are definitely moments when I felt I made a terrible mistake in becoming dependent on my husband financially.

I have no intention of arguing the point of feminism or what “real men” should do for their family. But from a personal perspective, I think motherhood creates sacrifices that we are often not prepared for mentally or financially.

It is those moments where you feel guilt for spending money that you did not specifically earn or when your value feels reduced to the cleanliness of the house. And that is putting it all mildly.

While I am thankful to still be able to pay my bills and even to have the time to focus on new things, there is a creeping anxiety of being reminded that I no longer work but my husband does.

As I try to pivot once again, I have decided to (try) and pursue my original love: storytelling. Since I know longer work in an office, I thought maybe I could change the direction of this blog for a bit to a story. We will see how this goes.

How are you doing during this pandemic?