Trauma-Informed Disability Acceptance & Workplace Accessibility

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LINDSEY WELLS, HOST: From KVMR and in partnership with FREED, this is Disability Rap.

DR. XENIA BARNES: Once I began to shift the mindset of it wasn't my fault and this is not happening to me because of something that I did, I then had to realize, "Okay, what does my life look like now with the capabilities and inabilities that I do have?"

WELLS: Today's social and behavioral scientists, Xenia Barnes, on inquiring a disability later in life.

DR. BARNES: A lot of the times, people focus on the things that they can no longer do, and they don't think about or recognize the things that they're now able to do. I feel like my disability gives me both. Sometimes it can be a hindrance, but it's also a superpower for me.

WELLS: That's all coming up on Disability Rap. Stay tuned.

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CARL SIGMOND, HOST: Welcome to Disability Rap. I'm Carl Sigmond with Lindsey Wells.

WELLS: Today, we're joined by Dr. Xenia Barnes. After a 20-year career in education, Xenia turned her attention to social justice work and trauma research with a particular focus on how gun violence impacts individuals and communities. Then, in 2021, she was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease that makes it difficult for the body to absorb oxygen from the air. Her essay, The Invisible Battle: Navigating The Minefield of Workplace Accommodation, was included in the recently published book, Triumph in the Trenches: Navigating Success for Black Professionals.

Xenia Barnes is a researcher, a public speaker, and a life coach. She is the author of two books on navigating trauma, Grieving to Heal: The Shadow Boarding Experience and The Recondition: A Guide to Loving Yourself Through the Trauma. She has completed one PhD degree in theology and is finishing up a second PhD degree in Advanced Human Behavior.

SIGMOND: Well, Xenia Barnes, welcome to Disability Rap. It is an honor to have you with us. As we said in the introduction, you were diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2021. This was during the COVID-19 pandemic. I just want to note that pulmonary fibrosis is a lung disease, but as far as I know, it is underlaid to COVID-19.

There was a huge amount of both individual trauma and collective trauma going on in this country and in the world at that time, related to COVID. I believe, and maybe you can correct me, but I believe you were already researching trauma before you got the diagnosis. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about how your knowledge of and personal experience with trauma supported your understanding of this diagnosis and your new disability.

DR. BARNES: Oh, yes. That is such a great question. I was definitely diagnosed during the COVID era, and it was at the beginning of the height of COVID. At the beginning, I was misdiagnosed. Everyone kept thinking that it was COVID that I had, but it actually wasn't. Although I constantly tested negative for COVID, the symptoms were so severe that the doctors eventually just started treating me as if I did have COVID.

It was triggering going through that because I was like, "What do we do?" No one knows what's going on with me. My body is changing. My health is changing. I'm unable to function at the capacity that I'm used to functioning at. Although I was already working from home, even though working from home, it was still super tiring trying to even get in the shower, get dressed, sit up at the computer to answer emails. There was a shift that was happening in my body. Because of that shift, it was also happening to me mentally. It was physical, mental, and emotional that was all happening at one time.

My ability to have some knowledge of dealing with trauma is what helped me be able to process in the beginning, and not just dwindle down into this deep, deep depression. I felt some triggers and some signs of depression coming on. Like I said, because I was already studying trauma, it was that knowledge and the experience of the research that I had that I was able to reach out early on to seek some type of emotional support and mental support. Again, it was still triggering because although you may research something, when it's actually happening to you, to the individual person, half of that research goes out the window. [laughs]

In your mind, you're just like, "Wait. I know that there's a better way for me to handle this," but those emotions are so powerful that sometimes it blocks you from being able to tack onto the things that you already know, the things that you should know. It was definitely a processing error. It was heavy. It was something that I needed to process, but it was something that, I would like to say, I had a stronger ability to catch earlier on than someone who would not have had my experience and my knowledge of research in trauma to know how to begin to even ask for help, how to begin to identify triggers, signals, symptoms.

