Black Pain

Friday's Reading Excerpt

Black Pain by Terrie Williams is a book I cannot wait to read and discuss. I am in the process of finalizing our reading list for 2008, but trust, this book will be featured.

Enjoy the excerpt.

Don't forget to tune in Sunday March 2, 2008 @ 6PM/EST to Sistah Confessions Radio Show featuring Candice Dow of Tapping on Thirty.

Have a great weekend!

Tifany Jones

BLACK PAIN

Chapter One
Depression
Not Killing Us Softly

I'm Coming Out, I Want the World to Know It's not just what we say, but what we don't say...
In June 2005 I wrote an article about my depression for Essence magazine. I was not prepared for the reaction it generated. I received over 10,000 letters, over half of them from people "coming out" for the first time about their pain and depression. Complete strangers wrote to me because I was the safest person they could share with. Not friends, not family members, but me -- someone they didn't know! I also wasn't prepared for the intensity of my frustration as I came to understand how many Black women and men are suffering silently.

The folks who wrote to me were scared -- some of them terrified -- to breathe a word to anyone; they were paralyzed by the fear that no one would understand or accept them. Their fear was echoed in conversation upon conversation I had while traveling across the country giving talks about how we are doing -- about waking up in pain each day -- to audiences that ranged from CEOs to regular churchgoers. After my talks, person after person would come to me to confide that they, too, were "going through it."

Sometimes I would come home from these trips totally drained in my heart and soul, having heard stories like the one I heard from a man whose two sisters are home suffering from major depression. He can't talk about it, nor can his family, even though he's a respected physician and his brother is a well-regarded man of the cloth!

If I'm honest with myself, and with you, the fact is that I'm more like these folks than I care to admit. If then Essence editor in chief Diane Weathers hadn't sensed what I was going through and asked me to write the piece, I don't know how much longer it would have taken before I really told someone I was depressed -- or if I would ever have told anyone before the point where there was no hiding it anymore. READ MORE