I’m Tired of Being Strong For Other People
The .00000000001% of people who read the ratchet-ass, depressing-ass rants that I post know about some of the things I deal with health-wise. I don’t want your pity though, and I make a habit of stressing this with those I meet in public. People often hear me relay my misadventures with Epilepsy — and Meniere’s, something else I suffer from — and feel inspired by my supposed “resolve” it seems, and it’s… nice, I guess. But I’m not strong. At least, not for myself. It’s not about the pressures involved so much as a need, if not obligation, to survive.
But is that need to survive enough?
Surviving is a meticulous craft our people have mastered after centuries of oppression and erasure; I want to live and I certainly don’t want or need to be a victim. Yet, my world is a prison, and I’m frightened that I’ll never be able to imagine any life outside of it.
That prison is a mask I wear, believing I’m shielding those dear to me from disappointment. Yet that prison, for all of its restrictions, is still something that provides me comfort and security, even at a steep cost. It ensures my survival. That prison is what allowed me to survive when I learned about Castille, Shirley, Harvey, Charlottesville, and Maria, among countless others. But I’m tired of surviving.
One can say that that prison will never truly be destroyed; there are caverns deep within me, shades of the person I once was, that no person will ever be allowed to see. I may never be truly able to say what I honestly mean to say to those who hear my voice, but I can at least come closer to a semblance of it. That in itself is a goal I can aspire to plausibly reach.
Many people often talk about their goals every time a new year blossoms. They promise themselves that their previous life will perish as they emerge from the ashes reborn, cleansed of all the habits that restrained them from pursuing the goals they’d planned. Yet, some of those habits persist and hinder us. This article, for instance, has literally been years in the making. I remember when I first began writing it in response to a heavy lapse in confidence in my life.
Years of stagnance due in no small part to the complications of my disabilities left me wondering whether these dying Memories I tried to preserve were worth salvaging. All dreams must die eventually, my people like to say. Yet, I never thought any new ones would emerge from my womb as I sought to create new Narratives. Some of them are still awaiting their birth; others passed before they even reached that final stage of development.
I want to see my children survive.
I want to see these wonders I’ve longed to rear into this world become more than a series of minutiae lost to History. But, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be strong enough for that. I want to be strong for my Antepasados. I want to be strong for those of us displaced from our ancestral homeland on the Mother continent. I want to be strong for Borikén. I want to be strong for the activists I know who’ve risked life, limb, and dignity fighting for our lives.
I want to be strong for my depressed friends hustlin’ while Black in the journalism industry. I want to be strong for my brothers, my madre, the two sisters I’ve never met, and mis parientes. I want to be strong for those of us disabled and/or special needs.
I want to be strong for old and new friends managing their lives with varying levels of success, sometimes distress. I want to be strong for countless others I’ll never be able to name because those Memories no longer have faces attached to them that I can recognize. I want to be strong for so many people, all while knowing that strength, despite being reciprocated by most of them, will never be strong enough to carry me. I can’t carry them while trying to carry myself.
I’m tired of it.
I’m learning the hard way that being strong for other people all of the time simply isn’t feasible. It’s an exhausting labor of blues and agony. As a people, we Black folk are conditioned to be impervious and unfaltering sponges of physical and psychological trauma, often without the ability to accept our weaknesses and embrace our need for assistance. We shoulder the memories of those lost, and we imbibe the pain of our survivors.
We want to believe that issues like Depression or other mental illnesses cannot ever truly claim us — and with good reason in most cases, given the Union’s history of masking assassinations with spurious autopsies. We then cite all that we knew about the person, from their actions to their smile and resilient spirit. We cite the dreams they told us of, their plans for children or small businesses; even an interest in attending a party or hanging with friends.
To those like me, however, they’re all lies.
Those of us who suffer with often invisible illnesses know what to tell you; the small morsels of tales that appear to be accurate, rather than actually existing as such. Beautiful lies and sweet nothings to keep you distracted and preoccupied with other matters.
A smile, joke, funny status, or a meme shared are usually all that it takes to disarm you. We allow you to see the bare minimum because it, in a lot of cases, is all that’s required to satisfy you. I wouldn’t say that you don’t genuinely care, because there are certainly many I know that do, whether friend or acquaintance. For others I know this is probably true.
Instead, I often say that we’ve spent years cultivating this technique. We shield you from the vacuums of despair gradually devouring every aspect of our self confidence — and in some cases, sanity — in the belief that dependence inherently stifles us; makes us an unnecessary detriment and selfish. We love others openly, but mask the hatred of ourselves.
I’ve hated how weird I often behave in public as a result of my illnesses; I hate how the side effects from my disabilities and the medicine I take often make me awkward, moody, or discomforting — even intimidating or in a few cases, frightening— to strangers. I hate not being able to reassure them in a means that is tangible. I hate not being able to melt into the night sky or become united with the sunlight, able to disappear at will. I hate feeling like an outsider in the presence of family, friends, and my people, even despite encouragement from my Baba and others dear to me. I hate existing.
I probably had never cried like I did when I met my relatives in Georgia for the first time in years, some of whom I’d not seen since I was a toddler. I’d long forgotten them — having your brain reset can do that — but they had not forgotten me. Years of being extremely ill and dizzy from Meniere’s guaranteed I was unable to travel long distances, such to the point that I sometimes missed doctor’s appointments. Social anxiety, Depression, and my Epilepsy further worsened my condition.
I forgot about these things while I talked and reminisced with my cousins, Great Aunts, and Great Uncles. We discussed Histories, Memories, and Narratives our family had preserved and passed along each time they recalled those experiences from the shadow. Stories about birth records lost due to a racist medical system; contests with mental illnesses and the fight to raise awareness by counseling those wrestling with these specters; the tale of why my mother has no middle name.
Then, I remembered them remembering me, sharing tales of my childhood and how none of them had forgotten who I was. Pictures shared so that these sacred moments were permanently burned into our consciousness for all of those who would follow afterward to recognize. Promises from my Rasta uncle that I was always welcome in the Yard.
I felt strong because of them. Yet, as time passed and we each parted for the time being, the emptiness returned. I felt trapped inside a prison yet again, but it was the only secure place I had.
I’m tired of it.
