Working In the Background

I do therapy weekly. This week’s therapy session was probably the heaviest one I’ve had so far. It broke me. I faced several traumas head on that I haven’t really dealt with ever in life, some of which I’d suppressed for years to the point that I’d forgotten about them. One such trauma was the different options my dad had given us when we told them I was pregnant and told us we could get an abortion, give it up for adoption, or let them raise it. Another was how my parents took care of my son for a year during the day while I worked so they could have bragging rights & then told us we couldn’t leave him with them anymore when he turned one. Another was how my dad tries to degrade my son by comparing him to his cousins. Another was how after my suicide attempt & my stay in the mental hospital I was threatened with being homeless if I didn’t do exactly what my dad told me to do like go back to school and then get a job when I wasn’t able to keep going to school. Another was how I didn’t even have a bedroom when I lived at home and instead had a futon in the basement. Another was how my dad refused to put money in so I could have a good and beautiful wedding even after he had spent more than $20,000 on my sister’s wedding and how we later ended up getting married at City Hall with my dad & brother splitting our Cheesecake Factory bill. All of these traumas boiled up as we were talking about them. And then we were talking about how I was meant to go through all of that because it made me who I am today and I’m where I’m at and have accomplished what I have because of that. There are still so many traumas that I haven’t confronted. But that will happen in time. What matters is I am doing the work & I will heal & become a better more whole version of me. Despite me coming to that point in therapy, it was so hard to process that appointment. I felt so broken. I wasn’t okay. It was a lot. I broke down to my husband. It was so heavy. I couldn’t even really finish my work day. I had Bible Study that evening & couldn’t participate. I was supposed to be part of a Zoom meet & greet with Conor Lamb but I couldn’t do that either. I am usually part of this Black Women’s Mental health space on Twitter & I couldn’t do that either. I had to disconnect from everything. Even yesterday I stayed disconnected from social media & different things. I did my job & just stayed quiet. This morning my son didn’t have school because of the weather so I was able to sleep in until I had to get up to log on for work. I felt better than I did over the last couple of days but honestly I just wanted the next 7 hours, that’s all I had left to reach my 40 hours, to go by quickly so my weekend could start and I could disconnect. A few minutes after I logged on for work my work chat goes off and it’s one of the other leads calling me. Now let me tell you about her. She is one of the other leads in our company. There are very few Black Women like us in the lead role in this company. As a matter of fact there are very few minorities in any leadership role. She is a few years older than me & is from Louisiana. Earlier this week I had sent an email to a couple of leads because my job duties have shifted over the last week & I was unsure how to proceed in my role. I wanted to find out how these leads, both Black Women, operate in this role so I sent an email. She answered my email quickly and even went ahead & put a time on the calendar the next day for us to meet & she was so helpful when we had that meeting. Then I find out that we are on the same diversity & inclusion committee at our job when we had our quarterly meeting. And we both have a similar way of thinking and expressing ourselves. So that’s the background on who this woman is. Now this morning that’s who is calling me right after I log on & my first thought is wow this is weird. The old me would get nervous when things like that happen because I would think I did something wrong & am in some kind of trouble or that something bad is about to happen. None of those thoughts crossed my mind. I was just looking forward to talk to her. A friendly voice. So then she says hi & she is such a jovial person. And it turns out that she is going to be a contributor to this diversity and inclusion retreat being done in our department and she was brought in to cover the part on how to increase empathy in our company. What’s also crazy is at last week’s therapy session I was telling my therapist about how one of the stressors I deal with is at my job are how we have to be filtered as Black Women & minorities & how we face microaggressions & are treated differently. So to find out that a retreat is happening that is actually addressing what I was telling my therapist about last week was amazing. But it didn’t stop there. She goes on to tell me she had a meeting yesterday with those who are organizing this retreat and was asked to bring someone else in to work with her. They asked her who she wants to bring in. The first person she thought of was me. And everyone was excited & on board with this & said I’d be perfect & that’s what her call was about. Of course I start crying because I realized then that this is God moving around working in the background. He brings people into your life for a reason. I mention this & the fact that I can personally speak on the grace & empathy that is being extended to me as I work through my depression & anxiety. Even me speaking up during our committees quarterly meeting is new for me. How I’m being enveloped and surrounded by people as I’m working to become this better version of myself is new for me. And as I’m thinking about this I remember the scripture that one of my closest friend’s mother sent me on Wednesday when I couldn’t attend Bible Study, Romans 12:6–20 and how much that verse speaks to me & came right on time when I was broken from that day’s therapy session. I believe all of this is divine intervention meant to help me along my journey. Even if we don’t know or believe it, God is always working in the background.