June 7, 2023 • 54 mins
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
We first meet Queen Charlotte in Season 1 of Shonda Rhimes’ hit show ‘Bridgerton’ as a commanding and dignified queen consort on a ruthless pursuit to name the social season's diamond. But the prequel spin-off shows a different side to the Queen’s rise to prominence and power. We see a young Charlotte betrothed against her will, her budding relationships with King George and Lady Danbury, and navigating the ins and outs of her newfound queendom.
To discuss Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story in-depth, this week, I'm joined once again by my partner in pop culture, sex & relationship therapist, Dr. Donna Oriowo. We explore the complexities of mental health, sisterhood, and race relations present in the series, comment on storylines we were surprised and delighted by, and make predictions for the future of the Bridgerton franchise.
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Visit our Amazon Store for all the books mentioned on the podcast.
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Where to Find Dr. Oriowo
Check out Dr. Oriowo here on Session 201 of the podcast discussing how to vet relationship advice.
Check out Dr. Oriowo here on Session 60 of the podcast discussing colorism and texturism.
Check out episodes with Dr. Oriowo discussing Insecure here.
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Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Maya Cole Howard
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session three ten of the Therapy
for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation
after a word from our sponsors. Before we get into
the conversation, please note that this episode does include spoilers
(01:18):
for Queen Charlotte, a Bridgeton story. If you haven't had
the opportunity to watch, please put this episode on pause
and return once you've had time to enjoy the series.
We first meet Queen Charlotte in season one of Shonda
Rhime's hit show Bridgeton as a commanding and dignified queen
consort on a ruthless pursuit to name the social season's Diamond.
(01:40):
But the prequel spinoff shows a different side to the
Queen's rise to prominence and power. We see a young
Charlotte betrothed against her will, her budding relationships with King
George and Lady Danberry, and navigating the ins and outs
of her newfound queendom. To discuss Queen Charlotte a Bridgeton
story in depth this week, I'm joined once again by
(02:02):
my partner in pop culture, sex and relationship therapist, doctor
Donna Oriowo. We explore the complexities of mental health, sisterhood,
and race relations present in the series, comment on storylines
we were surprised and delighted by, and make predictions for
the future of the Bridgeton franchise. If something resonates with
(02:23):
you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on
social media using the hashtag TBG in session or join
us over in the sister Circle To talk more in
depth about the episode, you can join us at community
dot therapy for Blackgirls dot Com. Here's our conversation. So,
(02:43):
doctor Oriowo, I'm so excited you are able to join
me yet again for another one of our pop culture
explorations on another new favorite shared show, Queen Charlotte, which
is the spin off from Bridgeton, Like I feel like
I remember at point they announced that this spin off
was coming, but then it kind of snuck up on me,
(03:04):
and you were in my text messages like girl, have
you seen Queen Charlotte? And I didn't even know that
it was out yet. But of course then spent the
rest of the weekend binging and very very satisfied and
excited that I did. So there were so many different
things to talk about, I think as a part of
Queen Charlotte. So first of all, what were your overall
(03:24):
impressions of Queen Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh, my goodness, Like, I really loved it, and I
think it's in the rewatch that I also felt a
tremendous sense of sadness like her life for me, at
least as it was displayed on the show. I know
it's fiction, so I don't nobody got to tell me.
It was just really sad, just really sad. The themes
(03:46):
that sort of came up for me were around power
and control. Of course, the mental health piece, the sexuality
piece also was coming up. There's a tremendous feeling of
sadness for not just her her, but also for Lady Danberry.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
See, that's the part I think that really spoke to
me because I feel like there are so few shows
where we really intimately see like the interior lives of women,
especially older women.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So there's of course this whole flashback piece of when
they were younger versus when they are now older, which
is where we see them in the current day Bridgerton
kind of series. But I just feel like they talked
about so many issues that we just don't ever really
hear talked about in pop culture related to older women, right,
related to like desire and they'll having very healthy sex
(04:35):
drives even in later life.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
And the.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Garden. The Garden was in bloom, So I really loved that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I just think that they did a phenomenal job really
exploring some of those areas that we just don't hear
talked about a lot. So you said the theme that
kind of came up for you most was sadness related
to kind of how Charlotte's life unfolded. Tell me why
sadness felt predominant for you.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Sadness was predominant because from the very beginning, her choice
was stripped away. We see her anger, you know, she
pushes the statue off the stand because she realizes that
she's just been like, oh, so you're just gonna you're
just gonna put me over there, You're not even gonna
talk to me about it. But then a tremendous amount
of loneliness ensued, right right when she felt like, oh, okay,
(05:21):
maybe I will be with this guy instead of going
over the garden wall. Look, if you haven't watched it,
I'm all spoiled. So he might want to listen to
this later. But the piece around, just like she thinks
that she's found this connection and then this person withdraws
from her, and how sad. Everything sort of just was
(05:43):
after that, with moments of happiness with him right like
she's learning him but also learning what it takes to
actually be with him. And then that piece that she
talked about, like having to set oneself apart so she
can't go to where she wants to go, She can't
do the thing that she wants to do, and doing
those things would also require her to mostly do them
(06:06):
by herself, because she has to be regal and queenly
and cannot be seen to just be hanging out with
everybody else, less the monarchy, feel less mono.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So it was interesting in the watching because you're kind
of trying to balance like both of these timelines, right like.
