Dante Knew He Had to do Something

Dante was reaching the end of his rope. Despite being a highly respected employee in his newly-appointed role as a manager and an admired leader in his community, Dante knew that life just wasn’t feeling right.

Dante always played it safe. His mother raised him to work as hard as he could and when she learned he was gifted as a child, she made it her duty to make ALL the necessary sacrifices (including a healthy social life) to get Dante into the best schools. There was no question as to what Dante had planned after high school: attend undergraduate university and later pursue his MBA and make the best of himself…and his mother proud.

Dante’s college years flew by. After graduating with his master’s degree, he had several job offers which made him feel confident in starting out his life now that he was done with school. As he began settling into his new job and new chapter of life, his mother started encouraging him to settle down ‘for real’ by finding someone to date, court (as she liked to say), and marry so that he could finally start a family.

Dante loved his mother dearly. They’d always been close, and he never doubted just how much he meant to her. Afterall, she raised him on her own and made it possible for him to arrive at this point in his life. But…there was something about his mother’s encouragement that bothered Dante; in fact, Dante recently found himself feeling noticeably frustrated after their interactions, but he didn’t understand why.

Without realizing it, Dante began to avoid spending quality time with his mom now that she was making it a habit of asking him, “Soooo…have we met anyone yet?” Dante felt guilty about avoiding his mom, but the angst he felt when discussing his dating life far surpassed any guilt that was surfacing. Dante could feel a growing distance from his mom, and he didn’t like it. There were days when he just didn’t have the energy to do much. He became worried when doing fun things didn’t feel fun anymore.

Dante was highly conflicted. On one hand, he always had a sense of who he was as a person, but on the other hand, there were always parts of himself that he didn’t talk about and kept away from others in his life, including his coworkers and even his closest friends.

Dante had a solid spiritual upbringing. He had many cherished memories in the church his mother raised him in, but the older he got, the more difficult it became to reconcile the messages he was receiving with his lived experience. Dante worried about judgment and being misunderstood by those who often congratulated him on his successes. He feared abandonment by those he always loved because he knew that the parts of himself he kept hidden would surely be a disappointment to them. The concern about letting down his mother in particular caused him to feel anxious. His anxiety turned into resentment which led to avoiding the places where he might run into his church community. Dante couldn’t stand the feelings he was having and knew that the stress of things would soon break him if he didn’t get support…and soon!

Dante spent the next several weeks searching terms like “gay friendly therapist near me” and “black therapist” with his zip code and eventually took the step of reaching out to a few to ask questions about their approach. During one consultation in particular, Dante explained that he wanted to work with a therapist who encouraged him to bring all aspects of his experiences to therapy so that he could sort them and better understand himself. He also shared that he wanted help to manage the nervousness he experienced when interacting with friends and family.

Dante was ready to do the work.