I didn’t plan to cry.
We were supposed to be talking strategy. Progress. Content pipelines.
Not my pain. Not my shame. Not the quiet thoughts I hadn’t dared say aloud.
But there I was, in a room full of women I admire, my friends and co-founders — sobbing.
What triggered it?
Someone asked how my week had been.
And instead of lying, my mouth betrayed me and said the truth:
“I’m tired. I think… I might be broken.”
I didn’t know it at first. That’s the thing about work depression — it doesn’t start with tears.
It starts with small things. Quiet things.
Like needing three alarms instead of one.
Like re-reading the same email five times and still not absorbing it.
Like fantasizing about small, non-fatal accidents — something just inconvenient enough to let you rest.
It started the week I got a new boss.
She wasn’t cruel. That would’ve been easier to name.
She was just… dismissive. Smiling, polite, and quietly undermining.
When I spoke in meetings, she’d say, “Let’s park that for now.”
When I submitted work, she’d copy edit it so heavily I barely recognized my voice.
She complimented me once by saying,
“You should be so happy that you have such a senior position at this age.”
And then chuckled — as if it were charm, not condescension.
The worst part? I started subconsciously agreeing with her.
I shrank.
I stopped offering ideas.
I apologized when I wasn’t wrong.
I became silent in rooms where I used to lead.
By the third month, I wasn’t sure if I was bad at my job or just bad at being gaslit.
But that’s how it happens, right?
You lose your edges slowly.
And one day you wake up praying for a sprained ankle just so you don’t have to show up.
So no, I didn’t plan to cry.
But maybe I needed to.
Because naming the thing is sometimes the only way to stop it from owning you.
If you’ve ever felt this — the invisible grief of being slowly erased at work — I want you to know:
You are not crazy. You are not weak. And you are not alone.
I’m still figuring out my next move.
But for now, I’ve stopped pretending. And that’s something.
— Living Africana Writer