Of course, there are some contemporary pieces of it, even
set in whatever year this was, But I did think
it was interesting because we know most arranged marriages like this,
right Like, it seemed like there was not a lot
of time for people to get to know one another
(06:42):
before they actually became married. And so they had this
cute little moment at the wall where she keeps asking,
tell me about the king, tell me about the king,
and people are just like, oh, he's a glorious king
and da dada, and so she's like.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Oh, yeah, this must be awful.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I'm getting out of here, right, And so she tries
to scale this wall in this like huge dress, and
he is out there and finds her, and she finds
out that that's the king, and so of course it
seems like they have this pretty powerful connection, and she
decides at that moment that she's not going to run away.
She's going to instead before with marrying him, thinking that
you know, this little moment of connection they've had will
(07:17):
be enough, I think, to grow into something deeper and stronger,
and then of course we see that night then he
completely changes.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Right and withdraws.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I thought it was interesting the way they set it
up because I feel like we saw at least two
maybe three episodes really from her vantage point, right, So
we're kind of experiencing the show and going through the
wedding in their first couple of years of marriage really
from her vantage point, and only in like I think,
episode three do we see like what's really been going on.
But I feel like some of those seeds have been planned.
(07:48):
When she asked, why are they coming all the way
here to find me as a queen?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So so what is it about? Yeah, they know nothing
about me, Like why am I the one who's being
asked to marry the king? So?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
What were your thoughts there?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Once we kind of finally found the plot twist, so
to speak, around the secret that the king's mom had
been hiding.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Honestly, it sort of brought up ideas around consent just
in general, and I realized that, you know, like back then,
obviously historically women were not even considered people.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
They were considered property.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But because Shondaland is adding in this additional storyline around
race relations. At that time, all of it is hitting
a lot differently because she's looking very much like property.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Her brother basically sold her off to be with this family,
and it's like he used his power to make her marry,
but they used their power to make him want to
make her marry. Right, It's not really consent because of
the way power is at play. Right, So you got
the might of the British Kingdom, this big monarchy, going
(09:00):
to this smaller area in Germany and saying.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Like, all right, we looking for all bride. What's up?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Right, And that they chose her purposely because they felt
that she would be grateful and thus wouldn't look into things,
except that she showed us in episode one that she
is also.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
A critical thinker.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Her critical thinking questions were like, well, are you even
considering why they would come all the way here to
find a bride. It's not to say that her brother
wasn't critically thinking, because he was, because he was just like, look,
I'm thinking about how we can solidify ourselves and keep
some of these wolves at bay, right, the ones that
are surrounding us already, Because we are what we are.
(09:40):
And at the same time, while they're helping us to
keep this at bay, we also get to establish this
stronger alliance and we get to have some of the
benefits of being part of this thing. And on top
of that, I can't disagree. I can't say no because
this is the might of the British Empire.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
We don't want none, we don't have what we need.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
To fight that, right. So it's like that's his critical thinking.
Her critical thinking is you're not thinking about why they
came all the way over here? What secrets are they
keeping that they will come all the way over here
when they got plenty of those people over there.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
And you know they don't like black people like that,
Like what's up with you?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So it's the battle of the critical thinking in that way,
and just like how are we going to establish what
are we doing versus what do we have to do?
