#2: Therapy, Tithes, Tarot & All The Ways I Tried To Save Myself

Knowing that things in your life aren’t quite right is one thing. Knowing what to do with that information is another.

And what do you do when you’ve done all that you know to do and things still remain undone?

***

I started going to therapy a few years ago to manage the stress of climbing the American corporate ladder while Black and female. Growing up, I was obsessed with playing Mario Super 64 on Nintendo. Sometimes, I would play it till my fingers were swollen. Turns out that game was preparation for my career: the higher I climbed, the more I felt like Mario as he progressed from world to world— having to look in all directions to dodge obstacles and enemies of all sorts; always preparing for the reality that what might look harmless could actually be a threat. It was important to me to find a therapist who was Black, female, and understood the particularities of navigating predominantly white-led institutions. It felt like a small miracle when I found a Black, female therapist who had held a senior leadership position in the US navy in her former life.

A few months into our sessions, it became apparent that work burnout was just one piece of my depression pie: my marriage— the deep loneliness I felt in it—was another slice… a significant slice. Opening up that pandora’s box was absolutely terrifying. With my career, I felt more in control and knew that ultimately, whatever decisions I made would primarily affect me. But my marriage? Unboxing that felt like playing with fire… a fire that could lead to so much collateral damage.

So, in my therapy sessions, I went where I go when I want to avoid pain: logic. I would recount the most recent drama from home and work with as little emotion as possible, and explore each issue from every angle, tediously pathologizing all the characters in my plots and sub-plots. I brought the full weight of my legal training to my personal affairs. I held facts in my hands and tried to mold alternative truths with them. I dished out empathy and rationale generously in every direction, but rarely in mine and felt a sense of pride— righteousness, even—in my martyrdom. After all, the Bible says: “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”—1 Corinthians 13:7 (NLT). Plus, ever the over achiever, I wanted my therapist to see me as her most self-aware client– I wanted to be overall-best-in-therapy. But she was rarely fooled. (And it turns out, therapists don’t hand out gold-stars).

My therapist would ask “How do you feel?” and I would tell her what I thought. Anytime I inched close to the reality of my pain, I intellectualized and spiritualized it. I reminded myself of how privileged I was. Was I crying myself to sleep many nights? Yes. But I was crying in a luxury apartment, in Skims pajamas, with champagne and sushi at arm’s length. Was I constantly feeling stressed and anxious at work? Yes. But I had a good pay check, amazing health insurance, and an email address that opened worlds to me.

There’s an infamous episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians in which Kim Kardashian is distraught because she lost a $75,000 diamond earring in the ocean while vacationing in Bora Bora.

      “Kim, there’s people that are dying,” her older sister Kourtney yells at her. Blessing, there’s people that are dying, I told myself often.

Outside therapy, I turned to doing as a remedy. As a matter of fact, I had perfected the art of being a human-doing for years… therapy was just another item on my faith-with-works-to-do-list; another stop on my spiritually seasoned self-help spiral. Books? I read them. Articles? I bookmarked them. Podcasts? I found them. And yes, yes, I prayed. Oh how I prayed. And fasted. And went to church(es). And streamed sermon after sermon.

Sometimes I felt betrayed by God. Hadn’t I done everything I was supposed to do? I had never done drugs. I saved sex for marriage. I worked hard. I tithed. I tried to do as much good as I could with the blessings I received. I had held up my end of the bargain, so how had I ended up here…in the depths of despair?

     “Yi hakuri,” my mother would say in Hausa when I spoke to her. Be patient. For nearly a decade, na yi hakuri. I was patient.

And when I reached the limits of my patience, I became a restless alchemist. I mixed a bit of this-and-that. A marriage counselor. A reiki healer. A church conference. A spa retreat. An executive coach. A tarot reader. Worship and weed. Some woo-woo with the word.

I tried (almost) everything.
I tried (doing) nothing.
In fact, I paid to do nothing: did you know you can pay good money to essentially go sit in a bath tub with the lights turned off? It’s called a sensory deprivation tank.

So, what do you do when you’ve done all that you know to do and things still remain undone?

I had expected therapy to give me answers, but instead it handed me questions.

For two years, I had what felt like circular conversations with my therapist week after week.

     “What should I do?” I would ask her.      
     “What do you want?” She would reply.
     “I don’t know” I would say.

Rinse, repeat…

*To Be Continued *