As far as knowing my signs of when I'm falling into a depressive state, knowing my signs when I'm recognizing like, "Hey, this is not normal," I'm sitting in the dark for hours. I need to talk to someone. Noticing my signs of who I should be reaching out to for extra support, and recognizing that although I was the individual who was diagnosed, and who this sickness was actually happening to, my immediate family, because we were staying together because I was sick, and the level of my sickness, they were experiencing it as well.

That's something that most families are not aware of. The impact and the transfer of trauma when you're experiencing something, how it not only directly impacts the the person who's going through it, but it also impacts those that's immediately surrounding them and trying to support them. To answer your question, my experience and my knowledge of what trauma can actually do to a person and how it affects their behavior is what helped me understand that I wasn't the only one who needed to get support services for emotional and mental support. My immediate family also needed that support as well.

SIGMOND: Thank you for that. I just want to follow up. In the past, you have mentioned needing to learn to love yourself through the trauma. I know you've actually written books on this. What was it like for yourself?

DR. BARNES: It was important for me to document what I was experiencing in terms of loving yourself through the trauma. As individuals, once you're diagnosed with-- and definitely speaking from-- I can speak from experience and for myself, once you're diagnosed with a disability and you recognize there's so many different things that you are limited to doing or you're unable to do that you're used to doing, you get to this point where you start blaming yourself, whether it is-- for me, I was overweight and that was the first thing that everyone saw before testing me for anything, before acknowledging or listening to what I was saying my symptoms were, how I was feeling.

I felt guilty. I felt, "Oh, maybe it was the way I was eating that caused this. Maybe it was because I was overweight. It was something that I did that I began to have this sickness." I took a lot of blame because I wasn't diagnosed properly. A lot of that made me feel guilty about not going to all the doctor's appointments because I was so focused on work, or all the-- I thought about all the things that I could have done differently. I went through this storm of blaming myself for so many things and feeling guilty about so many things. Then I had to get to a point where I realized, no, it wasn't my fault.

I didn't have a medical license. I wouldn't know these symptoms. I'm the only person in my family that was diagnosed with this. No one else in my family has this. How would I know what to look for? It was the doctor's job to have me do certain medical tests. It was the doctor's responsibility to check for different histories and illnesses, and they didn't do that. Once I began to shift the mindset of it wasn't my fault and this is not happening to me because it's something that I did, I then had to realize, "Okay, what does my life look like now with the capabilities and inabilities that I do have?"

Understand that it's okay that my life has to change. That's why I called it loving yourself through the trauma, because it was so many different traumatic things that were happening at one time. I needed to make sure that I was showing myself the proper love and the proper attention so that I could be open and receptive to the changes that was happening and not feel guilty about them, but also not feel limited.

A lot of the times, people focus on the things that they can no longer do, and they don't think about or recognize the things that they are now able to do. I feel like my disability gives me both. Sometimes it can be a hindrance, but it's also a superpower for me. The reason why I say a superpower is because I connect with so many different people on different levels now. I am so more empathetic and understanding, and patient with different individuals as well as with myself now.

That comes from a different type of understanding of knowing that it's okay to not only be different, but it's okay to process different. It's okay to not move at the speed of other people. It's okay to take your time to really understand and connect with yourself so that you can connect with the universe, you can connect with individuals, but you can also do so much more than you give yourself credit for when you are in tune with yourself and you're not focusing on the things that you're unable to do. Understanding that there's unlimited possibilities of what you are more capable to do when you give yourself the time to not only heal, but just appreciate your own process.

WELLS: Thank you, Xenia, for that. I have a question. You write about how some work environments can be really hard for people who are going through or have gone through trauma. Can you give us some examples of this and then ways that we can start to shift that?

DR. BARNES: I can give you two different examples. One, when I talk about trauma in the workplace, or before I was diagnosed, when I was referring to trauma in the workplace, it was a lot of psychological trauma. Because at the time, before I was diagnosed, I was working with individuals who-- well, my research was for individuals who had been impacted by gun violence, domestic abuse, and things of that nature, and understanding what does it look like to not have that actual support at work? Some of that I call invisible disability because it's mental, and mental, you can't see.