But overall just this lack of consent, right, like no
one can consent, and the secrets that are being kept,
they're shielded in power, Like I'm not going to tell
(10:40):
you the fool full because I don't have to, and
because I really need this thing to go through and
I need you to produce babies, right, Like you have
good hips, you make good babies. And just like this constant,
the constant use of power to shield secrets and to
(11:00):
make sure that nobody ever has any level of informed
consent about what it is that they're doing.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
But you're getting consent.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, And you know it's interesting because I feel like
the power even for the king, right, Like it feels
like in some ways he was trapped by this idea
of like obligation and you know, expectation of like what
this title means and feels like in moments, wanting to
share the full story about everything going on with his
health is mental health, but also not really wanting to
be king, right, but being born into this title and
(11:31):
like understanding that this.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, he wants to just be a former, but.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Being born into this title, and like this is the expectation,
Like there is not an option to not kind of
fulfill this duty. So we know that like the secret
that they're keeping is around his mental health. That he
clearly has the mental health concerns. It seems like there
are some breaks in reality, but it also seemed like
some anxiety stuff. So we'll get it to that in
a second. Like, Okay, what do we think was actually
(11:56):
going on? But they also refer to this like great experiment,
and I don't know that I ever got an understanding
of what was happening. So was it that they were
trying to find a bride for him and you know,
wanting somebody who would not ask a lot of questions,
like you said, would be grateful to just kind of
be the new queen, And so they couched it as this, Oh,
(12:18):
we're trying to bring the racist together, and that's why
he's marrying somebody who is not a white person, Like,
what did.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
You make of the great experiment?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I think it was because she was too brown, which
is funny because she's also very light mm like colorism
speaking right, like relative to white people and relative to
those white people. They were like, oh, she's very brown,
and it was just like emphasized right like, ooh, she's
very brown, and that's a problem, especially a problem for Parliament.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
So they wanted to make it look like it was
on purpose that she was brown.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
So it's like, no, we're gonna actually be trying to
bring together the racist.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So that was a decision they made kind of on
the spot once they saw her and realized, got it, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
This decision that like, particularly the dowager princess, that part
was the first show of how much she sort of
is ruling in my eyes right, like she's ruling in
the name of her son by saying what she wants,
but saying that her son wants it, and no one
is going to question that because she's the mom being
(13:23):
able to say, like, well, the King wants her to
make this look like it's on purpose, so we are
going to extend the invitation to all these brown people,
to all these black folks. Six hours before the wedding,
She's just like, who don't want to come to a
royal wedding?
Speaker 5 (13:41):
Baby?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
They're not about to say no? I mean, and for real,
they didn't they came. I think it would have been
it would have certainly said something if none of them came, like, dang,
y'all look crazy out here. But of course these people
are gonna come, right, they came, and then all of
a sudden it's ah, lady and Lord, like what.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
We had no titles? Like what you're talking about?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Man?
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
And then I think at the wedding is when we
see this first which I think is like, probably my
favorite relationship on this show between Lady dan Berry and
the Queen and Queen Charlotte, because we see the sisterhood.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Was all all in effect. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
But we see that Lady dan Berry spots the Queen
upstairs and she's like, ah, this is why we're here,
right so now, so now the y'all have brought in
all these black folks to try to make this scene
as if we're all one big, happy family, where we
know that that is not the case. I love that
Lady dan Barry becomes a part of her court and
really becomes like her, only in some ways ally in
(14:44):
all of this, like, oh my gosh, what have I
gotten myself into?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So we see even.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
The night of the wedding, Yeah, she goes to her
and says, you know, be careful. You know, if you
call for me, I will come right. So she's already
letting her know, like girl, I got you, And of
course the Queen doesn't know anything right. But later on
when she finds herself alone and is like, okay, I
need somebody, we see that she talks to Brimley and says,
if I wanted to be discreet, what I call Lady
(15:10):
dan Barry, and that is really the beginning of their
budding friendship.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And friendship and the loosest term, right because where power
is present, especially the type of power where you can't
be really open and honest, is it really friendship, right, right,
Like when one person is wielding a considerable more amount
of power than somebody else. Queen Charlotte was able to
(15:34):
sort of help establish Lady Danberry right, like to say,
like your line of succession that will continue, right, that
you can keep the house.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
That you can do these things.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
She was able to help her with those things out
of yes, there's a friendship or camaraderie. And at the
same time, I'm further solidifying you as my subject, and
I still have to be held apart even from you.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Right, because we saw most of their interactions were like
at the castle. It's not like they're downtown drinking tea together, right,
Like they're still in the castle, mostly behind closed doors.
