MALIKA LATCHMAN, LMHC · PERSPECTIVES ON THERAPY & CULTURE
The things you are already thinking about. Named.
Writing at the intersection of attachment, anxiety, and what it actually costs to be a high-functioning Black woman navigating relationships, family, and yourself.
You Have Been Doing the Work All Year. Then the Holidays Arrive.
You have done a lot of work this year. You understand more about your patterns. You have been practicing. And then you walk through your mother's door and within twenty minutes you are the person you have been working all year not to be.
The Cultural Cost of Being the Strong One
Being the strong one was not a choice you made one morning. It was an assignment that arrived before you were old enough to decline it.
Secure Attachment Looks Boring.That Is the Point.
A July 2026 piece on secure attachment put it plainly: it looks quiet from the outside. It can even look boring. If you have been chasing the feeling of chemistry your whole dating life, quiet can feel like a problem.
You Know About the Fawn Response. Here Is What to Do With That Information.
Everyone knows what a fawn response is now. What nobody is saying loudly enough is that knowing you have one does not automatically stop it.
High-Functioning Anxiety Is Not a Compliment
A Forbes headline from March 2026 said it plainly: the Strong Black Woman is exhausted. But exhaustion is not the diagnosis. It is the symptom. The thing underneath it has a name.
Why You Leave Every Conversation With Your Mother Feeling Like a Child Again
Everyone is talking about emotionally immature parents right now. But there is a version of this that lives specifically in the Black mother-daughter relationship that the conversation is not quite reaching.
Why You Keep Ending Up in Situationships (It Is Not About Your Standards)
Black women are done with situationships. BLK's 2026 report confirmed it. But wanting more doesn't explain why the pattern keeps repeating, and your nervous system does.