Relax, Relate, Release
The first time I went to therapy, I was around the age of six or seven. My parents divorced when I was a year old, and my dad didn't even live in the same city as me. I didn't think going to therapy was a big deal then, because let's face it, I was a kid who got to sit around and play with toys for an hour while a therapist tried to coax me into talking about my feelings. Spoiler alert: I was only there for the toys. To this day, I'm not clear on why my mom thought I needed to see a therapist then. I never had any trouble in school outside of talking too much. 
It wasn't until I was about eleven or twelve that I went to therapy again. Naturally, by this time, the stigma associated with going to see a mental health professional rubbed off on me. I was convinced it wasn't for people like me. It was for kids with "real problems," the ones who would get in-school suspension for setting off stink bombs in the hallways or talking back to teachers. It wasn't for me! I was a cheerleader! I was on the honor roll! I got the role of Aunt in the school's production of Cinderella (when I should've been cast as the lead, but that's another story). I wasn't a problem child, so I didn't need therapy.The lie detector determined that was a lie. I'd ask my mom why she was sending me to therapy. "Do you think there's something wrong with me?" Shejust dropped me off and picked me up as if it was a piano lesson that she was never involved in. Because of this, I was admittedly resentful and defiant throughout those sessions in my adolescence. Which brings me to my point: Just because you think you're one of the "regular girls" who listened to Ashanti and Panic! at the Disco and enjoyed eating pizza and maintained perfect attendance in school doesn't mean you can't benefit from therapy. Regular girls go to therapy, sis. 
I first went to therapy of my own accord around 2011 after a breakup that brought on my first dance with depression. Naturally, I thought I couldjust get through it on my own, but it had been months and I still hadn't gotten through it. I had zero appetite. I couldn't sleep, and I woke up every night at 3 am. I needed help. I was lucky enough to have health insurance at the time, so I began researching online and I found a Black psychologist that was near my school who I could see. 

Fourth Time's a Charm
In 2016, I quit a job that gave me so much anxiety, I couldn't even sleep at night. I was constantly worried I would lose everything since everything depended on my boss's mood, which tended to fluctuate a lot (I was fired and hired twice in one month). But what about money? This time, I was no longer on my parent's insurance, but fortunately there are counseling centers that offer low-cost and sliding scale sessions. I found a local counseling center in LA that offered a sliding scale program. Because of the income-based fee schedule, I was able to see a therapist weekly for a couple years for no more than $13 a session. The downside was the waiting list was about six weeks long, and I didn't get to choose my therapist. However, I lucked out and got one that worked for me until I found someone new with the insurance I eventually secured. 
Therapy has given me the tools to establish boundaries and unpack the traumas that I would've otherwise overlooked on my personaljourney to self-healing. 

I Mean Fifth Time's a Charm
Today, I regularly go to therapy. I'm blessed to have insurance provided through my union. I started sessions when I was stuck in a cycle of a toxic relationship and roommate situation that drained almost every bit of my being. I am now in a place where I feel more assertive in myself. I'm prioritizing my goals. I'm not procrasti-- Let me stop lying. (I'm still working on that last one.) I'm recognizing the value I have as a Black woman, even when we're constantly shitted on in a society that barely recognizes our humanity. 
Now I'm definitely a "DAMN, I KNOW YOU SEE ME" kind of bitch when it comes to taking up space, instead of hoping others see me and maybe consider giving me a teaspoon of respect. Therapy saved me.

Bad Bitch on Antidepressants
In February 2019, I started antidepressants.

*Freeze frame* Yep, that's me. I bet you're wondering how I got here. It all began when . . . 

I started noticing something was incredibly off. Sure, I had been depressed for a stint or two in the past, but this time was different. I felt weighed down and suffocated. I felt as if I couldn't escape this feeling of distress. It was more than just feeling sad. 
At 10 am on a Saturday morning, after a successful art show the previous night, I bought a $30 train ticket from LA to Santa Barbara on a whim. I needed to get away. I needed space. I had a partner at the time who contributed to this suffocation by refusing to give me the space I needed, and my living situation was a bit of a nightmare. I texted my therapist that I was contemplating this random trip, and she agreed that I should take some time away.
I stayed for one night and felt a bit lighter, but as soon as I came back to LA, I felt the clouds return. I cried. I couldn't do this anymore. I desperately looked to find a psychiatrist who was accepting patients and my insurance. This proved to be harder than finding a one-bedroom apartment for under $1,000 a month in New York City.
I finally had my initial appointment with a psychiatrist, who started me on a low dose of antidepressants. I thought my problems were pretty much solved . . . Oh, but I was wrong.

