How Women of Color Can Protect Their Mental Health from Racial Bullying

Author: Ruchika Tulshyan

The first time I was seriously bullied at work, I convinced myself it was no big deal. As the first woman in my family to graduate from a four-year college, I thought I could handle anything.

But my body knew something was wrong. My heart would beat faster when the elevator was about to open on my office’s floor. I’d have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, despite being an early riser my whole life. I stopped wanting to socialize with friends, despite being an extrovert. Most of the time, I was just too exhausted to go anywhere.

Then the dark thoughts showed up, uncalled for. No one can see me here anyway, I kept thinking. I would replay scenarios in my head from interactions with coworkers. Initially, I would feel shame for not knowing how to respond to subtle acts of exclusion (also known as microaggressions) like having my name mispronounced and my English complimented, as well as to being the only woman of color in my department. But soon I felt self-loathing and anxiety when—after a senior leader made a complaint about how I was difficult to work with, without giving any reasons or examples to back it up—I was at risk of being fired.

Having no women of color to turn to, I felt like I was living in an alternative reality. Today, I know there’s a term for what I experienced: racial gaslighting. But back then, I questioned myself literally every day. Eventually, the burden became too much to bear. I could see myself turning into a cynical, bitter shell of myself. I saw up close how the rules were different for my white peers—the white men and women who got promoted despite underperforming, the male leaders who only hired attractive white women. I was left out of meetings, social gatherings, and inside jokes, and I never saw anyone who looked like me.

It took a toll—not just the bullying, but the daily acts of exclusion. Eventually, I quit, despite advice from my family and friends that I shouldn’t leave such a lucrative opportunity. But I was broken mentally and spiritually.

“It’s common for victims of workplace discrimination to conceptualize how they are the problem. That conceptualization takes the form of guilt and shame, severe anxiety, and panic and worry, such that you can no longer be effective in your role,” says Danielle Jenkins Henry, licensed marriage family therapist associate and founder of Dream Life Out Loud, a psychotherapy practice for Black women. “You’re isolating yourself because of the embarrassment and shame that you might feel for raising these types of concerns or trying to shield yourself from scrutiny,” she notes. The cognitive distortions I started experiencing, where every interaction with my coworkers had me feeling stressed or anxious after the bullying incident, are common. “It becomes a cycle, and there’s no way to get out.”

I interviewed hundreds of women of color for my book Inclusion on Purpose. What I found was that my story wasn’t unique. And due to a variety of factors, including a lack of mental health providers of color, women of color aren’t getting the mental health help we need. It’s a crisis where individual women of color begin blaming themselves for systemic bias.

“There’s no cover or safety,” says Jenkins Henry. “You don’t know whom to trust. You feel shame and embarrassment: How did I get myself into this? What could I have said or what did I do? Or maybe I can try harder? Or maybe I can contort myself so that they’ll see me and they’ll recognize that I’m a high performer? And that is just a cycle of abuse.”

Women of color facing workplace bias and discrimination must take care of their mental health first and foremost. And while my interviews focused on women, all people of color can use this advice. Here’s what to do.

1. Find Adaptive Coping Strategies

Jenkins Henry notes that often, even while facing bias or discrimination, her clients may not be able to leave for financial reasons, or they need to stay on while being put up for promotion or to wait for stocks or benefits to vest.

“So I always tell my clients, we need adaptive coping strategies for them to be able to continue to show up and do their job, if that’s what they want to do.” These include meditation practices or other strategies to ensure they’re sufficiently resting, eating, and exercising. Building internal reserves is key to navigating the external challenges of biased workplaces for women of color.

2. Find a Support Network

Jenkins Henry encourages women of color to reflect on who’s in their support network. “Is it a church organization? A sorority or a fraternity? A network of colleagues, perhaps in an employee resource group? Identify who can support you, who is aware of what is happening, and where you can go so that you don’t feel so isolated,” she says.

A support network can help you find your power, strength, and healing. Other support partners can include a therapist, a coach, friends, or your partner. It takes a village. Most importantly, Jenkins Henry urges women of color not to isolate themselves.

3. If Necessary, Plan Your Exit Strategy

“You don’t have to keep going in there and taking abuse,” Jenkins Henry says. Many women of color feel like they have to “go in there and fight,” especially if they’re the first in their family to have a corporate career.

But she urges women experiencing discrimination or the cumulative impact of microaggressions and bias that “you can fight a different battle.” While many of her clients feel like they have to prove that they have what it takes to prevail at work, Jenkins Henry urges them to think about what the cost is to do that. “There are parts of ourselves that we need to protect,” she says. Parts we forget about when we’re caught up in distortions, anxiety, depression, and isolation. “There are parts of our spirits that are being damaged, and that is what needs protecting when we experience discrimination in the workplace.”

Some of the questions women of color should ask themselves is: Is it the right time to leave? Should I be making a plan B? Am I suffering so much that it’s time to leave right now?

If women of color need to leave immediately, Jenkins Henry advises them to consider options like filing for medical leave or seeking a clinical diagnosis. Other exit strategies could be finding a new role within or outside the company, or taking a break like a sabbatical.

Of course, it’s important to look at your financial resources to understand the options and support available to you. “What I try to prevent for my clients is what I experienced, which is that you go to work one day and you just simply can’t go back,” she says.

It’s only recently that we’ve started understanding how much racial bias and discrimination at work take a mental health toll, so it’s critical for women of color to prioritize their own well-being. Develop coping strategies, find a support network, and make an exit strategy. Most importantly, understand that you’re not to blame for systemic bias at work.

Ruchika Tulshyan is the author of Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work. She is the founder of Candour, an inclusion strategy firm.