A Black Girl Wrote This

Keep swallowing your feelings and they’ll burn you from the inside out.

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You’re not fine.

You’re a liar.

Be honest:
What do you actually get out of saying “I’m fine”?
What has pretending ever saved you from—other than the temporary discomfort of vulnerability?

Because let’s be real…
You’re not okay.
You’re split in two.
You’re choking on tears like they’re bills you can’t afford to pay.
You’re smiling in rooms where your body is begging you to leave.
You’re calling it strength, but it’s not, Bookie.
It’s shutdown.
It’s self-abandonment.
It’s survival mode in a cute outfit.

And you’ve been wearing “I’m fine” like a damn bulletproof vest.
But guess what?
You’re still bleeding underneath it.

🔥 The Tea: Every time you say “I’m fine” when you’re not, you teach your nervous system that your truth is too much to be witnessed.

That your truth is dangerous.
That your emotions are excessive.
That your needs are inconvenient.
That being honest will cost you connection.

And eventually? Your body gets the message.
It stops warning you.
It stops asking.
It goes into lockdown.

Suddenly you’re “fine” in the middle of a breakdown.
You’re “fine” while your chest tightens and your hands shake.
You’re “fine” while anxiety¹ sits in your stomach like cement.
You’re “fine” while your body’s begging you to listen,
but you’re too scared to fall apart because you don’t trust anyone to hold you when you do.

So you hold yourself.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until you’re nothing but a functioning shell with great hair, a sharp tongue, and no softness left to give yourself.

🔥 The Real Tea?
“I’m fine” is just trauma dressed in a tone that doesn’t scare people.
But you? You’re terrified. You’re exhausted. You’re overdue for softness, and you keep denying it because you don’t want to be “too much.”

Sis.
You’re not too much.
You’re unheard.
Unwitnessed.
Unheld.

And that lie you keep telling?
It’s killing you quietly.

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It’s not soft.
It’s not gentle.
It’s not cute.
But it’s true.

This post?
Is for the ones pretending everything’s cool while their nervous system is screaming in the background.
For the ones who look put together, but haven’t exhaled in weeks.
For the ones who keep smiling while their chest stays tight.

“I’m fine” is the most dangerous lie we tell—and Black women? We’ve been telling it since we were children.
Taught that our pain made others uncomfortable.
Taught to be grateful, not grieving.
Taught to fix our face when it was cracking.
Taught to shrink our emotions into silence.

But silence turns into sickness.
And suppression always finds its way out.

🔥 The Tea: What you don’t release, your body will store. And your body is tired of holding what your mouth refuses to say.

Where Did You Learn to Lie Like That?

Before you were taught to suppress your truth, you screamed it.

Babies come into this world screaming bloody murder—and not a single soul questions them. Because releasing our emotions is the first language we’re born knowing how to speak.

Crying is how we’re heard.
It’s how we’re held.
It’s how the body says: I’m here. I need something. I exist.

But if you’re Black—especially a Black girl?
That language got silenced early.

Crying was seen as “fussin’.”
You were told to “shut up all that noise” before you even knew what shame was.
Little girls were taught to be seen, not heard—a phrase we all had burned into our bones.
You were told to stay in a child’s place while also being expected to carry emotional weight grown folks couldn’t handle.
You were told “ain’t nothing wrong with you” while everything inside you screamed otherwise.

So you learned fast:
Don’t cry too loud.
Don’t take up space.
Don’t look weak.
Don’t feel too much.
Don’t be too much.
Smile when you’re breaking.
Laugh when you want to scream.

And somehow, they called that strength.

🔥 The Tea: What they called obedience was really emotional erasure. And now that little girl is still inside you, aching for permission to fall apart.

You weren’t born hiding your pain.
You weren’t born apologizing for your emotions.
You weren’t born pretending everything was okay while you were bleeding inside.

You were taught that.

You learned to say “I’m fine” the first time someone brushed off your feelings like they were too much.
The first time you cried and they told you to toughen up.
The first time your voice cracked and someone laughed.
The first time you said you were scared and they called you dramatic.
The first time you needed comfort and they handed you silence.

So you adapted.
You figured out that being “okay” made people stay.
That your pain made them pull away.
That survival meant swallowing your truth whole and smiling through the burn.

We were raised to be strong.
Taught to be tough.
Expected to endure.
Nobody had time for feelings when rent was due and the world was already trying to break us.