My Antidepressant Journey

Day 1: Started my prescription for Prozac, things are looking up.
Day 5: Linkin Park-Numb.mp3
Day 6: Damn, I have no desire for sex at all.
Day 7: Why is it so hard to orgasm? 
Day 8: *after realizing I can't orgasm with ease* I gotta get off this shit.

I do my own research into SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (something I should've done prior to accepting any prescription), and I discover that a lot of them, including Prozac, decrease your libido dramatically. For someone like me, that's a hard pass. 
I then look into NDRIs, or norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitors, such as Wellbutrin, which have been known to not inhibit you from orgasming and in some cases even boost libido. I had my psychiatrist switch me to Wellbutrin XL 150 mg post-haste and haven't looked back since.

The Dating App Cycle
APRIL
You meet someone on a dating app. Let's say it's Tinder.
You talk every day, throughout the entire day. There's never a gap in how often you talk.
Are you getting the picture that you talk to them A LOT? 
You finally agree to have your first date on Thursday. You prep and go back and forth with yourself over what to wear: Should you rock red lipstick? Will that deter you from making out later on in the date?
Soon, you find resolve for all of your pre-date issues.
You're ready. You head to the agreed-upon spot.
You're anxiously awaiting their arrival.
The first fifteen minutes go by and you naturally assume your date is running a little late because traffic, parking, etc. After all, you weren't exactly on time either.
Then thirty minutes goes by and there's no sign of your date.
You start to get a bit worried.
You send a "Hey, I'm sitting by the window" text. Nothing. Then two hours go by.
You log on to Twitter and see your potential date is retweeting Steve Lacy's album release with the flame emoji.
You go home.
You block.
JUNE
You meet someone on a dating app. Let's say it's Bumble. You talk every day, throughout the entire day. There's never a gap in how often you talk.
Are you getting the picture that you talk to them A LOT?
You finally agree to have your first date on Saturday.
You prep and go back and forth with yourself over what to wear: Should you wear your natural hair even though you bought this really cute wavy lace front unit that makes you feel like H.E.R.? Will you feel weird if y'all are hooking up later and you have to dodge so they don't dig their hands into your lace and feel your stocking cap-covered braids?
You find resolve for all of your pre-date issues.
You're ready.
You head to the agreed-upon spot.
You're anxiously awaiting their arrival.
They show up!
They're not what you expected.
You have been catfished.
You try to finish the date as politely as possible and then dismiss yourself to the bathroom to ask your friend to call you in ten minutes so you can fake an emergency and leave.
SEPTEMBER
You meet someone on a dating app! Let's say it's Hinge/Raya/Feeld. You talk every day, throughout the entire day. There's never a gap in how often you talk. Okay, you know the drill here. You are envisioning hooking up with them while you play PartyNextDoor's "Thirsty."
You agree to have your first date on Friday. You prep, and this time you already know which outfit you're going to wear: the leopard-print dress that you thrifted that shows off your favorite assets.
You beat your face and wear the red lipstick because why the fuck not?
You're ready.
You head to the agreed-upon spot.
You get there and they've texted you that they're sitting by the bar. You look up, and yes, their photos match how hot they are in person.
Y'all chat for a little bit and then you invite them back to your place.
You text a heads-up to your roommate, who's looking out for you since you previously told them you were meeting someone from a dating app, for safety reasons.
You're back at your place. You have sex. It's amazing.
You continue having sex for about six weeks, until . . . YOU CATCH FEELINGS.
You check in with your bae (who's not really your bae butjust bae-adjacent) about your feels. They agree you should take things to the next level. You're excited.
Two days later, they call you to let you know they've changed their mind. Fuck.