People just assume because they can't see that physical disability or that mental disability that there's nothing wrong with you, and they don't understand the warfare that's going on in your mind. Often, they trigger that trauma by imposing other things on you or dismissing what you're feeling in the midst of trying to show up and be at work and still be effective and productive. Although you have tons of things happening in the background in your life, you're still trying to show up and be the best you can, and people are dismissing the things that you're going through.

Another example would be, like myself, when I'm not wearing my oxygen, people cannot tell that I'm 100% disabled. They automatically assume, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with you." I have so many disabilities that I'm battling, with lupus, I'm battling with syncope, my illness, pulmonary fibrosis, where I need a double lung transplant. I only have 34% functionability between both of my lungs. While some days I look really energetic, and I can talk, and I can move around, I may not have my oxygen on, on the back end, that's because of the physical therapy, the pulmonary therapy that I'm doing, that's helping me learn to navigate through that and maneuver with that.

For me, going into the workforce, like when I first was diagnosed, I was forced out of my role as a dean of students, because they didn't understand my illness. They easily dismissed it. It was just like, "Oh, well, if you have a lung disease, you're not going to be able to walk up and down the stairs. You're not going to be able to do this. You're not going to be able to do fire drills or run to the classroom when a child needs assistance." They immediately just disregarded all the other work that I was able to do remotely when we were remote for two years in a row, even with me giving them a work plan for me.

I actually had a team of four other individuals who worked under me. The process for me to stay remote and still do effective and be effective and do my job, had nothing to do with my disability. Because they didn't understand it and couldn't relate to it, they easily dismissed it. They forced me out of my role. When I think about showing up in the workplace and how people can support and [unintelligible 00:18:29], that comes with a lot of training.

That comes with something that I call the from trauma to triumph model, where I'm now training individuals. I'm training corporations and leaderships how to work with people with disabilities or people who are experiencing trauma in the workforce. What does it look like to meet them in a space where they can both be productive, but also understand their boundaries and support them when they're having those invisible disability moments, when they're struggling with mental illness, when they're struggling with not being able to physically do the things that they normally do. That comes with accommodations. By law, they're supposed to have reasonable accommodations in the workforce.

What I've noticed over time is there became this divide for the people who are in person and those who receive a reasonable accommodation. It became this battle of, "If you're not in here and I can't see you, then you're not doing the work." Because of that, there's been built up tension and animosity in the workplace. What I like to do is go in and train staff members to help them understand with compassion, to understand with empathy, but also to understand that you don't want what someone else has. You should not discount what someone is going through just because you don't relate to it or you don't see it or you don't understand it.

Because everyone is going through something at some point in time in their life, and you never know when you are-- The next situation you go through, you might be needing the same type of accommodation and support that this individual is needing. To answer your question, Lindsey, in order to do that, it takes a lot of unlearning poor behaviors, it takes a lot of unlearning poor workplace culture, and that starts from the top up. That's not something that starts from the bottom up.

In order to be successful in doing so, leadership, the ones who make the decision, have to get the proper training. They have to get trauma-informed training in order for them to be able to incorporate that in the workplace culture so that they are addressing not only those who are experiencing trauma, but also addressing those who do not or not experience the same level of trauma so that they can have the proper understanding how to engage.

SIGMOND: Thank you for that. I want to follow up and ask you about a specific point you make in your essay. This is about the competence conundrum. Our society is so focused on productivity; I would argue at all levels of employment, but especially the higher up you go. Something you brought up in your essay is how there is often a very narrow view of what productivity actually looks like. For example, everyone showing up in person in the office, which, as you just said, did not work for you.

Something we've talked about here on Disability Rap before is how the COVID-19 pandemic actually opened up many doors for people with disabilities to work from home when they may not have been able to work before that. Can you talk a bit about what you call this competence conundrum, and then ways that you are pushing employers to expand their definitions and assessments of productivity?

DR. BARNES: Absolutely. I talk a lot about the competence conundrum, and that's because, when you think about before COVID, the work from home was for the most elite, it was for the higher-ups. You would see they would come in maybe twice, three days a week. Then they go, "Oh, I'm going to work from home. Oh, I have these big meetings. I'm not going to work in office. I won't be in the office today. Check your emails. I'll send things out." The higher up you went, the more flexibility you had of what you were able to do.

