Black women are thorough. And often, our excellence reminds people of the wounds that they refuse to work through. Even more often, this particular brand of triggering happens from Black woman to Black woman.

Black women who are surviving and thriving are often doing so behind a mask. What are we covering up? A wounded little Black girl who had to grow before she was read, and had to produce excellence before she got the chance to fully develop confidence.

Black girls don’t get growing time. We either are or we aren’t. So when we face each other we greet each other in the spirit of transference.

The Black woman close to you is sometimes mirroring behaviors. You’re psychologically processing those experiences with her not as HER but as the woman who wounded you most. So when it’s good it’s good and when it’s bad, it’s traumatizing.

I say all of this to say: make room for therapy. If we are to aspire to a world where more Black women are leaders and taking their rightful place in society, then we also have to make space for the wounded little one inside of us to heal, so we don’t pass pain on to each other.

We talk about this a lot with respect to hetero romantic relationships. Because of collective homophobia, we prevent ourselves from even entering layered conversations about same gender platonic relationships because you know...ignorance. That’s another thread for another day.

Make space for all of it. Love y’all