Since January, we have witnessed the undoing of generations of our ancestors’ work that enables us to live in a society that recognizes and respects our existence and contribution to America. The drawbacks carry with them a mental and emotional toll. When we are not ourselves, we are not present for our needs or for one another.

When I was in grad school, Henry Louis Gates Jr. visited our campus for a guest lecture. He said something I will never forget: “If I could afford to pay for every African-American to get therapy, I would do it because we all need it.” And we need it in ways we do not even realize.

We all have unresolved issues in our lives whether it’s a family situation, a work issue, or internal struggles that we don’t talk about. In my training with mental health professionals who offer grief recovery assistance to their clients, I utilize the iceberg analogy to illustrate how only so much of our lives can be seen above the surface. The water is the dividing factor between what we reveal to others and what remains underneath the surface. What lies underneath is a litany of unfulfilled hopes, dreams, and expectations that nobody sees because we are either actively suppressing them or we are not yet even aware of their existence. Whether or not we are consciously aware, there is a mental, emotional, and physical price we pay for not healing from our past.

When we talk about comorbidity rates of African-Americans and how we die at higher rates to certain diseases, it is often discussed as a physical epidemic. There is a need for us to expand that conversation into the realms of the mind-body connection and know that everything we hold onto internally sets the framework for our physical, mental and emotional undoing. This is why Henry Louis Gates Jr. is telling us we need to be in therapy. This is why I, as an Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist, continue to create content that serves as a reminder that unresolved emotions occupy real estate in our bodies and to a toxic detriment. The work that we all need to actively engage in for the entirety of our lives is discovery and healing. And we need to start back in our childhood and work forward from there.

When I was in junior high, I was bullied by way of being ostracized. My friends in the sixth grade decided to no longer be my friends in the seventh grade because a popular eighth grader didn’t like me. I spent most of the seventh grade by myself. I couldn’t handle the pain, disappointment, and betrayal of my friends so my protective response was to tell myself every day that everything was “okay.” Because I did not truthfully process my emotions or confront my friends, the toxic lesson I carried around with me into adulthood is that I’m unlovable. This is what happens when we don’t properly process our pain: we carry it with us, and it continues to restrict our life.

It wasn’t until I saw a therapist that specializes in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) that I realized the extent of my pain. What I had minimized in my mind for decades was actually chronic trauma. The process of EMDR allowed me to disconnect from the trauma to the degree that I could recognize the event as an experience instead of it playing out as a part of my identity. And it changed my life because it caused me to reevaluate, reassess, and reestablish my sense of value to myself and to the world. And this is just one chapter in the story of my life.

We all have chapters in the story of our lives that have not yet been read. But it is time for us as individuals and as a community to dare to open the pages that have remained shut and address all the heartbreak and heal from all the things. I love the sweatshirt that says, “I am my ancestor’s wildest dream.” Our ancestors carried us this far in faith. The greatest gift we can give ourselves in carrying out their legacy is to take care of ourselves deeply.

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Now is the commencement time of year where companies market joy and togetherness and families post pictures in matching pajamas. We see so many images of happiness, they can exacerbate the feelings of loss and loneliness that we presently feel. There is grief in just navigating a holiday season without your loved one, or that romantic relationship, or that special friendship, just to name a few losses. Or maybe this time of year is a reminder of an unfulfilled hope or dream. No matter the circumstance, the sadness or loneliness you feel can be intensified when surrounded by holiday merriment. I know this all too well.

In 2002, my mom died. A month later was her birthday. A month after that was Thanksgiving. A month after that was Christmas. It felt like the emotional equivalent of getting knocked out in a fight; while I was trying to get up, I got pushed back down; as I attempt to get on my feet again, I get the wind knocked out of me; before I can recover from that blow, I get knocked out again. By the time New Year’s Eve arrived that year, my unresolved grief made me emotionally ripe to make poor decisions; my rationale for those decisions was I deserved to feel happy. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that drinking a boba a day, eating chili cheese fries at midnight, and dating Mr. Wrong were not good long-term solutions for my pain.

Every coping mechanism I tried out was an attempt to soothe the discomfort I felt but could not articulate. While there are many ways to describe the grieving experience, the one I found most applicable during the holiday season is the same one that the Grief Recovery Institute would call the best definition of grief you will ever find: the feeling of reaching out for someone who has been there for you only to realize that when you need them one more time, they are no longer there. This is the pain and heartbreak that resides inside our bodies while we make our best attempts to match the happiness of the season.