Then COVID happened, and the world shut down, and everyone had to work from home. They recognized that, or the society recognized like, "Hey, we are not going to pay people to just be at home, so they're going to have to do what? They're going to have to work." With the world of technology, you realize how productive people could be when they were at home.

What happened when the shift came is when the world began to open, society began to open back up, and everyone had to return to work, and then those who had underlying conditions were able to stay home because it wasn't safe for them, then you had the, and what I just previously talked about my other essay, you had the pockets of people who were upset that were, "Why does this person get to be at home and work and I have to be in person and work?" All over the world, it became this back and forth of, "How do you know that they're actually working? How do you know that they're being productive because they're at home?"

Once you put those things out, it takes a mind of its own and then you begin to notice how employers start thinking like, "Oh, well then I'll need everybody at work, or I need you to be in office maybe three or four days and you can only be home one day." You had the people going back and forth, going to the doctor, getting all these requirements, getting all these notes.

You realize that people were spending more time going and getting updated doctor's notes than they were able to submit their work and actually do their job and be the most productive that they can, because what was happening? Not only were they having to take off to go to the doctor to get these notes and have these revisits, and fill out all these forms, they were also unable and tired when it came to the same time to check emails or complete projects and things when they do. Employers were making their employees less productive by having them go through all this bureaucratic red tape and things to have the reasonable accommodation.

That's what I was speaking about when I say the competence conundrum, because it's like, am I less competent because you can't see me actually doing the work, or was I never competent? You can't give me these progress reviews, or you want to give me all these assessments where you say, "I'm going to assess your productivity and I'm going to give you all satisfactory because I love the work that you're doing when I'm in office." That's just because you see me.

Now, I'm doing the same amount and sometimes even more now because I'm home and I'm like, "You know what? Let me just check this email." I'm answering more emails now because I'm more relaxed and I'm home and I have more flexibility because I'm able to do the things, take care of home, take care of the kids in my pajamas, I'm able to do these things and so it's easier for me to respond to things than if I was sitting in the office from 9:00 to 4:30. After 4:30, once I clock out, my laptop is closed and I'm doing less work because, guess what? I don't have to because I'm not here, as opposed to when I'm home, and I'm more flexible with my hours.

I say that to say that competency and productive is more so, and what we've seen in COVID, it became more of a perception on what people perceived it to be than actually what it was. Just because you are not seeing me do something doesn't mean that I'm not capable or I don't know what I'm doing because you don't see me doing it.

There's a lot of individuals who are in office who do not know exactly how to do the job that they're doing. They're making tons of mistakes. They need a lot of assistance, and they have to do a lot of course correction. That's because they're not properly being trained because they just want people, they just want bodies in the building. They're laying off a lot of people who have reasonable accommodations or who have some form of disability because they want bodies in the building, but then they're hiring people who are not as trained as those people that they're getting rid of.

Their productivity is going down because you're spending more time training them. Then their company levels are not going up because some of the people who are training them are not equipped to train or are not equipped to actually run the perspective of individuals who are under them.

When you think about if someone is being productive, you have to really think about the totality of it. You have to think about do they actually know the job? Are they actually meeting deliverables? Are the deliverables actually effective and efficient? Because that's what productivity is. Productivity is making sure that things are met, met at a timely fashion, and not have to be redone.

Because if I give you, let's say, for example, with an Apple phone, I can produce 24 Apple phones and give them to you, but if only 4 out of the 24 phones that I give you work, does that mean that I was super productive? No, it doesn't. It just means that I now have to do that work all over again. Does it mean that I'm competent because I was able to mass produce something? No, it doesn't because the product didn't actually work.

When you think about if someone is competent, you have to think about what does competence actually look like, what does it sound like, and what are the actual deliverables that are coming from that competency, the knowledge that goes behind it, the bandwidth to actually execute? Then productivity, you have to do the same. It's not only about what you can produce or deliver, it's about the effectiveness of it and the efficiency.

