"If I had an ear to confide in,

I would cry among my treasured friend, but who do you know that stops that long, to help another carry on.

The world moves fast and it would rather pass

by..."

-Tupac Shakur

There are times when race-related trauma can feel like an unfortunate, yet expected and even normalized, part of life. And yet, it wears on us and can even impact our physical health. You may feel that you have suffered small, grating slights and microaggressions that were even disguised as compliments. Or, you may have experienced more overt and obvious discrimination based on someone’s hatred for the color of your skin. Both hurt and both impact you. These experiences land differently depending on your age, gender, or other diversity factors. Perhaps, as a man for instance, you’ve felt pressured to appear stoic and unemotional (i.e. avoid crying), all while going through dehumanizing assumptions about your person. Alternatively, at the intersection of being Black and a woman, you’ve been expected to be “strong” or otherwise unscathed by racism. In either situation, you’re affected by racism as it applies to your gender. At other times, the impact of racism is systemic or intergenerational. In therapy, we can explore the function of your self-protective responses to trauma (e.g. fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) and how your trauma responses impact your life today. As you experience slights based on your skin tone, your sense of self may shift over time. Therapy can be a safe space to feel heard and seen for who you are right now and for who you are becoming. It can be a place to investigate how racism has impacted you, to receive validation, to reimagine how you’d like to respond within prejudicial settings you might find yourself in, and to start to heal. I am happy to help you process how your experience of race intersects with other diversity factors, as well.