Because of the work I do in this field, I am keenly aware of the temptation to keep up appearances that ‘all is well’ when it is not. I am also attuned to the fact that many of us have unspoken and unfulfilled hopes and dreams that we do not share with others. For those of you who are socially present yet simultaneously feel emotionally invisible, I’d like to spend a moment or two to recognize you. Although there is no way for me to capture every person’s situation, I would like to highlight a few:

If this is your first holiday season without your loved one…or your second or third and you are reminded that nothing will ever be the same

If this was your year to be boo’d up but it didn’t happen……again

You stop watching commercials because you know that you will see the one with the happy family laughing together and enjoying each other’s company. You don’t make plans because you know that something or someone is going to remind you of what you have lost. Instead, you make plans to be by yourself so you can avoid all the painful reminders that life provides. There is a term called anticipatory grief that applies to situations where you’re looking ahead to the emotional pain that you expect future events to have for you. If this sounds like you, here are a few helpful tips to navigate this season in the most healthy and healing ways:

1. Don’t fake it ‘til you make it. Practice telling the truth about yourself.
There are cultural traditions many of us were raised in that prolong our pain and teach us that it is not socially safe to be our genuine selves. Within the African-American community, young black girls learn that they are to become “strong black women.” Some of the ways that young black boys are taught to be “a man” are tied to toxic masculinity. In both instances, we grow up learning how to be performative as we suppress how we truly feel. The best way to overcome our performative natures is to adopt the practice telling the truth about ourselves. There is a tension we must navigate when faced with the decision of how truthful we choose to be: we either hide the truth to keep up appearances or we take the risk of being judged or criticized for telling our truth. As we engage in the practice of the latter, we are also teaching and reminding ourselves that revealing is the precursor to healing.

2. Don’t confuse a coping mechanism with healing. Create new healthy coping mechanisms.
My boba-a-day habit and midnight comfort meals seemed like a good coping strategy until the scale told me different. I loved the instant relief it gave me from the pain but that high wore off quickly. The foods that were comforting my emotions had to be swapped with foods that nourished and healed my body. Whatever your emotional coping of choice may be, it is in your best interest to find a healthier alternative. Maybe your coping mechanism is already healthy. If that is the case, then it is important to know that…

3. Coping mechanisms will only get you so far. Find a program, group, support system to help you process your unresolved emotions.
Anyone who knows me knows what I am going to suggest. I have not found a better way to say goodbye to the pain that you associate to a particular relationship than that of the Grief Recovery Method. It is a program that identifies the unhealthy lessons you learned about coping with grief and teaches a step-by-step process of how to heal emotionally. You can check out the Grief Recovery Institute’s website or I would be happy to talk to you personally to point you in the right direction so you can see glimmers of hope and happiness in this upcoming holiday season.

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When I was in grad school, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. came to speak on campus. I wrote about in a previous post. He said something I’ll never forget which is, “If I could pay for every African-American to get therapy, I would because we all need it.”  I agree.  

I love my family. I love Jesus. I love love. With all that love going around, there were still moments this past year where I felt I was going to lose my ever-loving mind (and not just because of Coronavirus.)  Thankfully, I have people to talk to. But there are many people during this pandemic that don’t have any support.  But I feel the social tide turning towards recovery and wellness. I’m hearing more and more people talk about being in therapy. I’m here for it! I’m all about it! But I know some environments where it’s still taboo:

Culturally Where I grew up, you would be labeled crazy to go see a therapist. Not only that, there was family pressure to not be telling all your business.

Spiritually There are plenty of people who believe that if you have mental or emotional struggles, your lack of faith is the reason. Some people never seek help because they’re told that loving Jesus more, reading your Bible more, and praying harder & longer will solve their problem.

Socially Nobody likes to feel like a hot mess. Many choose to suffer in silence and pretend that their life is great because everyone else looks like they have it all together.

Regardless of what has stopped you until now, it is my hope that this and every Black History Month, more people come to the realization that getting help is the best thing you can do for yourself.  

Here are a couple of resources:

Therapy for Black Girls *

Talkspace*

*I have not received services from either of these organizations.  A rule of thumb with therapy is to talk to therapists and see which one you vibe with best (just like dating)

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It was January when I decided I needed to leave Los Angeles and move back to the Bay Area to be closer to my dad.  That March, my boyfriend, who also lived in Northern California, proposed to me.  I moved in May.  My entire life changed in a matter of months but I felt ready and prepared for all the change.  I had an unconscious “I got this!” attitude about the whole situation.

