Every wall was covered in crystals and a crystal chandelier hung overhead. On the floor in the corner of her boss's bathroom, Aisha Beau Frisbey was having the first panic attack of her life.
Aisha spent 12 years in fashion PR. She went from unpaid internships hauling Gucci garment bags in four-inch heels to a $28,000 starting salary to the in-house director job she had worked toward the whole time. She tells Erica Brinker what it cost to get there: code switching to seem palatable as one of the few Black women in the office, a designer who dismissed Black celebrities as D-list and a supervisor who reported her beauty blog to HR. When she finally got the title, she felt empty. Then she called home from that bathroom floor, and the most risk-averse man she knows told her to just leave.
Years later the lesson came back. After her son was born, the hormone crash hit before she even reached her hospital room. Aisha talks about the fog, the pressure of running a business with no maternity leave, pumping and freezing milk through a retreat in Bali and the one thing she'd tell any new mom who feels like she's failing.
In Mixtape, she builds a girl dinner around Toni Morrison, Beyoncé and Cardi B and gives her 25-year-old self some blunt advice: the rules are fake.
If you are struggling after having a baby, call or text the Postpartum Support International HelpLine at 1-800-944-4773.
Executive Producer: Sara Glassman
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Follow Aisha: Instagram @aishabeau | YouTube @aishabeau | aishabeau.com | Re-Written Retreat: aishabeau.com/retreat
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