The Black Box

In the beginning, The Black Box was just for me.

It started because I was being gaslit. Misrepresented. Evaluated unfairly. I knew what I was seeing with my own eyes and hearing with my own ears didn’t match what was being written down and spoken about me. So I started keeping track. I started recording. Capturing. Logging. Documenting.

Not to be dramatic. To survive.

Because when you’re in a toxic system — when your body is soaked in adrenaline and cortisol every day because of the chronic stress of feeling unsafe at work — your brain doesn’t know peace. It loops. It tries to solve, to track, to protect you. You start connecting the dots because no one else is doing it for you. You become your own investigator, archivist, therapist, and lawyer. You’re trying to live through it, but also carry the burden of proving that you’re not imagining it.

So The Black Box became my anchor. My truth, in one place.

And like all real black boxes, it wasn’t meant to rehash the pain. It was meant to preserve what mattered when everything else was crashing down. It was how I found clarity. How I started making space in my mind for things other than pain. Other than “how do I survive tomorrow?”

Because truth, when contained, can begin to settle. And when it settles, you can breathe.

When I shared my draft of the leadership project with my grad cohort, I didn’t expect what came next. As they read through the bulleted patterns and documentation, I watched their faces change — the dropped jaws, the stunned silences, the repeated:

“Wait, what? That actually happened?”

And then they said the thing I didn’t want to hear, but needed to:

“I think your leadership project is about resilience. How are you surviving this?”

It cracked something open.

Because yes — that’s what this has been. A leadership project in two acts:

Act 1: The sky’s the limit. I’m a rocket. Building. Creating. Growing. Launching.
Act 2: The rocket hits the wall. There’s fire. Rubble. I’m crawling through the debris wondering if I’ll even make it to the end of the year.

And the grief hit me like a wave.

Because I didn’t want this to be my project. I wanted to serve. I wanted to help. I had ideas — good ones — and a proven record of success. I wanted to keep building a better school for students and staff.

But the Toxic Boss didn’t want what I brought. She wanted obedience. Silence. Conformity. And she wanted me out.

So this is what I did instead:

I told the truth.
I documented.
I endured.

And now, The Black Box is more than a project. It’s a method. It’s a movement.

It’s what birthed Crickets, my personal recording business for people who have been silenced so they can be witnessed. It’s what reminds me that even when the system fails, you are allowed to preserve your truth. You are allowed to record what happened. You are allowed to say: No, I will not go quietly.

And you are allowed to keep going — even after the crash.