SIGMOND: Thank you. I want to go back to the reasonable accommodations piece. Something else you brought up in the essay is how bureaucratic the process is to request reasonable accommodations. Lindsey and I were talking right before this interview about how here at FREED, we really know how to support employees with disabilities, how to work with them to offer them the accommodations they need in order to do their job well.

In your essay, you had a comment about how requesting accommodations should be as simple as ordering office supplies, which I really like. Can you talk more about that, and maybe give some other examples of situations where it is easy to request and receive needed accommodations, and how that works out?

DR. BARNES: Sure. I could definitely do that. In the essay, I talk a lot about reasonable accommodations. The reason why I talk about the bureaucratic red tape, because this is not only something that I research in a textbook, but this is something that not only myself, but people that I work with have experienced as well. I'm going to say back in 2017, I lost my only nephew to gun violence. Not only myself, but my family, were all battling depression, and it was all happening at the same time. We was all happening in silos, but we didn't realize we were all having many mental breakdowns.

There was a time where I thought that I was doing well, I was going to work, and I figured if I was showing up every day, as long as I was showing up and I was checking the boxes, the task off the list, like, "Hey, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do," but I didn't realize that how short-tempered I had became. I didn't realize how I was damaging relationships by my responses because I was so triggered all the time. I just thought that, "Hey, I'm at work. I'm doing what's asked of me, so no one should be complaining."

I didn't realize until a close friend of of mine at the job, she pulled me aside and said, "You really need to take some time off because you're going to end up getting written up or something because people are complaining about your tone and they feel like you're unapproachable and all of these." I'm saying, "Really? Me, I'm unapproachable?" I couldn't see what was happening because I was living it.

Like I was saying before, it's like when you are experiencing a trauma, you're just going through it, and sometimes you block things off because you're just trying to get by for the day. That retrospect and asking for additional support, it was easier for me to request additional time off because of a relationship that I had with the leadership team. Because of that, they didn't give me too much red tape. However, when the leadership team shifted and it changed, they were more compassionate.

Fast forward, in 2021, when I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, and I became ill and I couldn't be in work, the leadership team was different at that time. I realized I was hit with more resistance and needed reasonable accommodation than I was when I just needed a little bit of extra time off to grieve. Which was so sad because now at this point, I just needed time to be able to go to my doctor's appointments do certain testing, but they didn't need me to be in building to do that because what I was doing was administrative work.

I was, at that time I was a school administrator, I was the dean of students, like I said, and with a team of employees under me, so I was able to hold Zoom meetings with parents, suspension meetings, follow up on case files. All those things I was able to do from the comfort of my home. I didn't necessarily need to be in office to do that. In that retrospect, because the leadership team at the time was so dismissive to my illness because they didn't understand it, they just was like, "No, we need another doctor's note saying that the reason why that you need a reasonable accommodation, the reason why you can't be in office. We want it as detailed as possible."

It's like, well, if the doctor's telling you that I have a terminal illness and it's a terminal respiratory illness, that should be sufficient enough, that lets you know that I need to work from home. You shouldn't need to know all the ins and outs of my illness in order for you to be willing for me to have this reasonable accommodation.

As well as if the doctor's telling you that this is terminal, that means within three months, it's still going to be terminal. The fact that you're asking me or you are telling me you're going to revisit this a reasonable accommodation in six weeks, you're going to revisit this in 12 weeks, and so I have to keep going to the doctor, getting this letter updated, these tests done all over again for your comfortability, I feel like that's insane. I think that is not supportive. I think that it can be extremely triggering to individuals who have such a diagnosis, who have to keep going to the doctor and rehearing and reliving this same thing over and over again.

When you're already going to the doctor for your appointments and they're telling you there's no change or every time you go to the doctor, you're not getting great or wonderful news, that's anxiety that you already have when you're living with an illness or disability. For someone to now be forcing you to add on to those doctor's appointments, it's more harmful than it is helpful. Especially when this is just based on preference, this is based on someone else feeling more comfortable about you taking time off because they feel like they can't see you, or they're not aligned to whatever your doctors say when they're not doctors themselves.

