What Does Opting Out Look Like?

For much of my adult life — particularly as a Black woman working in the field of mental health — I’ve felt the obligation and responsibility to be the spokesperson for issues of social justice, but never more acutely than in the wake of the summer of 2020. In the year since George Floyd’s murder, and the numerous other atrocities in the years prior, Black women and femmes were forced to disconnect from their emotional response to these repeated traumas in order to intellectualize our pain so that white folks could listen and learn. The labor to carry society through their hurt was placed onto us as many people proudly proclaimed: “Black women will save us.” It did not matter if we suffered in the process of trying to “save” others.

We saw this scenario resurface during the 2024 election when many people voted for Kamala Harris because they believed that she would save the nation, a common story for Black women and femmes — the expectation being that we fix and carry the weight of the world on our backs while also being exploited and torn down at every level when we make the effort to show up and make change.

During my own career as a mental health therapist I have experienced the repercussions of speaking up firsthand — whether it was losing opportunities because I was perceived to be too radical in my advocacy for social justice within the traditional therapy field, or being pushed out of jobs for being too vocal about the need for more equitable working environments within the same systems many of these institutions purported to want to make better.

The daily microaggressions I experienced at work became so intense that my mental health plummeted. I was giving myself to clients during therapy sessions, while also experiencing the impact of systemic oppression showing up in both my workplace, and my profession at large. I knew many other Black women therapists who were so disconnected from themselves as a result of practicing in similar environments that it began to impact other areas of their lives. They began to show up, at work and at home, as a shell of themselves.

At the same time, in an effort to combat the isolation I felt about not being heard professionally, I took to social media as an outlet to connect with other like-minded practitioners and discuss important topics that were happening in the world through a mental health lens. In response to the racial “reckoning” of 2020, a colleague and I created the global movement “Amplify Melanated Voices” as a way to center the narratives of those who have historically had our stories suppressed and our voices silenced. I was inundated with requests to speak about Black Lives Matter and to educate various communities about anti-racism. In some ways it felt good to have a place to channel my anger and helplessness, and in other ways, there was never-ending pressure to engage in the emotional labor of helping people who were benefiting from the same system that was harming me, with very little benefit to me. The result left me feeling exploited and dehumanized. Over and over again, I felt myself having to catch someone up with 500 years of history, and then display how that history was showing up today by exposing my most vulnerable wounds to the world in order to be believed. On top of this, there was pressure to show my pain only in a way that was palatable to those I was tasked with teaching.

Even with the most ideal conditions for meaningful change, it did not prevent the apathy of folks who had signed up for anti-racism book clubs in 2020, deciding that they had better things to do in 2021 than to focus on anti-racism. It was heartbreaking. I was heartbroken. If witnessing Black people being brutalized on TV every night for the world to see was not enough to invoke a substantial radical shift, then I truly didn’t know what would. It was in these moments of truth that I really understood what it felt like to be marginalized by the system.

When I spoke with other Black women and femme professionals, activists and influencers, I discovered that they were also experiencing the same heartbreak. Many were putting their bodies on the front lines at protests, mobilizing to address COVID-19, and taking care of their families and communities while also having to show up in oppressive work environments and somehow take care of themselves as well. We were all in the throes of a particular type of burn-out — we were all exhausted from being society’s mules.

I knew that if I continued on the path I was on, there soon wouldn’t be much of me left. And so, I quit my therapy job at the height of the pandemic with no back-up plan, and focused my therapeutic efforts on opening my own private practice, healing groups, courses, and speaking engagements.

I began to deepen my understanding of mindfulness, embodiment practices, yoga, and holistic healing. Online, I moved away from feeling the need to generate fiery, reactionary posts in response to every world crisis, and instead focused my content on ways that I was engaging in self-care. But by 2022, I started noticing something interesting: I had lost significant followers and support during a time when my life was moving out of survival mode into a space of healing. People wanted to see the suffering. They wanted me to deplete my body by being in a constant state of rage. What they did not necessarily want to see was a Black woman experiencing rest and repair — especially when that repair had nothing to do with the help and input of white folks. Instead, I made the choice to listen to what my body needed.

This now brings me to the present moment, a moment where many of us don’t know what is around the next corner, and undoubtedly as Black women and femmes, we will soon feel the brunt of what is coming with this incoming administration.

My invitation to us — to you — is this: Pause and reflect on the fact that you do have the choice to opt out of a system that is not supportive of your wellbeing.

While social justice and anti-oppression work will always be in my heart, it is not my job to save the world. It is, however, my responsibility to decide how I want to transform my own world — and it’s my hope that the work that I do within myself inspires others to change. I opted out first by taking a break from the traditional mental health therapy field after realizing that a big part of my training was that I would constantly be in service to others and their mental health, even if that did not honor my own. I opted out of a social media machine that thrives on the trauma, anger, and pain of marginalized people, instead choosing to follow a different narrative that centered my own healing, ease, and joy.

And then, perhaps my most radical act of opting out, I began to seriously contemplate what it might look like to leave the United States entirely. I journaled and prayed and daydreamed about it, and I could no longer see myself living my dream life in this country — a life of abundance, safety and freedom. This revelation hit me hard as I contended with what it would mean to leave behind family, friends, and the way that I had learned to conceptualize and navigate the world for something completely unknown. But I began speaking to other ex-pats, and every time I heard their stories I felt something come alive within me, a resonance and knowing that this was also the path that I wanted to take. I had lots of doubts, and at times thought I was losing my mind for even thinking about leaving, but even more than that I was tired. Tired of constantly living in a state of fear, emotional depletion, and physical stress. Staying in America no longer felt sustainable for me. And so in 2024 I packed up my bags and relocated to Mexico.

Living outside of the U.S., I finally know what it feels like to embody healing and liberation. I know what it means to have freedom over my time, and to live a more holistically healthy lifestyle. I walk everywhere, and have access to good and cost effective healthcare. I have access to fresh and affordable markets and produce in my neighborhood. I live in a warm, sunny climate, and the beach is within minutes of my home, which means my vitamin D levels are no longer low. I am surrounded by a community of other people who also took this journey so we get to share stories and be affirmed around our experiences of leaving, maintaining our commitment to freedom and also the challenging feelings that arise. I am being mentally stimulated by learning new things about this culture and language every day. I truly know what it feels like to be at peace, to experience joy, to know when to connect and disconnect.

This is what opting out has given me.

In the weeks, months and certainly years to come, Black women and femmes will no doubt be called on to be the “saviors” — drawing on the deep contradictions of a society that demands liberation and healing from those most harmed by systems of power, yet fails to grant them the respect and recognition they deserve. It’s time that we stop waiting for the system to change. I believe this is our moment to choose how we will respond to the system instead. Maybe it’s finally time to show up for ourselves.

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Thank you deeply for reading my piece! If you would like to learn more about what I’ve been up to, I gently invite you to:

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• Get your copy of my debut novel, Reclaiming the Black Body!
• Check out my course, Re-Imagining Eating Disorders 101: A Holistic Orientation to Eating Disorder Treatment and Healing!