"We are supposed to uphold our families and friends, without question. We are called upon to be a reservoir of strength for everyone we come into contact with.
This is unrealistic, limiting, and tiring.
We, as Black women, have to know it’s okay to feel, to go into the depths of our spirits and truly experience our emotions, especially for us who are empaths. We have to discard the notion that we are faulty if we cry, or if our feelings are hurt, or if we can’t keep it together. Life—and shit in general—is hard. This doesn’t make us weak. This doesn’t make us less than. It makes us human.
Knowing these things and adopting them as core beliefs while demystifying the harmful “strong Black woman” trope is pivotal during this time when we are all trying to find our place and space within the #BlackLivesMatter movement"
http://www.forharriet.com/2015/05/when-you-feel-too-much-reflections-from.html
There us a lot of self sacrifice that I learned somewhere, and there is something in the zeitgeist about the superiority of not being offended. And that's a kind of person who I should be in order to make other people comfortable with me and in order to be the kind of person who positively impacts those around her. I realize that I have very little instruction, as a black woman and the child of generationally recent immigrants in America, in how to be the best person for myself.
I usually post these long after I read them, and in between writing the summary above and actually posting this article *update* I actually read the books she talks about. It was useful, and worth finding in a library if you find this article resonating. It definitely had unexpected insights, and connected different behaviors of mine that I wouldn't have connected together. (but it was also written in the 90s and sometimes that shows).
Related: “16 Habits Of Highly Sensitive People”; the strong black woman stereotype *add ableist language around Sandra Bland's death into links onto strong black woman
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