One day I was busy minding my own business when my fiancé asked me out of the blue, “Are you depressed?”  I responded quickly with an adamant “Noooo,”.  “What a weird question,” I thought.  Besides, I had no time for sadness because I had way too many things on my plate at the time.  And after all, I’m a Grief Recovery Specialist; my life’s work revolves around recovery.  So I basically got this on GP (meaning general principle; #GenX).  But if you were to examine my behavior, one would see (as my now husband did) that I don’t completely got this!

There were a few you are not like yourself traits that he noticed but there was only one that was obvious to me.  I might be depressed if…..I struggle to get out of bed.  I joked about it on Facebook.  I posted that I was magnetically drawn to my bed.  That was before I realized that it was actually a situation. Once I got out of bed, I could function throughout the day but, My Lord, that getting up part!

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can be so quick to say “everything’s fine” that I don’t pause long enough to realize that something in my life is not fine.  But the truth has a way of making itself known.  Even if I miss all the clues, my behavior brings the truth to the surface.

Behind my ‘I got this’ theory was the uprooting of everything I knew: my home, friends, job/career, LA weather; you name it; it all changed.  I just got so busy with life I didn’t provide myself with enough space to feel all of my feelings.

Dear Friend:  I am thinking about you today.  Are you busy rushing through the demands of daily life that you don’t believe you have time to have a feeling?  But do you, at the same time, recognize that your life is not as happy as it used to be?  While you might not be one to ever call yourself depressed, you just might be.  Depression doesn’t have one look.  Even if you go through life with the spirit and appearance of I got this, life’s changes and/or disappointments may have a deeper effect than you acknowledge.  For instance, you might be depressed if you believe you’ll never get married or have a happy marriage, you might be depressed if you’re convinced you’ll never get that job, you might be depressed if you believe your turn will never come; you might be depressed if the things you used to love to do now are kinda meh; you might be depressed if it’s a struggle to love yourself or others.

I had to come to grips with the fact that my struggle to get out of bed was an indicator of depression.  My confession was the beginning of my healing.  I’ve heard Pastor Rick Warren say, “You can’t heal what you don’t reveal.”  Dear Friend:  If you recognize yourself in this conversation, let today be the day that you tell the truth about yourself.  I encourage you to talk to someone: a friend, a therapist, a Pastor, a Grief Recover Specialist who has the ability to listen to you (and not tell you how to feel).  And then I pray that you are led in the direction of healing that is uniquely tailored to your needs.  We’re all in this together.  Let us be honest about the journey and love each other forward.

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My dream for a child of my own started when I was 11 years old.  I wasn’t even aware at the time that it was a dream. I thought I was just helping my mother see a dream of hers fulfilled.  My mom told me that she and my dad couldn’t have any other kids. The doctor told her that because of her back problems, she should not carry any more children.  My mom then shared her dream with me that she wished that she also had a son named Jonathan. I said, “Okay, Mom. When I get older, I’m going to have a son and name him Jonathan.”   The beginning of the dream.

Throughout my teenage years, in my mind, Jonathan got a sister named Maia.  Jonathan and Maia would have to wait to become reality as I navigated the jungle of single life (aka my twenties and thirties).  It wasn’t until I was 40 and single that I realized that my mom’s dream was a living hope and expectation inside me. When my husband entered the picture, he helped breathe new life into that dream.  When were dating, he told me that his desire was to have children with me. The dream seemed set on the path of becoming real.

We started trying to get pregnant on our wedding night.  The first time I realized I was not pregnant was a shocker.  I just assumed it would happen. But it didn’t. And then I wasn’t pregnant again.  And then again. And again. The medical community doesn’t diagnose you with infertility until you’ve been trying for about a year.  Yet when we reached the year threshold, I still wasn’t ready to give this experience that name. Who wants that label plus all that comes with it?

Emotionally speaking, there’s way more to this ish than meets the eye.  Infertility is more than just not getting pregnant. It is an accumulation of every positive and negative thought, hope, expectation, and belief you’ve ever had.  For instance,

1. Any and every nagging fear I have about myself and life rears its ugly head:  good things happen to other people, not you; you are damaged goods; you’ve ruined your husband’s hopes and dreams,……….
2. Although Jonathan and Maia don’t exist in the physical, the fact that they have been created in my heart and mind makes them real.  It’s the disparity between what’s real in my heart but not in my life that makes each month I find out I’m not pregnant particularly painful.
3. Company advertisements love to promote the image of families.  The problem I see is that they are also promoting the concept that family is normal and if you don’t have what they are portraying, you are lacking.  I fight against that idea often.

