'Racism at My Job Literally Gave Me PTSD'

The day of my annual performance review, I sat in my office unable to focus on anything but how much my hands were shaking. Although I knew that I had done strong work as an in-house attorney managing legal and business affairs, I was convinced that my boss — an older white guy — was going to blindside me with an issue that I’d never heard about or a complaint that no one had bothered to share with me.

After a mostly glowing review, I went back to my desk and breathed a sigh of relief. 

When I met with my therapist the following week, I told her I wanted to figure out why I was so afraid at work, despite all the evidence that I was well liked. Although I had initially started to see her in the months after undergoing a preventative mastectomy at age 29, the focus of our sessions had pretty dramatically shifted to workplace issues. I had started to realize that there was a disconnect between how I perceived things and the actual situations I was dealing with. “Why can’t I ever feel secure?” I asked. I sat in her office and talked, again and again, about how determined I felt to succeed at work — and yet eight years after becoming an attorney, I was still distrustful of my white bosses and colleagues, waiting for the day when things would go wrong.

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