Finding Solitude: Navigating Through Adversity and Self-Care

When this whole thing with the black journalism sites, whether it be Black Enterprise and Essence and Grio and the Roots, when that whole onslaught, that whole attack on my character happened, I thought I was okay, and then a week into it, I had a full-on breakdown one day. I just couldn’t stop crying, and it just really had gotten to my core. The cancer of what them people were spreading had officially started to eat me up. And I went to my psychiatrist, and she was like, listen, what I want you to do today, if it’s at all possible, I want you to just go home and do nothing. Literally just go home and do absolutely nothing. She was like, just vegetate if you can. And I thought about it, y’all, and I never really vegetate. Even if I’m watching something, I’m doing something. You know, like I’m watching something, but then I’m like doing Arabic on my Duolingo. Like I’m watching something, but I’m playing a game. Like I never really just zone out. And I allowed myself to do that. I went and grabbed my basket of snacks. Yes, I have a basket of snacks. And I just laid in bed, but that was solitude.