The Black Woman & Therapy
I vividly remember sneaking to call my clinic and attempting to schedule an appointment with my PCP. When the receptionist asked me what I needed to be seen for, I said depression and remember expressing that I didn’t want my parents knowing. By this time, I want to say I was 18. Low and behold, they called my mom -- exactly what I didn’t want. Then she goes on asking me what’s wrong and why I need to see someone. Like any other Nigerian parent, she told be to pray about it. Now, I’d like to count myself among the Bible believing, God-fearing community, but what I was feeling needed something in addition to God. My first ever therapy session was with my mom in the room, I felt so uncomfortable and regretted I had ever said something. That was the first and last time I went to therapy until I came to college.
My freshman year, I had an identity crisis, I wanted to reinvent myself from the unpopular and “know-it-all” label I’d been given in high school. I tried this whole “Oluwa-Beyonce” persona that just wasn’t me and I unintentionally wasn’t doing well in school. What saved my freshman year GPA was the Yoruba class I took all year. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t do as well as I did in high school. I felt like I hadn’t made any solid group of friends yet and I felt like I couldn’t be my form of blackness. Honestly, truly, I just kept emotionally declining. By my sophomore year, I figured therapy was worth a try one more time. This time, the person had to be black. That was the only way they’d understand me. I saw a black lady for a couple months and she was cool, but she was a temp so soon our time came to an end. While talking with a faculty from the Black House (as we call it at Stanford), she referred me to a Ghanaian psychiatrist. This is truly when the real magic began. Finally I could see someone who would understand the cultural background I was coming from and I didn’t have to explain every little thing to her. Starting therapy with Dr. “Pooh”, truly changed the trajectory of my life. Finally, I had a space to process my thoughts, feelings and emotions. I was in a place were only my side of the story mattered and there was no one to invalidate my feelings. For 45 minutes a week, this was my magical place where I could make sense of my reality and the world around me. I learned so much about myself and learned how to love myself again. By my senior year, nothing could stop me. I was getting As in my pre med classes and bio classes, I had lost about 20 pounds and was the smallest I’d ever been since my junior year in high school, I had swag and confidence, I was beautiful, I knew who I was and where I was going.
Discovering oneself is hard and not easy; the only way to move forward in life is to grow as a person. Therapy was what I needed. It was the only friend who knew all my secrets and knew the true Seun. Therapy gave me the hug I needed when I said I wanted to be alone. Therapy believed in my dreams of being a doctor and knew the sky was the limit for me. Therapy pushed me to face parts of myself I’d been avoiding for years. Therapy told me that being sensitive and vulnerable was a strength, not a weakness. Therapy was me. I was therapy.
[Talk about therapy in post grad life]