Throughout this journey, I find myself asking the same questions I was asking when I was single: what happens if it doesn’t work out for me? Will I really be okay?  Or will I just pretend to be okay so I don’t have to deal with the compounding disappointment? Will I feel I have been cheated in life if I merely observe the dream in others and never live it myself?    When I was single, it took a ton of trial & error to get to the point where I was at (predominant) peace with either outcome. And now that I’m facing the same questions with infertility, I strangely have come to the same conclusion.  I say ‘strangely’ because I feel a peace in the midst of the monthly disappointments and all other stressors involved.

How am I at peace, you ask, and what does that peace look/feel like?  I’m at peace because of my faith (spiritual) and the extensive work in grief recovery (emotional) that I have done.  Every one of my life situations must be filtered through one abiding truth: God is good, and not just to/for others; He is good to me.  He wants the best for me. If for some reason, my dream remains unfulfilled, His plan is nonetheless for me to experience immense love, joy, peace, and happiness.  Peace looks like feeling the twinges of pain when they come, remembering that those moments will pass and indulging in as much joy as possible in the process.

Dear People Who Are Experiencing Infertility:  

My intent with this blog is to encourage us all to grieve AND live.  There are no easy answers in navigating this journey. If someone tells you, “all you gotta do is….”, please discern that they don’t know any better.  The peace I have can still be quite a challenge on a given day. It is my never-ending hope that while we are walking on the road towards our unfulfilled dreams, we don’t get lost down the path of bitter disappointment whose ultimate destination is depression.   Our mental and emotional health and well-being is too precious for anything less.

Please share comments and your own stories.

The post Hello Infertility, I’m Depressed appeared first on Jocelyn Jackson Williams.

My grandfather was my favorite person on the face of the earth.  I was such a big fan of his.  When I was a child, I absolutely adored him.  Just to name a few reasons: he was kind, he hummed songs to himself, and he drove a pristine, always-looked-&-smelled-like-it-just-came-straight-off-the-lot Cadillac, with white leather interior.

As I think about my grandfather’s life and everything I loved about him, I would like you to know that he was one of the many unsung heroes of Black History Month.  It’s not just a list of achievements that made him exemplary but the example he provided for how to use your past and present to create a better future.

Back in the late 1930’s, my grandfather’s profession in rural Louisiana was sharecropping, which became a sought after job for poor blacks and whites who could not afford to own their own land.  For many reasons, one could just call it slavery redux.  It was because my grandfather envisioned the future he wanted to have, all the while knowing that sharecropping was a dead end, that he was motivated to move west and create a better life for his family.

This African-American History month, I am excited at the prospect of how we can create better lives for generations yet to come.  The focus is different from the celebrations I’ve seen growing up in that I am suggesting we place emotional & mental self-care at the forefront of this Month’s purpose. 

Brief History from Then to Now

We started out with Negro History Week (the second week of February was chosen as it coincided with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas). The inception of Negro History Week is credited to Carter G. Woodson who believed that the awareness, acknowledgement, and teaching of black history must be a vibrant pursuit within the United States.  Woodson believed that in the absence of this work, the culture would “stand in danger of being exterminated.”  The focus was initially on history, which explains why the month has a concentrated focus on achievements.

I first became aware of this need when I was in high school. My United States history book explained the Civil War without one mention of slavery.  I remember the teacher letting us know the day the lesson was over and that the next day we would move on to a different event.  I asked, “Well isn’t this when slavery took place?”  She said, “yes.”  And that was the entire slavery conversation related to the Civil War.  The next day we indeed moved on and it is the first memory I have of feeling personally undervalued and historically invisible.  The slaveless Civil War is just one educational example of the myriad of ways that African-American children are inducted into a socially constructed reality of being physically present and invisible at the same time.  Having children in school right now, I still see invisibilization within the school system.  Its effects, at its worst, means that our children are learning subconscious lessons of a lack of value that are damaging to a developing mind/psyche.

Where Are We Now?

I know that to be true from personal experience.  In the past few weeks, I have just started to acknowledge that the bullying I experienced in junior high made a lasting impact on how I perceive my value in this world. At the time, I told myself that everything was going to be okay and I would quickly disregard any emotions that surfaced.  I never dealt with the emotional impact of that experience.  I don’t know about you, but the coping skills I learned growing up were along the lines of “sticks and stones…” and “walk it off.”   Yet now I understand that the silence and disregard became a habit that showed up multiple times throughout my life.