The Friend Breakup
We're all familiar with what a romantic breakup is. What many people don't talk about is the fact that an equivalent exists for friendships, and in some cases, it hurts so much more. I've had my share of friend breakups for various reasons: 

*Roommates gone wrong (Don't move in with friends. Just don't.) 
* Lack of trust emerged after an irreparable fall out 
* Unequal amount of effort to maintain the friendship 

It happens, and it sucks. Coming to terms with the fact that a supportive friendship that sustained well over several years can easily transition into nothing is a pain like no other. The photos in your phone of the good times you had together serve as painful reminders of something you can't return to. The tinge of discomfort and anxiety you feel in your stomach whenever you see them post on social media can be too much. Friendships ain't linear. It's common to take breaks. It's common to grow apart. There's no rule that says you have to maintain the same friendship forever. The friends you have growing up might not be your closest friends in adulthood.
There are going to be times when you wish things could return to what they were before, but ultimately you know it'sjust wishful thinking. Unlike the end of a romantic relationship, where you can instantly redirect your mindset to "there's plenty of fish in the sea," we don't think about that when it comes to friends because friendships are the relationships we deem irreplaceable. They're around before, during, and after romantic relationships. They keep us grounded. Walking away from that is a loss that invokes the five stages of grief: 

1. denial
2. anger
3. bargaining
4. depression
5. acceptance

As I write this, I'm currently sitting somewhere between stages four and five, and I'm still in the process of learning to accept how things have become. I'm sad that a friendship is gone, and I'm learning to somehow appreciate that person for what they were at a particular time of my life. Are they inherently bad people? Not really. Did they do something that was incredibly hurtful to me? Yes. I've come to reckon with the fact that both can exist and our paths are just different now.
Do I wish them the best? LMFAO. No.

Bi, Bi, Bi
Freely embracing my sexuality was one of the best decisions I've made. However, it didn't come without the internalized pressure to openly perform and prove my queerness so as to feel that I wasn't some imposter taking up space. I spent so much of my high school and early college years cosplaying as straight that I felt I missed out on the experiences that I thought you needed to have in order to truly identify as queer.
I had only crushed on girls, but at that point I had never kissed or went out on any dates with other girls. I had only been in relationships with male partners. It was 2014 and I hadn't even watched seasons 1-4 of The L Word yet (I was a fan of the show's controversial reality series The Real L Word when it aired--yes, I know that doesn't count). When I finally had intimate relationships with women, I felt more like my actualized self. However, I try to divorce the idea that my experience of eating pussy validates my sexuality any more than my own existence. Eating pussy is a top-tier activity, tho!
The point is, like many of my bi homegirls, I struggled with validating my sexuality outside of queer relationships. It's almost if we're telling our brains, "How you feel is not enough! You need to be knee-deep in pussy at all times to identify as bi." And while yes, I love being knee-deep in pussy, I also understand that the definition of bisexuality is an attraction to both the same and the opposite sex simultaneously. But, let's be real here. Biphobia exists. The expectation that bisexual folks can only exist in queer relationships is erasure. It also contributes to the idea that bisexuality is an identity that is only defined by who you are dating in that exact moment. I can 100 percent assure you my Kinsey test results will be the same no matter who I'm dating. 
To put it in perspective, think of it like this: If you're not dating anyone at all, you're not any less queer. Queerness isn't the absence of anything. It's an expansion.


