26 BLACK WOMEN
Losing Yourself Trying to Be Strong
Losing Yourself Trying to Be Strong
Being the Strong One in Rooms Not Built for Me
Cynthia Strickland
Cynthia spent nearly three decades being the first, the only, and the one expected to hold everything together in rooms that were never really built with her in mind. Her career took her through NASA, Fortune 500 consulting, entrepreneurship, technology, and leadership, often in spaces where she could feel the doubt directed at her even while she was being trusted with enormous responsibility.
She learned how to keep moving inside that pressure. To perform, compartmentalize, finish the work, and keep whatever was happening inside her from becoming one more thing the room had to deal with. Over time, that kind of strength became so normal that even serious moments in her own life could feel like another task to complete instead of something she was allowed to stop and feel.
LISTEN TO CYNTIHA’S STORY
“I’ve always been the first, the only,
and the one holding it together.”
WHEN EVERYTHING BECAME ANOTHER THING TO HANDLE
Cynthia had gotten so used to carrying pressure that even a health scare became something to move through instead of something to stop and feel. While leading a major IT project in a room where she was already carrying the weight of being the only one like her, she was also waiting on results from one of several biopsies and lumpectomies.
She finished the workday, got on a bus by herself, went to hear the results, learned that the biopsy was benign, and then went home. The next day, she went back to work. Looking back, Cynthia does not describe that as faith or strength. She sees it as a pattern of locking difficult things away so she could keep functioning.
That pattern had followed her through other moments too. A partial hysterectomy became something to recover from and then move past. There was always another responsibility waiting, another thing to prove, another reason not to make room for what had happened to her. Over time, Cynthia began to understand that constantly putting herself last was not the same thing as being strong.
WHEN BEING VALUABLE STILL DIDN’T MEAN BEING VALUED
Cynthia had learned how to succeed in spaces where she was often the only Black woman in the room. She knew how to code-switch, assimilate, outwork expectations, and prove she belonged. That effort got her places, but it also came with a cost. The more useful she became, the easier it was for the room to rely on what she could produce without fully seeing what it was taking from her.
At one consulting firm, Cynthia built a successful practice from the ground up. When the firm wanted a white male colleague to make partner, the practice she had built was handed to him so he could use the numbers she created in his partnership submission. Later, he gave Cynthia the same paperwork when she was preparing to apply for partner herself. She could see her own work sitting inside the case that had helped move someone else forward.
Cynthia also missed her own master’s graduation because the firm needed her to show up for a client specifically as a Black woman in leadership. She had paid for that degree herself, chosen a program she genuinely cared about, and found a community where she felt she belonged. Still, when the firm needed her identity to help win business, she put that milestone aside for an institution that was not extending that same investment back to her.
“You can take all of what you need from me, you can consume it all, but you can never acknowledge me as the whole being that I am.”
WHEN SOMEONE ASKING “HOW ARE YOU?” COULD HAVE MATTERED
Cynthia had become so practiced at handling things on her own that people could easily assume she didn’t need anything. She is an introvert and comfortable being alone much of the time, but there were still moments when she wanted someone to notice that something was happening beneath the competence and ask how she was doing with enough care to actually stay for the answer.
Looking back, she can imagine how different some seasons might have felt if someone had pulled her aside, asked how she was, and given her enough room to say that maybe she was not okay. Not because she needed someone to solve everything, but because sometimes saying what was happening out loud could have helped her hear it herself.
The harder part was that Cynthia did not always know how to receive that kind of care. She had spent so long saying “I’m good” that she didn’t always have the language, trust, or sense of safety to answer differently. Now, when someone asks how she is doing, she wants to know whether they are asking casually or whether they are really prepared to sit down and hear the truth.
“Here’s what’s really going on inside, and I need somebody to hear that, because maybe I’m not okay.”
WHEN THE ROOM COULD SEE WHAT SHE OFFERED BUT NOT ALL OF HER
Cynthia had spent years learning how to move through spaces where being fully visible could come with a cost. She could bring her skill, her leadership, her work ethic, and even her identity when the room found those things useful. But bringing her full humanity into those same spaces felt different. There was always the question of how much of herself the room could actually hold.
She connects that tension to a larger conditioning Black women have carried into workplaces and other institutions. You learn how to endure, contribute, and keep moving without becoming a burden. You become valuable for what you can produce while learning not to require too much care, acknowledgment, or accommodation in return.
Eventually, Cynthia began questioning the price of belonging that way. Being allowed into the room was not enough if staying there required her to deny parts of herself just to remain acceptable. She wanted to be present as a whole person, not simply as the strong Black woman who could be counted on to deliver.
“They wanted us there for labor, or whatever it is we needed to contribute to their welfare, but they didn’t want us to be that whole person at the same time.”
CHOOSING HERSELF WITHOUT APOLOGY
Cynthia is learning to define strength differently now. Less as endurance, more as choosing. She no longer believes every expectation placed in front of her has to become hers to carry, and she is giving herself permission to decide what she will do, what she will not do, and when something can simply wait until another day.
That has also meant practicing grace with herself. She no longer wants to live by the old rule that she has to be three times as good just to be enough. She is learning that being Cynthia is enough, even on the days when she does less, changes her mind, or chooses herself over somebody else’s idea of what she should be doing.
She is also letting people know more of the whole person now. Her siblings, younger friends, fellow writers, and women who have lived through similar health experiences each know different parts of her. Together, those relationships have helped Cynthia understand that support is not about one person meeting every need. It is about having people who can hold different parts of who you are without requiring you to disappear inside the relationship.
“You don’t have to be three times as good. You’re good as you, and that’s more than enough.”
ABOUT CYNTHIA STRICKLAND
Cynthia “Cyn” Strickland is a writer, strategist, and entrepreneur whose career has taken her through NASA, Fortune 500 consulting, technology, and leadership. For nearly three decades, she has navigated professional spaces where she was often the first, the only, or the one expected to hold everything together.
Today, Cynthia writes about work, identity, success, strength, and what it means to stop measuring your life by expectations that were never really yours. She is also writing a prescriptive memoir for high-achieving Black women and LGBTQ+ professionals, a book she describes as the one she needed at 30.
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