They don't know how to treat your diagnosis, and it's not making you less capable to do your job. As long as you're meeting the requirements that you're supposed to meet, and you're meeting your deadlines, there's no real reason that you have to keep going to the doctor over and over again to get updated doctor's notes, when the doctor has given them sufficient notice and time of how much time you need.

Now, when I speak about it being as easy as putting in for office supplies, most organizations have this one sheet of paper where you check off all the things you need, you email it in, you email the price of it, the length, the quantity, and then operations handles it. Why is it so difficult for you to attach this email, this one-page form of requesting for the reasonable accommodation, the reason why you need it, uploading your doctor's note, which is your supporting evidence, and then submitting it to HR, and it being approved?

It should be that simple. It should not be, "Okay. Now you submitted this request, now we need to have this. Now we need to have a meeting so that everyone could be aligned on what your sickness is and why this is happening. Is this going to be a hardship to your supervisor? Does your supervisor feel like you need this amount of time? We need to revisit this in three weeks."

Especially when you know that, for example, someone who has cancer or someone who has any other long-term illness. Someone who is a paraplegic, someone who has any type of illness where it's not going to change, why is it that every 6 to 12 weeks, they have to have the same meeting all over again? They have to go to the doctor all over again to get another updated letter so that someone else in the office who cannot relate or do not understand can check off their boxes so that they feel more comfortable about you not being in the office because they feel like they don't see you, so you're not being productive.

That's what I mean when I say about the bureaucratic red tape, because there are many forms when it comes to requesting for a reasonable accommodation that the individual requesting it has to fill out, that at some point it becomes a fight that they get tired and they almost feel like, "I don't want to fight for this anymore." Especially when you're sick and you're just like, "You know what? Just put me out on disability." It's unfortunate because sometimes this is people's only livelihood, and it takes so long to get disability insurance, for that insurance to kick in, and for SSI to kick in.

Sometimes it takes a year to two years before your disability SSI kick in. You need to be working. You need that paycheck. To know that there are individuals who make it even more difficult for you to get that support, I feel like it's inhumane. I feel like it's a disservice to the people who will show up and do the most and do their best if they feel like you're meeting them halfway.

WELLS: Thank you for that. First, I wanted to send condolences on the loss of your nephew. I know losing someone to violence is horrible. I know that people deserve time off when that does happen. I'm glad to hear that they did that for you during that time. I want to incorporate the next question with what you were saying. In all of what we've been talking about, you've done some research on Black women's willingness to request reasonable accommodations related to mental health, and also on their ability to actually get the accommodations they need, even after they request them.

Can you talk a little bit more about the hurdles that Black women face in trying to get reasonable accommodations in the workplace? I know you touched on it, but I would love to hear about what you're thinking about what I just said.

DR. BARNES: Oh, absolutely, and I'm so happy you highlight that because it's disheartening that so many Black women, they have to walk this tight rope of, "I'm okay." They have to walk this tight rope of, "I'm okay," especially when they're not. They're always met with this, "Oh, you're so resilient and you're so strong. I don't know how you're able to do what you do." Well, guess what? It's not because it's a choice. It's because it's a necessity. It's because we're not given any other option. It's because we're not afforded the same type of compassion as our counterparts when we go through things.

Generationally and systematically, we have been shaped and groomed to believe that we had to stuff our feelings down and just find a way. There's no surprise that when we're faced with some form of trauma, whether it's an assault, whether it's domestic violence, whether it's any other type of violence or even illness, mental illness, we were taught that you just push through. Again, that comes from generational learnt behavior. Or that, because it wasn't always privy or didn't have that access to the supports that we needed, whether it's mental support or even protection, we have to continue to just show up.

That's what we see, and that's what Black women face in the workforce. They're faced with constantly, "You just have to show up. You have to figure things out. Check your feelings at the door." Because of that nature, because we often have to work twice as hard, we often have to be twice as smart. Even now, if you can make it too, it doesn't matter how educated we are. It doesn't matter how much experience we have. We're always hit with either, we are either a DEI hire, or we knew somebody, or possibly slept their way to the top in order for them to be recognized at a certain level.

