Mask Off

True depth is going beyond and peeling off the scabs that you thought no one would ever see. It's comfortable to share what's normal, but I feel as if I'd be doing a disservice to the many women I want to help if I didn't take my mask off completely. There's a thin line between sanity and each time we spread ourselves too thin we risk crossing that line. When one of the closest people to me had their first breakdown over a year ago, I often wondered how the most even tempered person I know could reach the point of hospitalization and be diagnosed with a disease that seemed furthest from the truth. It's easy to wonder until it's you in that hospital room barely coherent after being injected with medication and strapped to a bed. When we hear about mental illness in the black community it's something that is often ignored and disregarded, but the truth is mental wellness is just as important as your physical well being. When people advise you about therapy and seeking professional help it's uncomfortable because there's this fear of being labeled as crazy at least for me it was. After one failed anger management session in 10th grade, I'd written off talking to anyone professionally. People tell you to seek an unbiased opinion through a professional, but during my experience the therapist judged me harshly while trying to get me to admit to him that my mother was a bad parent which she was not. As black women we've been conditioned to hold in our pain and trauma or be labeled as angry and bitter. More than anything, we're hurting and the inability to address that hurt in the appropriate manner often leads to our emotions being displayed in the most unusual ways.

A lot of the trauma that is experienced by women of color stems from generational curses that our passed down. When they began giving my family member medication after her breakdown, she wasn't herself. Instead it seemed as if she was merely a shell of what once was. After being medicated against my will months ago, I now understand some of what she was feeling. The type of medication that is being prescribed tends to throw our entire