How I Lost Money, Part 1
I was sixteen years old, and I'd been working all summer to save up and pay for driver's ed and cheerleading costs at school. I would cash my checks and sometimes keep the money on me because I didn't have a bank account. I had around $280 on me that day.
So I'm getting my nails done in Houston at a random nail salon that I'd never been to before in the part of Third Ward we call "The bottoms." Two random dudes come in, encouraging everyone to play this game with one of them for money. The object of the game was to find the eraser hidden underneath three soda bottle caps, which he shuffled around.
I was geeked at the opportunity to win money and knew my skills were sharp AF, so I decided to try my luck. The first couple of times, I won (he let me win) a couple of $20 bills. Then, as I played a few more times, I noticed I kept losing horribly. The other adults in the salon were cheering me on to keep playing. One dude waiting in the salon even came up and tried his luck, only to lose $100. (Looking back on it, I think this guy was a plant.)
The final nail in the coffin was when this scammin'-ass dude proposed that I could play one last time to win the entire stack of money that he had in his hand if I put my last $20 up. There had to be over $800 or so in his hand. It was a lot. I was confident that I could watch this man's hands effectively and there was no way I could lose. So I agreed to one final play. Ijust knew I was going to walk away with all that money, but then . . . 
The heartbreak when the eraser wasn't under the soda bottle cap. This manjetted out the nail salon with all my money so fast. The dude who "lost" $100 went after him outside, but I think it wasjust to get his planted money back. 
I started crying. I only had enough to pay for my $16 manicure plus tip, but half the money I needed to pay for driver's ed was gone. I called my folks, who showed up at the nail salon only to have virtually all of the adults there lie to their face and say, "We tried to tell her to stop." I was raised not to "talk back" to adults, so Ijust cried. Whew, I'm still hot over that. 
As it turns out, I was a victim of what's known as a "pigeon drop." Two people will work together to scam you out of money by proposing you can make a larger sum if youjust put up a certain amount. 
I watched the 1992 Wayans film Mo' Money for the first time recently and was instantly triggered when I saw Seymour (Marlon Wayans) starting to pigeon drop with a game of "three card." Amber (Stacey Dash), walks over to play. However, unlike me, she ends up winning her money back because Johnny (Damon Wayans) is trying to cuff her.

The Secret to Maintaining Your Bag . . .
is checking your account balance. I know, I know. It seems like the most mundane thing to do, but as someone who once racked up $1600 in overdraft fees, I can tell you right now: I have not been charged one of those little $35 money sucks since I turned off overdraft protection. Look for banks that won't charge you overdraft fees. They're bullshit. Think of keeping your money like growing your hair. You can'tjust put it up in a protective style and forget about it. You gotta check in, make sure it's moisturized, notice if there's breakage, and trim when necessary.
Now, you don't have to always log in to your account to do so. A while ago, I started using an online bank that immediately sent me a notification after I bought anything. There's something about not having to log in to my actual account to see my balance that seemingly took the pressure off. It was a small baby step toward financial responsibility.
Most recently, I upgraded to a budgeting app. Every week (almost  .  .  .  okay probably every other month, if I remember), I sit down and categorize my transactions. Yes, it's embarrassing to realize how much I spend on fast food. When I discovered zeppoles at Olive Garden, it was a problem. The Qdoba queso and random ICEEs from the gas station really add up. Seeing each of these transactions amount to more than what I would spend on monthly groceries puts the fear in my heart to chill out (even if it'sjust temporarily, because lord knows I'm tryin', but why did he create food trucks, tho?)
The bad-bitch level after this point is getting a solid financial advisor. Yes, a financial advisor is going to hold you accountable and help guide you to save for your future. Future savings can help with:

*     retirement
*     education
*     investments
*     TELFAR bag
*     trip to Tulum

Be careful. There's still folks out there who will try to take advantage of you. Don't trust credit cleaning companies. You can fix your credit yourself. I lost $300 to a company who said they would fix my credit but left my credit score for dead.

While we're here:
If you freelance or work for yourself, paying quarterly taxes will save you a lot of headaches come tax time. Nobody likes paying several racks that feel like they came out of nowhere.

Nothing Beat a Failure But a Try
In the 1930s, my grandma moved to Texas by herself at fourteen years old. She was able to save enough money by working as a private duty nurse for a white family to move her parents and brother to Houston. She would later own restaurants and nightclubs in Houston's Third Ward throughout the 1950s in the segregated South.
"Nothing beat a failure but a try," is something I heard my grandma say often whenever she wanted to go for something without knowing how things would turn out. It's this exact quote that gave me the motivation to move to LA on my own.
We fixate a lot on waiting for the "right time" to pursue a lot of what we want in life, but this hypothetical perfect date doesn't truly exist. Sure, I could've saved three months' worth of expenses before moving to LA to afford more than a couple 50-cent tacos from Del Taco. But as an anxious procrastinator, I didn't have the discipline for that. It was a whole "now or never," and I had to leap and wait for the net to appear.
Years later, my grandma's words (and addressing my generalized anxiety disorder in a clinical setting) helped me confront my fear of failure. I've learned that it's better to have made an attempt at something than to go through life without knowing what could've been had you just tried.

---

Excerpted from Not Everyone Is Going to Like You: Thoughts from a Former People Pleaser by Rinny Perkins
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.