26 BLACK WOMEN
When There’s Nothing Left to Be Strong For
SHELLEY WASHINGTON
Shelley grew up knowing strength as something inherited. It was what the women before her did when life happened. You kept moving. You handled what needed to be handled. You found somewhere to put the grief later.
When her own life began asking more of her, Shelley followed what she knew. She showed up, managed what needed to be managed, and kept going even when grief was building underneath the surface. Until eventually, she reached a place where continuing to be “the strong one” the same way was no longer possible.
LISTEN TO SHELLEY’S STORY
“Why don’t you be Shelley? And however Shelley
shows up, that’s what you’ll be.”
WHERE STRONG BEGAN
Shelley can trace “be strong” all the way back to childhood. She remembers being in elementary school, being bullied for being darker than her siblings and for being the chunky one, and hearing her grandmother tell her that people had been doing this for as long as she could remember. She was going to have to be strong, get through it, and keep moving.
Her mother carried that same message. Hold your head up. Keep going. Everything is going to be all right. Shelley saw strength modeled in the women before her, especially in a home where her mother kept the household moving no matter what she was carrying herself. By the time Shelley was grown, strength was not something she had decided to become. It was already part of how she understood being a Black woman.
WHEN GRIEF BROKE THROUGH
Shelley had spent years learning how to keep moving, so even when her mother died, part of her was still doing what she knew. She left the hospital with her sisters, rode back to her mother’s house, and was still checking on everybody else. Then she walked into her mother’s room.
And she lost it.
Shelley remembers screaming, asking what she was supposed to do now and where her strength was supposed to come from. For 49 years, strength had felt like something deposited into her by the women before her. Now, she described herself as being in deficit, with nothing left to withdraw. It was one of the first times she allowed herself to fall apart instead of immediately figuring out how to keep going.
Therapy eventually helped her see another possibility. Maybe the answer was not finding a new place to pull strength from. Maybe she did not have to keep being strong at all. She could grieve. She could be sad, angry, joyful, weak, or whatever else was true in that moment. She could simply be Shelley.
“It felt like I have nothing else to withdraw from.”
THE PERMISSION TO BE SHELLEY
About three months after her mother died, Shelley was depressed, struggling at work, and still trying to move through grief the way she had always moved through everything else. Even grief counseling had felt like something she shouldn’t need because she was supposed to be strong.
After her first therapy session, her therapist told her she needed time away by herself and encouraged her to write to her mother. Shelley’s wife arranged a cabin for her. There, with her mother’s favorite music playing, Shelley finally wrote the thing she had been carrying: she was angry. Not because her mother had died, but because the woman who had taught her how to be strong had never taught her how to live without her.
And in that moment, Shelley heard the answer she needed. She did not have to figure out how to be strong after this. She could simply be herself. For Shelley, the permission mattered because it came from the very woman who had spent 49 years teaching her what strength was supposed to look like.
“You don’t have to be strong.
I want you to be you.”
WHEN SUPPORT DIDN’T SHOW UP
Shelley had already begun learning that she did not have to carry strength the same way. Then, in August 2025, she broke her arm and found herself in a position where she genuinely needed other people.
Her wife had to work, so Shelley reached out to people she had poured into over and over again. She was not asking for anything complicated. She needed someone to sit with her for a few hours, make sure she had her medicine, make sure she ate, and help her through a moment when she could not do everything for herself.
And people did not show up.
Shelley described that silence as deeply painful. She had spent so much of her life giving her energy, time, care, and attention to other people that needing something in return forced her to see those relationships differently. It became another turning point, one that made her begin asking who had access to her care and whether she had been leaving enough of that care for herself
“When I cross your mind, you text, you call, or you come by. Just let me know that I was on your mind.”
STRONG, ON HER OWN TERMS
Shelley no longer sees strength as something she has to walk into every room already carrying. She can choose it when she needs it and set it down when she doesn’t.
That choice feels liberating to her. It means she gets to decide what strength looks like instead of having it assigned to her. She can be strong in one moment, soft in another, grieving in another, and none of those ways of showing up make her less herself.
When she thinks about the versions of herself who left the hospital after her mother died or sat at home waiting for someone to show up after she broke her arm, the message she would give them now is simple: choose you. See yourself as important, valued, loved, and worthy of care. Not sometimes. Not after everybody else. Every time.
“It is okay to be yourself, and you don’t have to be strong all the time.”
ABOUT SHELLEY WASHINGTON
Shelley Washington is a faith leader and community advocate committed to creating spaces where people can show up as their full selves. She serves as a pastor in Houston, TX and works closely with Black LGBTQ+ communities through The Normal Anomaly Initiative. Shelley also created Be OWT Ministries, a space where faith, identity, and authenticity can exist together without apology. Her work centers care, connection, and making sure people feel seen, supported, and like they belong in real, everyday ways.
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