So you kept shrinking your truth to make space for their comfort.
And you kept lying.
And they kept letting you.

🔥 The Tea: You didn’t choose to be emotionally silent—you were trained to be. And now? That silence is screaming for its exit.

What It’s Costing You to Keep Lying

Every “I’m fine” costs you something.
And you’ve been paying with interest.

• Your joy? Taxed.
• Your peace? Overdrawn.
• Your body? Carrying tension like it’s your rent money.
• Your relationships? Starving for your honesty.
• Your softness? Dormant. Withheld. Guarded.

You think you’re protecting people by hiding your truth, but really?
You’re protecting them from having to witness the version of you that’s human.
You’ve trained yourself to flinch before you feel.
You filter every emotion through “Is this too much?” before you even ask, “Is this real?”

You don’t speak up when something hurts.
You second-guess every boundary you try to set.
You lay awake replaying conversations, wondering if you asked for too much just by needing anything.

And then you call it growth.
You call it maturity.
You call it healing.

But healing without honesty is just performance.
You’re not healed—you’re hidden.
You’ve just mastered the art of smiling through the breakdown.

🔥 The Tea: You can’t build wholeness on top of a lie. And every time you lie to protect someone from your pain, you abandon the part of you that still needs to be heard.

How to Start Feeling Again

You can’t unlearn years of self-abandonment overnight.
But you can start telling yourself the truth.
One feeling at a time.
One pause at a time.
One deep, shaky breath at a time.

Here’s where you begin:

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✔️ Name the feeling—even if it’s ugly.
Not “I’m fine.” Not “I’m just tired.”
Say it: I’m overwhelmed. I’m angry. I feel like no one sees me.
Honesty is your first form of self-care.

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✔️ Let your body speak.
You’ve been silencing her for years.
So pay attention. That tight chest? That lump in your throat? That random snap of irritation?
That’s her.
Move your body. Breathe deep. Scream in the car. Cry without explanation.

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✔️ Resist the urge to downplay it.
You don’t have to slap logic on everything you feel.
You don’t have to prove you’re allowed to be upset.
Your feelings are valid—even when they’re messy.

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✔️ Tell someone safe.
No more shrinking behind “I got it.”
Practice saying: “I’m not okay, and I don’t want to be alone with this.”
The right people will hold space.
And the wrong ones? Good. Let this be how you find out.

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✔️ Talk to your inner child. Out loud.
She’s the one who learned to lie first.
The one who sat in the corner and swallowed her tears.
She needs to hear: “I’m sorry you had to hold so much. You don’t have to anymore.”

🔥 The Tea: Feeling is not weakness. It’s reclamation. And the version of you that can cry, scream, shake, grieve, rage, rest, and still wake up worthy?
She’s not broken.
She’s coming home.

Starting Today: Tell the Truth to the Mirror

This is your assignment.

For the next 7 days,
you’re going to look yourself in the mirror—yes, you—and say out loud:

🗣️ “This is how I feel today.”

No sugarcoating.
No editing.
No Pinterest quote phrasing.

Be raw. Be ugly with it. Be honest.

Say:

• “I’m numb and I don’t know why.”
• “I’m heartbroken and pretending I’m not.”
• “I’m angry because no one shows up for me.”
• “I’m tired and I don’t want to pretend today.”
• “I feel invisible and I hate it.”

Say something until your body believes it’s safe to tell the truth.
Because it’s not about fixing it right now.
It’s about finally telling the truth—to you.

🔥 The Tea: Healing starts with honesty. If you can’t be real with yourself, you’ll keep building your life on top of a lie. And baby… lies don’t hold joy. They hold pressure. Guilt. Shame. And eventually, they crack.

💭 Join the Conversation:

• What’s the first lie I tell when someone asks if I’m okay?
• When did I learn that my emotions were “too much”?
• What part of me is still waiting to be heard, held, or witnessed?
• What would it feel like to stop performing and just be?

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🌱 Affirmation of the Day:

I don’t have to lie about how I feel to be worthy of love, care, or rest.
My emotions are valid—even when they’re loud, messy, or inconvenient.

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1. If what you’re feeling feels bigger than sadness—if it shows up in your chest, your stomach, your sleep—it might be anxiety. I wrote a full post breaking it down, especially for us Black women who were taught to call it “tired” or “moody.”
   💫 Read: “Anxiety Is Your BIGGEST Hater” ↩︎