Between January and February 2026, Black women lost 87,000 jobs. That number deserves more than a headline. Job loss for high-achieving professionals is not only a financial event. It is an identity event — and for Black women who have spent careers proving their right to be in the room, it hits in ways that are specific and rarely named.

There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from being told your whole life that you are strong. Not as an observation, as an expectation. The Superwoman Schema is one of the most well-documented psychological patterns affecting Black women, and one of the least talked about honestly. Here is what I see in my clinical work and why strength, when it becomes an obligation, stops being a gift.