Weaponizing The Word Strong: A Black LDS Woman’s Guide to Vulnerability
As a young child, there was nobody better than I was at being open. I seemed to have been born with the ability to healthily regulate my emotions. I was courageous and took charge. I took part in every activity that my small Methodist church had to offer. I believed I could defeat the trials that came my way or swim the deepest seas of uncertainty. To everyone around me, I seemed to be the perfect example of what a young Christian woman should be.
With age, that courage evaporated quickly. It’s funny years later that the habits from my childhood seem to be the ones I struggle most with as an adult. My teen years brought insecurities, harsh self-criticism, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Gone with the girl who seemed to have it all under control.
Soon after my baptism almost five years ago, I was reintroduced to the “S-Word”. Before I’d identified it with superheroes and mythical gods who harnessed infinite power. Back then, as a twenty-four-year-old convert, the word strong super-glued itself onto my entire existence as a saint of color, refusing to budge in the eyes of others who saw me as some tokenized superhero who seemed able to fix all the world’s problems without the ability to break down and have bad days just like everyone else.
Time and time again, I have been on the receiving end of the “s-word”. At first, it came from the missionaries who with their glowing testimonies believed in rainbows and butterflies instead of rain clouds, tropical storms, and hurricanes. Then it came from well-intended members who believed that to be a saint of color meant that I had to wear a mask to hide any sign of vulnerability. Then it came from leaders who despite their good intentions placed high expectations on shoulders that were already weary and bruised.
Now, this isn’t a blame game. However, in a gospel where passivity is rewarded as the sign of a perfect member, strength for black women in the church places a mirage of superpower for women who just seek to be normal. Instead, they are placed on pedestals they’re not quite able to stand on during their lifetime. Despite its definition in any dictionary, the s-word isn’t a friend for women of color in the church. It’s not a loving companion or a confidant who listens to our deepest fears and inadequacies. Instead, the s-word is violent. It’s problematic. It forces us to be something that we’re not sure we can be and binds us into a contract with people’s expectations of the person that they assume we should be.
No good ever came from the s-word. Over time, it’s been twisted and altered, placed like a blanket of fire on the women of color who would much prefer an umbrella during a rainstorm. Each day, as the word is thrown upon us, it’s the noose around our necks, with an ever-tightening hold that tells us that if we aren’t “copy and paste” definitions of the s-word, that the world sees us differently.
As I deal with health challenges and the crippling depression and anxiety that throw “raves of inconvenience” in my life, the s-word even with well-intentioned utterance stings like hell. It tells me that people assume but do not know and believe without delving beyond the surface level.
Because of this, I’ve found it so much easier to gloss over everything and ignore the raging inferno which threatens to become a disaster at a later date. Glossing has NEVER or WILL NEVER be healthy. It forces you to don the mask. It forces you to play a game of make-believe that the world is perfect, even when your emotions are far from it. The need to constantly project strength and security means that some forget their own emotions. Over the years, I’ve lived in this space afraid of the fallout my words may cause.
While society paints women of color as strong, resilient, and even fearless, it also gives us frightening case studies where persons of color faced horrible experimentations as they were thought to be able to endure more pain, more anguish, and torment than their white counterparts.
Even in a gospel of togetherness, speaking openly about pain is seen as weakness. My words have no merit as I am expected to be fine.
I am expected to endure.
I am expected to overcome.
As a woman of colour…even as a woman of colour in the church, my strength is weaponized to bind me to that tokenized ideal that I am not allowed to feel, and that feeling is not of the Spirit. Years later, I recognize that this toxic positivity is the albatross on my neck which I wish to remove by surrendering myself to my emotions even if they are complex and messy.
I am allowed to feel. It doesn’t make me less of a member to be less than strong.
I recognize that in the gospel and even in life, I need support and love and time to fall apart, just like the average member. While I don’t plan to stay in a place of brokenness, being strong defeats my growth. It defeats my ability to make peace with my brokenness and be reborn again.
Maybe the best advice I could give in a gospel of glossing is to recognize that strong isn’t my definition as a saint of color. It doesn’t define me as a woman. And maybe it’s okay to admit that strength isn’t my defining characteristic in a gospel where everything is assumed to be okay until it isn’t.
It’s okay to use other “ s-words” too (especially when referring to saints of color). So, without further ado allow me to use more.
Hi. My name is Ramona. Strong is not my definition.
I’m not settling
I’m struggling but I’m on the path to surviving.