While I was in graduate school, I had the honor of attending a lecture given by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and he said something that I found to be revolutionary at the time (the mid 90’s).  He said that if he could afford it, he would pay for every African-American to go to therapy because we’re all depressed and we don’t know it.  At the time that he said it, therapy was not on our socially approved list of activities.  It would have been something many people would never talk about openly.  Emotional silence was passed down through the generations.  Today, however, we have the freedom to create and establish new traditions that serve the health of our community, on an individual and collective basis.

The first time I saw this shirt, I felt a profound sense of value return to me. 

And then I cried…….a lot

This shirt reminds me that the life that I have the freedom to live was at one time only a dream.  As free as I am, there are deeper freedoms to be had.  Nowadays, the history I am most interested in making is the work we do within ourselves. 

Let us all do what we can to develop the skill to observe our own thoughts and beliefs, identify what is unhealthy or toxic, reject the toxicity, and adopt a healthy thought & create a new belief system.   Easier said than done, but nonetheless the goal.  Thankfully, there is no shortage of opportunities to guide you towards who you are meant to be: journaling, Grief Recovery, therapy, a Bible study (check with your local church), a 12-step program, a faith-based 12-step program, a community support group, YouTube, less sugar, more exercise, etc.  Whatever methods you choose to become your best self, good on ya!   And may the stories being told for generations to come shine a spotlight on what we did to become our best selves.

If you enjoyed this blog post and know someone who will find it as encouraging as you did, please share it on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter! 

The post Depression Series, Part 2: Hello Black History Month – Let’s Talk About Depression appeared first on Jocelyn Jackson Williams.

Note about this series: Society does not give us space to talk about how we really feel. And even when that space becomes available, the last thing that’s talked about is depression. And even when we talk about depression, we don’t talk about who it affects beyond the person who walks around with an ever-present rainy cloud over their head, the listless or catatonic person, or prescription drugs. But depression affects far more people and situations. It is, for some, maybe even most, an everyday experience. Depression is no respecter of persons. Most of us have experienced some form of depression. But we don’t acknowledge it because we’re too busy being “ok.” Or if we do acknowledge it, we don’t talk about it. Society doesn’t give us the space to talk about. This series is about that space.

A couple of years ago, I posted the scene from the movie Black Sheep where Chris Farley falls down a hill, as it was the perfect illustration of my year. I didn’t share on social media what was going on, but my family underwent serious physical and financial challenges, as well as discovering three weeks later that my boyfriend was cheating on me. I was not living my best life; I was struggling to manage a very challenging one.

In my line of work, I am well aware of the fact that when someone dares to be open and honest about their pain, someone in their life will give them the advice that their healing will come if they ignore the pain and keep it moving. For example, a dear friend of mine took my grief recovery class, and the first week of class she looked like a deer caught in headlights. When class was over, she told me, “We (her family) don’t do this.” If you grew up in a family that did not make room for discussions of any emotional nature, you too, may have been trained to be emotionally silent.

Or maybe there are other customs, beliefs, or practices that lead you to believe there is no purpose in looking at your pain. When I promoted a webinar called “You Can Heal Your Broken Heart,” one person responded that she found that Jesus is all she needs. While that sounds like a good thing to say, what I find perplexing about her statement of faith is the idea that our spiritual faith somehow perfects us emotionally. I have not found that to be true of anyone, ever. We all have aspects of our emotional maturity that are “under construction.”

So I have a sunshine-and-rainbow degree level of happiness to see the tide turning with respect to conversations surrounding mental health. In the African-American community alone, we can have conversations that were previously “not what we do.”

Myliek Teele is an entrepreneur/blogger who talked about going to therapy and when she first opened up about it, she didn’t have books like Shook One to back her up on why consciously addressing your mental health is an integral aspect of self-care. But the tide is turning. And conversations are being had. And people are reaching out for help. And healing is taking place. And it starts from being able to confess that I/you don’t have it all together.

In upcoming blogs, I am going to talk about the many faces of depression. The gamut runs as wide as just not feeling as happy as you used to be, all the way to taking prescription medication. Because in 2019, there are some things we need to talk about. At long last.

Consider this an open invitation to talk online and/or in person. Each month I host workshops for those who want to talk and learn to use the tools of grief recovery to face the emotions that may be holding us back. With this blog, we’ll start a conversation that you may want to continue in person. If that’s the case, consider this an open invitation.  If so, click here for more information.

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