I’ve discovered another angle in which I lack self-awareness. It’s the fact that I’m good at things. Even that start sets me off negatively and I feel trapped by it, this hand again that is pushing my head down constantly. I don’t like saying I’m good at things. I say I can do them. I can facilitate. I can host events. I can write papers. But I don’t say I’m good at them.
This became very clear today at work. My probation’s coming to an end and I was having a conversation with my line manager (LM). For context, the last place I worked was godawful. I started having panic attacks, I took a month off of work for stress, I felt that no one valued me, and I saw and was subjected to racism. Those words don’t come close to covering what happened. I wish I had some clever way to put it, some way to show how bad it was succinctly, but there is no way, and that isn’t the point. The point is that I came into my new role at a new company feeling broken.
We were partway through the conversation and I was poking and prodding at things and she must have heard it in my tone because she stopped me and said not to look for things that were wrong, because the reality was everything’s fine. That they ‘adore’ me. That I add so much. She listed off example after example of things I had done not just right, but well, and praised me for learning so much so quickly. She wanted to trust me with big projects once I had fully adjusted to the company and the new line of work.
And I started to cry. I told her it was hard to believe. That in my old place of work, they had left me alone. I said that. ‘They left me alone.’
It’s true. I had colleagues at my level, more people of colour who understood, but I didn’t have what I needed to do my job well. No team, no resources, leaders unable to understand and therefore address the problems. And yet I did it well. My mother told me she was proud of me for the work I did and the way I left. She said I learned so much and did good work. She said so many people of colour put their heads down and walk away, but I held every last one of the people who did me wrong to account in a respectful way. I didn’t let them get away with it. When I was younger, mum told us not to start fights but to always finish them. I finished it.
For the last real month in my old role, anxiety and the beginnings of what was likely depression had made me sluggish and avoidant. I worked slowly, stretching things over weeks. No one checked up on me enough to realise this. I was away from my computer putting on loads of laundry, checking my phone, looking out the window. I felt guilty for putting things off for so long, but the truth was, even if I did, who would know, or care? I called the doctor and he signed me off for two weeks, then another two. During this time I searched for new jobs. I looked for roles that paid lots and in organisations that shared my values. All I knew was that I needed to go somewhere would support me, in the corporate sense. I came back with a job offer and my resignation letter.
I thought so lowly of myself during this time. I thought I’d lost my work ethic - because my role is about anti-racism, and I had spent so much time not working and therefore not helping the people I was hired to help. And I wanted to help them. But as the eternal RuPaul says, ‘If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?’ I don’t fully believe that - you can still love them, still help them. But you can’t do it as fully as you could if you were at 100%. And my mum pointed out all the good things I did in my role, including at the end. She said that even the way I left would be helping people of colour in the organisation. Maybe it’s true. Maybe even if I couldn’t do all I’d wanted to do, I’d still done enough for someone.
My LM told me the other month that I had an incredible work ethic. I had to pause and reflect on the amount of work I had done since I had joined. And how well. There were minimal comments on my work. People trusted me to do more and bigger. My opinion was actively sought, and valued. And I even did it in a way that apparently made people feel I’d been there forever, a comment I heard multiple times. I do have an incredible work ethic. I just need to be well and healthy to make full use of it, which is more than reasonable considering that’s what all of us need. And I do have a good work ethic. Even in my life - the things I need to do are done, almost always in a timely manner. When I have a few down days, something inside me rouses itself and shakes me by the scruff of my neck. A matron rolling up her sleeves and declaring, ‘right, what’ve we got then?’
This inner voice seems to zing up when I’m at my lowest. I don’t know what it is. Apparently I’ve always been feisty. I slapped a girl for beating me at cards. I got the boy who cut me in line into a headlock. Even when I was 3, my dad threatened to throw all my video cassettes in the bin and I yelled ‘do it!” For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had the instinct to fight, which comes through in many ways. I like to challenge, I like to provoke, I like to debate, I like to be at the front. In a way, it’s even become my instinct to defend - to fight for the rights of people like me, people not like me. It’s become my instinct to preserve myself. Even at the brink of the darkest time in my life, when I could have ended my life through sheer apathy, I stepped back from the edge. I cleaned my room. Oiled my hair. Cooked something.
It’s in me to fight, for life, for the things I want, for the people I love. It’s something that’s seemingly always been at the core of who I am, and I’m lucky this was nurtured, mostly in a good way, by those around me. I’m learning to use it for the right reasons. Not letting it flare out naked from its jar. But I have a feeling that sometimes letting the leash go isn’t always a bad thing. Because I’m reacting for a reason. My thoughts will catch up.
I used to hate when people called me passionate. I thought it was a microaggression, a stereotype of a woman showing animus - you wouldn’t call a Wall Street broker passionate, you’d call him motivated. But I mind less now because it shows I’m alive.