On The Realities Of Being A Black Woman With Borderline Personality Disorder
On The Realities Of Being A Black Woman With Borderline Personality Disorder
- I’ve never seen my mother cry. When I was younger I came to the conclusion that she was cold, but with time I realized this simply wasn’t true. I know my mother is emotional: I’ve seen her joyful, I’ve seen her furious, I’ve seen her excited and scared and even sad, I’ve just never seen her cry. I later grew up to understand that we live in a world that doesn’t grant black women vulnerability — and that black women everywhere suffer for it immeasurably. It is for this exact reason that I couldn’t admit to myself that I was ill for a very long time. I associated vulnerability with weakness, and as Ghanaian-American writer Meri Nana-Ama Danquah writes in her memoir Willow Weep For Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, “weakness in black women is intolerable.” In a way, that’s what made my Borderline Personality Disorder an even more terrifying diagnosis — emotional instability is not in the black girl repertoire.
- I’ve never seen my mother cry. When I was younger I came to the conclusion that she was cold, but with time I realized this simply wasn’t true. I know my mother is emotional: I’ve seen her joyful, I’ve seen her furious, I’ve seen her excited and scared and even sad, I’ve just never seen her cry. I later grew up to understand that we live in a world that doesn’t grant black women vulnerability — and that black women everywhere suffer for it immeasurably. It is for this exact reason that I couldn’t admit to myself that I was ill for a very long time. I associated vulnerability with weakness, and as Ghanaian-American writer Meri Nana-Ama Danquah writes in her memoir Willow Weep For Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, “weakness in black women is intolerable.” In a way, that’s what made my Borderline Personality Disorder an even more terrifying diagnosis — emotional instability is not in the black girl repertoire.