I reread her past emails and sensed an enormous amount of anxiety. I empathized with where she was at—overwhelmed, crazy deadlines haunting her, a full slate of interviews on the horizon. I scheduled a call with her to understand more of where she was coming from. As soon as we got on the phone, she was off to the races—a million thoughts, her complaints, her anger, her doubts—and it occurred to me that, for once, I knew exactly what she needed. I’d been pressing her to change things, but I hadn’t asked her why she hadn’t changed them. This reporter simply needed someone to listen to her.
I let her talk and talk. After she finished, she was breathless. I told her, “I hear you. I’m here to listen. Is there anything else you need me to know?” I could hear that she was taken aback. She had been preparing for a fight, but now that she knew one wasn’t coming, she softened. She started listing her fears, the personal issues she’d been struggling with. I let her vent for another fifteen minutes, just repeating, “I hear you. I hear you. What do you need to be able to get this done?” We decided to tweak our workflow a little and do more in-person editing rather than online. By the end of the call, she was apologizing about her ultimatum and was ready to get back to work.
This was a small moment, but it was a meaningful one. A big personal win. For now, anyway, I had preserved a relationship by navigating a real, live repair. A repair that didn’t involve groveling. A nuanced repair.
* * *
—
Armed with one success under my belt, I started analyzing things more confidently in the world: minute details and misattunements in conversations. I picked up on them when people looked away, or didn’t respond to a bid for connection, or changed the subject. Instead of feeling insecure or guilty about it, I chanted to myself, Okay, curiosity. Curiosity, not self-blame. This change seemed so impossibly small. But all of a sudden, with just this slightest change in attitude, worlds of complex behaviors lit up like a secret plane of existence coming into view. Oh, we were just talking about B.’s sister, but he suddenly changed the subject—ah, he feels guilty about their strained relationship! Why did A. just get so uncomfortable right now? Huh, now that we have started talking about peanut sauce, her body has relaxed. Ooh—I get it! She feels anxious talking about her career!
One day, my friend Jen told me she was struggling with parental stuff but then did a hard swerve and kept aggressively asking me about my life—why? Ah…was it because she was insecure about being needy? How could I address this feeling she was having? I mentalized and metacommunicated—fancy terms Dr. Ham taught me that basically mean say what you’re thinking out loud. “I’m feeling worried that you’re shifting the attention to me because you don’t want to burden me with your problems. But I just want to say that your problems aren’t a burden—I’m so curious about what’s going on. My life is so boring right now, and I want to spend time learning about you!”
“Okay,” Jen said, and she started sharing the tough stuff she was going through and let me comfort her. I felt privileged to be able to hold space for a friend I love.
Even in our sessions, as Dr. Ham bore his all-seeing eyes into my skull, he had taken to smiling at me and saying, “You feel curious today.” He might as well have been telling me that I was his favorite patient. It was a glowing compliment.
I am not always curious, of course. When I perceive someone being rude to me, I do not get it together to practice this dance of attunement every day. Not even most times. But more and more, I am curious enough to ask the magic question: “What do you need?” These four words open doors and break down walls. With the benefit of understanding, we are no longer two separate beings floating through these threads alone. We are giving and receiving. Two reciprocal atoms hugging each other through the turmoil around us. I hurt you. You hurt me. You’re mine.
* * *
—
There is one last thing, though, that we must consider when we think about what is really happening. Something that questions don’t always answer. Something that lies far under the surface of most people’s understanding of what is happening.
In my research, I came across a neuropsychologist at Emory University, Negar Fani, who studies the effects of PTSD on people of color. She did a study where she scanned the brains of Black women who had experienced continued racist microaggressions in their personal lives and at work, and found that this abuse had changed the structures of their brains.[2] What’s more, their brains had undergone similar structural changes to people who had complex PTSD. The takeaway here: Racism can cause PTSD. Even Negar herself told me that her work was inspired by the slights and microaggressions she’d endured from her older white male colleagues in academia.
On top of those findings, there have also been a number of studies showing that consuming racist or threatening media can be harmful to one’s mental health. Black people who have watched videos of unarmed Black men being shot by police have reported anxiety and depression. I’m sure the same could be said for Latinx people watching videos of dead-eyed children separated from their parents at the border.
This made me reconsider the timing of my breakdown. It was no accident that it occurred at work, a space where I was forced to think about white supremacy and violence against people of color all day, every day—all while facing prejudice and abuse from my own management. Now, years later, I know many journalists of color who were forced to quit their newsrooms in the same time period I did, for similar mental health struggles.
It isn’t just racism. Being part of an oppressed minority group—being queer or disabled, for example—can cause C-PTSD if you are made to feel unsafe because of your identity. Poverty can be a contributing factor to C-PTSD. These factors traumatize people and cause brain changes that push them toward anxiety and self-loathing. Because of those changes, victims internalize the blame for their failures. They tell themselves they are awkward, lazy, antisocial, or stupid, when what’s really happening is that they live in a discriminatory society where their success is limited by white supremacy and class stratification. The system itself becomes the abuser.
When my boss said I was “different,” I thought it meant broken. Now I think it meant something else.
CHAPTER 41
“I had a wonderful weekend and I’m upset about it,” I said. Dr. Ham gave me a confused look, and I sighed.
We’d had an extravagant barbecue with Joey’s family on Saturday. And the next day, I’d gone out to dinner with friends who were in town, and we walked the streets of Manhattan until late at night. I had laughed for two days straight. But on Monday, in absence of all that company and revelry, I’d felt lonely. My stupid-ass C-PTSD, I’d thought. Always conspiring to make me feel alone no matter how much good stuff comes my way.
It was shameful, I said. “Like, who feels lonely after not being surrounded by loving people for half a day?”
“Everyone,” Dr. Ham replied.
“Wait—but isn’t it crazy?”
“No. That’s the way it should be. Your body knows better than you.”