This has been happening for centuries. This is nothing new. The world has this turned on its head for a while. We have been able to break past a lot of barriers, but we're still challenged. We're still in the space and live in the world where women of color are not accepted. We still live in the world where our education is questioned, our expertise is questioned. If we show any signs of emotion, we automatically become the aggressor. We automatically become unapproachable. We automatically become standoffish.

It could just be, "How about we're going through something? How about we're experiencing something? How about we're having a bad day, and right now is not the time, or right now we're not in the space to engage in a conversation that has no real meaning or something that could have been an email." Often we're faced with someone, when we say like, "This doesn't work for me right now. I would like to disengage, and can we meet about this later?" It's always met with a bombard of questions. "Well, why? Why can't you talk about it now?" "This is how I'm feeling," and this is coming from the other party, "This is how I'm feeling. I want to discuss it now."

Then when we're at a frustration level that is been thrown back on us, where we were not willing to engage, or we were aggressive, or we were dismissive, when we already stated that we were not in the place or in a space to have that discussion at that time. I give you that example because that is a lot of the time what happens to us all the time, and then it becomes documented in probably a performance review or something like that. We get those notches or those red flags in our performance review that someone else may not have. A male may get a pass where it's like, "Well, you know what? Today, John wasn't having a good day, so we'll reschedule this."

When it comes to Black women, and sometimes when it comes to women in general, but when it comes, especially to Black women, it's the question of, "Are you going to be able to do this job because you're a mom? Are you going to be able to do this job because you're emotional? Are you going to be able to do this job because you seem like you're always upset or angry?" Our personal life has no room in the workforce. As I mentioned in the essay, that's often what contributes to us not stepping forward and asking for the reasonable accommodation when it comes to mental health, or us not reaching out to support from others at work. It's just because when we do ask for support, sometimes, it can be met with dialogue that makes it seem like we're less capable of doing our job, instead of being seen as this is a person who needs additional support, just like anyone else. It's not met with the, "Oh, great. Let's make this a teamwork opportunity," but it's more geared toward a competence thing, a competence issue.

WELLS: Xenia, I would like to ask, too-- Thanks for bringing light onto that topic. It's a very important topic, and it needs to be discussed, especially in this forum. I would like to ask you, what would you say to a young, Black woman with a disability who's just now entering the workforce? What tips would you give to her to advocate for herself and her access needs? What would you do or what would you say?

DR. BARNES: That is a great question, and I'm so happy that you asked that because it is so important for those who have traveled the road or the journey to always reach back and share tools and tips to those who are behind them. What I would say to a young, Black woman that's entering the workforce now with a disability, I would say that you are enough. I would say, be comfortable with who you are, and never afraid to ask for support.

I would say, make sure you document everything. Documenting everything is very important just because that is your record of who you ask for support, when you ask for support, and it also leaves that paper trail of this is what I need, and this is how I'm asking for it. Then also, get a mentor. It is okay. I wish I knew that early on. Find yourself a mentor, preferably someone else with disability, because they can understand the challenges that may be coming your way, and they will help you to navigate through those challenges.

It's so important for you to have a community that is understanding, someone who can show some form of compassion, but someone who knows the ropes. You don't have to do it alone, and you don't have to do it all at once. If they walk away with anything, I want them to walk away with knowing that they're enough and making sure that they have an actual supportive system in place, such as a mentor, who can help guide them around the way. There's nothing wrong with asking for support.

WELLS: That was our conversation with Dr. Xenia Barnes. Her essay, The Invisible Battle: Navigating the Minefield of Workplace Accommodation, was included in the recently published book, Triumph in the Trenches: Navigating Success for Black Professionals.

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WELLS: That does it for the show. Disability Rap is produced and edited by Carl Sigmond and Courtney Williams. You can go to our website, disabilityrap.org, to listen to past shows, read transcripts, and subscribe to the Disability Rap podcast. You can also subscribe to our podcast by searching Disability Rap on any of the major podcast platforms. We are brought to you by KVMR in partnership with FREED, and we're distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. I'm Lindsey Wells with Carl Sigmond for another edition of Disability Rap.

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