26 BLACK WOMEN
What it Feels Like to Be Strong and Unheard
EMELY RUMBLE
Emely learned early that the ground underneath you can change without warning. At 14, she lost the grandmother who had raised her and suddenly found herself without the person who had been home, safety, and family all at once.
What followed was foster care, emancipation, school, work, and a life that kept requiring her to move. There was little room to stop long enough to feel what she had lost. Instead, Emely learned to keep going because not going had consequences, and over time, that became part of how she moved through the world
LISTEN TO EMELY’S STORY
“There’s no safety net. There’s nobody here
for me and nobody cares.”
WHEN THERE WAS NO ROOM TO FEEL
Emely’s life after her grandmother died was full of things that still had to be done. She entered foster care, lived with her youth pastor and his wife, and later became legally emancipated at 17 so she could access the financial aid she needed for college.
Even with people who cared for her, her days left almost no room to stop. She was up at four in the morning, catching buses to school, going to an arts academy afterward, working until late at night, then doing it all again the next day. Saturdays meant another job. Sundays meant church. Emely remembers that there was simply no time to feel or reflect. Sometimes the only place the grief broke through was at the altar, where she would cry without always having words for what was sitting so heavily in her chest.
WHEN HER BODY INTERRUPTED THE MOVING
Emely had spent years moving through life by doing what needed to be done. By adulthood, she had written a book, built a platform, was raising children, and working as a therapist. From the outside, it looked like she was doing well. Inside, she described moving through her days without feeling fully present in them.
Then the chest pain started waking her in the middle of the night. At a routine doctor’s appointment, she described what had been happening and was sent to the emergency room. While sitting in a wheelchair waiting to be seen, she realized she could not feel the entire left side of her body. When she tried to wheel herself forward and couldn’t, she broke down crying.
That visit became a moment Emely could no longer simply move past. Later, working with a therapist helped her begin naming what she had been carrying and make room for care instead of continuing to function through everything without stopping.
“I’m moving through the days, I’m accomplishing what I have to accomplish, but I don’t feel like I’m fully inside my days.”
WHEN SOMEONE FINALLY HEARD HER
After the emergency room, Emely began working with a Nigerian therapist who did something she had needed for a long time. She did not minimize what Emely was carrying or point to everything she had managed to accomplish as proof that she was fine. She named what was happening and made room for Emely to name it too.
Emely told her about the many roles she was carrying as a mother, wife, therapist, and caregiver. Instead of praising her for managing it all, her therapist challenged the systems Emely had built around continuing to function. She helped her see that what may once have helped her keep moving was no longer enough.
For Emely, that care mattered because she felt seen in the full context of her life, not just as the accomplished woman people assumed could handle everything. She described this therapist as someone who held her with compassion, made her feel cared for, and knocked down walls Emely had not even realized she was still holding up.
“She held me and she made me feel cared for and cared about.”
WHEN VULNERABILITY WASN’T RECEIVED
Emely had already begun being more honest about what she was carrying when a close friend told her she felt abandoned. Emely did not argue with her. She acknowledged that she had been overwhelmed by her book launch, her children, a move to another state, relocating her therapy practice, and her own mental health. She knew her friendships had suffered, and she said so plainly.
Emely expected that honesty to create room for a different kind of conversation. Instead, she experienced the response as confrontational and full of resentment. The more vulnerable she became about what had been happening in her life, the less the conversation felt like connection. She had apologized and named that she was struggling, but she realized she did not have the capacity to keep fighting just to be understood.
So she let the friendship go. Not because it did not matter to her, but because she was entering her 40th birthday and, as she described it, choosing her own wellbeing in a way she had not before.
“I was choosing to enter my 40th birthday, prioritizing my wellbeing for the first time in my life.”
NO LONGER PROVING HER STRENGTH
When Emely thinks about the 14-year-old version of herself who learned to wake up, keep moving, and tell herself “nobody cares,” she understands why strength became something she felt she had to demonstrate. For a long time, getting through was proof that she could handle what life put in front of her.
What she knows now is that constantly proving you can carry something can make it harder for other people to recognize when you need to be held. Strength does not have to mean keeping every responsibility in the air, showing only the parts of yourself that are doing well, or waiting until your body forces you to stop.
Emely is learning that some things can fall without everything falling apart. She can be accomplished and still need care. She can be capable and still need to be heard. And she can build a life where strength is something she has, not something she has to keep proving.
“Build a life where you don’t have
to prove your strength.”
ABOUT EMELY RUMBLE
Emely Rumble is a licensed clinical social worker, bibliotherapist, author, and founder of LiterapyNYC. Her work uses books, poetry, and the written word to help people make sense of their experiences, process emotion, and find language for what they’ve been carrying. She is the author of Bibliotherapy in the Bronx, which explores how literature can be used as a tool for emotional healing. At the center of her work is helping people feel seen, understood, and heard.
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