I wake up tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. The kind that lives in your bones, that greets you before you open your eyes, that says: Here we go again.

My mind is already running. A marathon I didn't sign up for, starting before my feet touch the floor. Breathe, they say. Focus on the day ahead. But my anxiety doesn't wait for permission. It's already three steps ahead, cataloging everything that could go wrong, everything I need to prove, everything I need to be.

Sometimes I think my thoughts could drown me. That if I stood still long enough, they'd rise like water and I'd forget how to swim.

It's hard to explain to people who don't live in this particular body, in this particular skin, navigating this particular world. How do you make someone understand that you're caught? That worry isn't optional—it's survival? That doubt isn't a character flaw—it's a rational response to a system designed to make you question whether you deserve to take up space at all?

My mind feels like a prison some days. But I'm also the guard, the warden, the architect. I built these walls trying to protect myself, and now I can't find the door.

Here's what they don't tell you about being a Black woman trying to exist: You're already behind before the race even starts. You have to work twice as hard. Be twice as good. Prove twice as much. And even then, maybe you'll get half the recognition, half the grace, half the benefit of the doubt.

And that's on a good day.

On a bad day, when your mind is a tangled maze and your heart feels like it's trying to break out of your chest, when you can barely keep your head above water—you're still expected to swim. Still expected to smile. Still expected to be strong.

Strong Black woman. They say it like a compliment. Like armor I should be grateful to wear.

But what if I don't want to be strong today? What if I just want to be?

I know the script. Therapy. Medication. Self-care. Journaling. Deep breaths. Radical rest. All the solutions that assume access, assume insurance, assume time, assume a world that will let you pause long enough to heal.

But accessibility is a luxury. And luxury isn't distributed evenly.

So I find other ways. I write until my hand cramps. I walk until my legs remember they can carry me. I talk to friends who understand without me having to explain. I talk to myself—sometimes out loud, sometimes in my head—with the kindness I wish came easier, the compassion I'm still learning to extend inward.

You're enough, I tell myself.

Some days I believe it.

I know what they'll say. That struggling with mental health isn't weakness. That it takes courage to face these challenges. That I should be proud.

And maybe that's true. Maybe there's strength in waking up tired and getting up anyway. Maybe there's grace in surviving a world that wasn't built for your survival.

But I'm tired of having to find the lesson in my pain. Tired of turning my suffering into something inspirational. Tired of being strong when what I really want is to be soft, to be held, to be allowed to fall apart without it becoming a referendum on my worth or my community.

So yes, I keep fighting. Not because I'm particularly brave, but because stopping isn't really an option when you're a Black woman in America. When "twice as hard" isn't motivation—it's the minimum. When your exhaustion doesn't buy you permission to rest.

I keep pushing through because somewhere there's another Black woman waking up tired, her mind already racing, her heart already heavy, wondering if anyone else feels this particular kind of caught.

And maybe if I keep speaking, keep writing, keep refusing to pretend I'm fine when I'm not—maybe she'll know she's not alone. Maybe we'll build something together that looks like community, sounds like understanding, feels like the support we keep being told to find but that's never quite within reach.

Maybe one day we'll live in a world where Black women can access mental health care without judgment, without barriers, without having to justify why we need help just to make it through the day.

Maybe one day we won't have to be strong. We can just be human.

Maybe one day the weight will lift.

But until then, I wake up. I'm already tired. And I begin again.

One breath. One step. One day.

A Black woman, somewhere, trying to survive a world that expects her to be superhuman while treating her as less than.

Still here. Still fighting. Still hoping that somewhere, somehow, it gets easier.

Even when I'm not sure I believe it.

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