I was on top of the world, but my spirit was lower than the Mariana Trench. I was surrounded by applause, awards and recognition, but I was losing not only myself and everything I worked so diligently to build, but my family as well. I presented myself as holistically well. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I was building from a state of brokenness—serving my community while walking over the shattered pieces of my existence.
I was never okay. I just made suffering in silence look beautiful.
The trauma I endured as a child—sexual, losing loved ones unexpectedly, experiencing my parents’ divorce and our house of 12 years foreclosing while I was in middle school—set the destructive roadmap of my adolescence. Submitting to peer pressure and abusing my body with substances filled me with lust and greed. I was fueled by gun culture and handling conflict with violence. These experiences shaped me into the man I am today—for better or worse. The father, husband, poet, author, business owner and community leader. It would be years before I realized I needed to heal my inner child.
At 17, I introduced myself to the world as spoken word artist, B LOVEE. The way I knitted words together about difficult social justice issues, the passion I used to express them and the action of showing up and serving my people instantly gained the attention from communities and platforms both local and international. My words spread throughout my home in Southside Richmond to as far as west as California, and as far east as France and Australia. My visibility and success fattened my ego. It kept me from seeing myself for what I truly was—a hurt little boy cosplaying as a man.
From 17 to 23, I unapologetically shared my gifts, products and services with the world. I went on stages and encouraged people to stay away from harmful drugs, then I went back to my neighborhood with my homies to pop pills, sip lean, get drunk off moonshine and smoke enough weed to make Wiz Khalifa blush. I justified my actions because at least I wasn’t doing cocaine anymore, or smoking crack and doing heroine like many of my family members.
Every drug I used, I sold. I wasn’t just addicted to the feeling of the drugs, but the money they would bring as well. I was a functioning addict attempting to suppress my rage, grief and trauma with numbness and greed. I would get paid to visit middle and high schools to speak on addiction and gun violence, only to walk out, hop on a call to discuss who needed to be “put in the dirt” today. I lived a double life for years, until I turned 23. The year I became a father.
It kept me from seeing myself for what I truly was—a hurt little boy cosplaying as a man.
But before my son was born, during the second trimester of my wife’s pregnancy, I found myself filled with so much rage. I realized I needed to heal. As a birthday gift, my wife and close friends signed me up for the “Man Heal Thyself Wellness Warrior Rites of Passage.” This experience gave me and men across the globe so many tools to release the trauma we were attempting to suppress. But it’s one thing to have the tools. It’s another to pick them up.
A few months after “Man Heal Thyself,” my son was born. But with his birth came the immense pressure of becoming a first-time father. I was completely overwhelmed. Instead of using my tools, worry and anxiousness ate me alive.
No one really talks about postpartum depression in men, but trust me, it’s real. I call it postpartum suppression. Postpartum depression causes intense feelings of sadness, anxiety and fatigue in mothers. Before and after a child is born, 100 percent of the attention is directed to the mother. Here’s where postpartum suppression comes in. I, like most men, in order to show up for both our child and their mother, our humanity is deprioritized by not only our village, but oddly enough, ourselves. We all can physically see what the mother is going through. Hormonal and body changes show the mother is experiencing something life changing. But for the father, his experience isn’t visible. This is what happened to me. My intense, suppressed feelings leaked out of me and onto the world around me.
Yet and still, I never accepted I was broken. Why? Because even in my distress, goals were still being accomplished, business was flourishing and the recognition was growing. This meant I was healthy right? WRONG. It was years of my wife and I smiling and holding space in public, then emotionally bleeding on one another at home. But despite the destructive loop of postpartum suppression and depression, my wife and I decided to get married. We knew we loved each other and wanted to do life together. We knew it was important to keep the family united not only for the sake of our child, but our children’s children.
When my parents separated, so did my connection to my faith. I left Christianity and explored almost every other option including New Age, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, African Spiritualties, Nation of Islam and more. Not only did I explore them, but I also shared them with my community, screaming the doctrines from the top of my lungs hoping to free my people from the white man’s religion. But God wouldn’t let my troubled spirit rest.
One day, in January 2023, I told God, “Look OG, I’m unsure of what to believe today, but if you are who you say you are, I leave my heart open for you to reveal yourself to me.” That He did.
From January to July, The Holy Spirit was yelling from the rooftops to bring me back home. The prodigal son’s return. From sporadic church visits where the Word was always right on time, to developing a relationship with my brother Ryan Williams of Juice Life RVA and our 6 a.m. prayers, which he always ended with “In Jesus Name, Amen,” God was tugging on my soul, convicting me every chance He could. I finally let Him in and He transformed my life.
That April, shortly after my 25th birthday, I did my first TEDx talk. In July, my wife and I got married, I got baptized, I did my first art exhibit at 1708 Gallery and I released my second book. I was on fire for God.
Initially, my wife was hesitant about my transition back into Christianity. There was a time when we gawked at what it was and represented. But she couldn’t deny how God was working on my heart. I was kinder and gentler, more loving and forgiving.
But that September, I lost three family members within three weeks, one of which was my uncle who I lost to an overdose. This broke my heart and sobriety.
Not only did I explore them, but I also shared them with my community, screaming the doctrines from the top of my lungs hoping to free my people from the white man’s religion.
Again, I found myself having the tools but not picking them up. Instead of healing, I returned to suppressing. The lack of focus resulted in me not being prepared to move my family out of our Forest Hill home once the lease ended at the beginning of October. We no longer had somewhere to call a home.
After two months of sleeping in room to room in the homes of our loved ones, I moved my family into a house in Church Hill. We finally had a breath of fresh air. But it didn’t last for long.
A month later, we experienced a disconnect that drove our family apart in ways we never could have predicted. When I first met my wife, she had a six-year-old son. Now, he was stepping into adolescence. So naturally, he began testing my authority. This isn’t foreign behavior in blended families, but disrespect was something I wouldn’t allow in my household. So I set hard boundaries. This didn’t bode well for our home and strained my relationship with him and my wife. After several grueling weeks of unrest, my wife made the decision to leave with not just one, but both of our sons. This was the first time our family had been separated in almost four years. The level of heartbreak I experienced was unfathomable.
Experiencing my parents’ divorce and remembering how much it impacted my sister and I growing up, I vowed when I started my family, I would keep it together. Not doing so made me feel like a complete failure. Once a home full of love and warmth and was now a cavernous abode. I was forced to sit with myself and establish what was priority for me. I closed my tea company for several months, I canceled all speaking engagements and sat still. I spent my solitude in prayer, fasting, worship and reading the Word of God. While I was investing into myself, my wife was doing the same—growing closer to God. The silent work led to the reconciliation of our union in December of that year. Our union was broken down and rebuilt with God at the foundation.
If the last four years has taught me anything, it’s the end is rarely ever the end, but rather a new beginning. An opportunity to reset and reconnect with what’s important. A chance to grow closer to God and surrender to His will.
As a father and husband, I have learned how my actions and the energy behind them can manipulate the thermostat of my home. It’s my responsibility to regulate the temperature.
But here’s the thing, it is okay to not be okay. Once you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up. However, convincing yourself you are doing better than you actually are, can be both harmful to yourself and the world around you. Once you exit from this state of denial and embrace radical acceptance, then and only then do we give ourselves space to grow and evolve.
Here is my challenge to you: identify, acknowledge and accept your truth. Then ask yourself: is this the truth I want to live with? As Romans 12:2 reminds us, transformation begins with renewing your mind. It is never too early or too late to begin that journey.
With Lovee, B.
BABL 