Bad Bitches Get Depressed Too
I Be Writing is a publication that centers the divinity of Black Womanhood. This publication is where Black women can reclaim ourselves through Black indigenous spirituality, Black sisterhood, Black love, Black revolutionary essays, stories, and wisdom. Welcome to the Black Feminist Spiritual Baddie side of Substack.
I have always been an acutely aware person. From the day I remember being alive to this very moment I have always been aware of not only my surroundings, but of my emotions and how they eb and flow. As many of you know I have PTSD, and for me that doesn’t often look like full on manic flare ups. For me, it looks like long bouts of deregulation which eventually lead to depression. Sometimes I can catch it when it first starts to happen and I can stop myself from falling off the cliff into the pit of depression, and other times I can’t. Sometimes, the memories, the sadness, the feeling of failing grip me so tightly by my throat that I cannot turn myself loose. And in those moments I fall deep and depression starts to whisper like a frenemy…a silent passenger waiting their turn to pounce.
Last week I came to the realization that I have been functionally depressed for quite some time. Like many people Covid fucked up the day to day of my life, but beyond that it led to the closure of my non-profit, a cross country move, the death of multiple loved ones, anther cross country move and a career change I did not want. Through it all I endured because Black Women endure, but that doesn’t mean I was happy, it doesn’t mean I was ok, and more than anything it doesn’t mean I wasn’t deeply fucked up and sad inside. So much has not gone my way, so much has been taken from me, and so much of my life these last few years has been increasingly difficult for no apparent reason. And while I have moments of deep immense joy, they are short lived. The sadness, the feeling of failure and the deep empty darkness of my mind always finds me. After it finds me, it ruins everything. Whatever book I was writing gets put on pause never for me to return, every creative idea I have either loses steam before execution or I lose interest after execution. My substack sits for weeks or months where I don’t write anything because I simply don’t have it. Countless days go by where I’m not keeping up my personal rituals, I’m cutting corners with my care just to get through the day, and then I sleep for five hours wake up and do it again.
To the naked eye I always seem ok. But, that is because I am a master at appearing ok. I have spent my entire life appearing ok. I have had to. As a child, teen and early twenty something there was no one taking care of me and my emotions, no one asking was I ok. No one giving me tools to help me process all of the horrible things I was experiencing. My parents were there physically, but I raised myself emotionally and then I raised everyone else around me. I went out and got tools, I fought my demons with a machete and I buried so many relationships I lost count. I did what I had to in order to survive. I poured myself into learning how to care for little me and later big me because I couldn’t just give up. I wouldn’t, and because I’m strong, because I’m a warrior, everyone assumes I got it. Even today, very few people ask me what I need, very few people baby me and care for me. My presence and natural posture makes people think I don’t need help and what I don’t understand is why a sista gotta be bust down before anyone sees about us. I am brilliant, I’m deeply connected to my Ancestors and the Spirit world, I’m gorgeous, I laugh often, dance daily and always seem to pull it together in the end. But what does all of that equate to if I was dragged by my coochie across the concrete on the journey to get there?
I always win. That is a fact of my life. But the journey to winning has always been excruciating. I earn every piece of my win in blood and bone and stone. I do not take the elevator, even when I want to that hoe never works for me. I end up having to do everything the hard way even when I don’t want to and it’s exhausting. I am exhausted. More than that I’m not beat for this fake ass, new age emotional bypassing that we are encouraged to do as Black women. This suffer in silence shit where we eat our pain and allow it to poison us until we’re jaded and bitter. This meditate for fifteen minutes and it goes away love and light bullshit. Naw. I’m tired, I’m sad for reasons I don’t even know, and I’m not going to be quiet about it. I also don’t have anything flowery to say except I’m holding the rope, even on the days that I don’t have the strength to pull myself out the pit, and I pray y’all are able to hold the rope too. Because we’re not meant to live under these conditions. Racism, patriarchy, racial capitalism, and all of forms of bigotry and oppression seek to snuff out our light. It is made to end us, make us feel like failures, make us feel like our lives aren’t worth anything. I know that, and yet it still doesn’t make me feel better. In these moments, I just keep holding the rope and maybe if more Black people are brave enough to say we’re sad then we can hold the rope together.
Meet The Author
Griot Bae, also known as Ìyá Ògún Oyèrẹ̀mí (born Faheemah), is a Cultural Worker, Community Organizer, Spirit Writer, Editor, Hoodoo, and initiated Priest of Ògún in the Lukumí tradition of Ifá. She writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that explore Black Indigenous realities. As a frontline Conjure Woman and Two-Headed Doctor, she focuses her work on re-indigenization as both a praxis and a pedagogy that guides others in reclaiming Black Ancestral traditions. Griot Bae’s offerings intentionally center Black women, because when Black Women are free, everyone will be free—word to the Combahee River Collective.