And I think you're right, like I do think it
very much was a sisterhood kind of thing for Lady
Danberry to say, like, you know, if you call for me,
I'll come. But we also see Lady Danberry playing both
sides against one another, right because once the dowager Princess
(16:23):
finds out that Lady Danberry has been to the castle,
then she is saying like, okay, well, you're kind of
my ears on the ground kind of things telling me
what I need to know about what's happening between the
king and the Queen.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Also power, because it's like she didn't have a choice
whether it's not meeting with the dowagi or princess of
all people. And at the same time, just like the
way that she plays it, right like, well, I need
things and if I am going to be in a
position to be used like that was established with the
(16:57):
invitations that went out to come to the royal wedding,
they were all already being used in that moment. Well,
how can I get as much in trade for being
used in this way as possible? How can I secure
what I need from my family? How can I make
sure that my husband can stop feeling excluded despite the
fact that he is now Lord dan Barry, right, like
(17:19):
he's the Lord and you still treating him the way
that you've been treating him before. And I got to
do what I got to do for me because every
time this man feel rejected, he will come homp on
me and I'll want hump with him. So just like
even just establishing that piece, like she's trying to play
(17:40):
all these very different things she needs to do for herself,
which I actually find to be quite refreshing. I feel
like oftentimes when number one women in a lot of
TV shows are very one note, very very two dimensional,
they're not full thought out people. So these are full
thought out people, which I can really appreciate. But there's
(18:02):
also that piece around, like a good woman, a real
woman is a person who does for others but doesn't
think of themselves. And I like that she wasn't doing
all this stuff out of a sense of selflessness. Only right,
it's not only about how she can help her friend
or a person that she's establishing a friendship with. It's
also about how she can help herself. I feel like
(18:24):
it was a beautiful example of you got to fill
up your cup before you're even able to really help
and establish anything with others. But we also saw that
the second that they said that no, we friends' friends,
how things sort of teetered in this other direction because
it's like, well, damn, I can't give the dowager Princess anything,
because I told this woman now that I'm her friend
(18:47):
and that we've established this as a friendship, and I
want to make sure I'm keeping my side of this
and that means holding her confidence more from my conversation
after the break, So let us go back to the
(19:09):
whole conversation and the major plot I think of the
show related to King George's mental health. So you know,
we see again in episode three, I believe, is where
we realize from his advantage point, like some anxiety or
whatever was happening even on his wedding day and he
gets slapped to try to kind of come back to
his senses quote unquote, So we really see like them
(19:30):
establishing this theme of something's going on with his mental
health that they don't want people to know. So what
do you feel like was actually going on, at least
in the ways that it was portrayed in this show.
It looked to me that he had extreme anxiety, which
would make sense, and it would also like no teno
shade olivi inade because I know that parents never want
to hear this, but.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
It seemed like his mama gave it to one.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It seemed why she helped to establish this thing, that
little monologue that he gave, Well, if my maps are correct,
then that's the downfall of the monarchy. If I don't
need my peace, downfall of the monarchy, Like everything that
he does, everywhere that he behaves, would lead to the
ruin and the downfall of the monarchy. And that's an
incredible amount of pressure to put on anybody, let alone
(20:14):
to establish with a child, right that if he is
not perfect, that he is not worthy of the station
that he holds, and that he will cause the ruin
of everything for everyone because.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Of his lack of perfection.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That's a lot of pressure to put on one person,
just period, and certainly a lot of pressure to put
on a child. For me, what I feel like I
saw was every single time he had an episode, it
was preceded by a highly stressful event, like every single time.
I mean, like the first one that we saw that
(20:51):
we didn't know that we were seeing was when he
went out to the garden to go retrieve Charlotte, and
it's like, well, my wife is running away, and so
am I stressful.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
He got the back hand for.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That after the conversation with his mom when she came
to the council to make sure that they had participated
in the marital act. Yeah, and that was when we
first saw him call for the doctor, right. And so
again that was the first one I think where we
knew something was going on, Like you mentioned the situation
in the garden. You know, we didn't know because we
hadn't seen his vantage point at that point.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Word and mom showing up at the house, right, and
how he was holding it together until she left, right,
and then he just sort of, yeah, call the doctor.
Like the way he was trying to hold himself so
rigidly and was able to release, and in that release
the built up and held back I would say, chemical
(21:42):
reactions that are going on in the body. Then he's
trying to hold onto with two fists. He was able
to sort of let it ride itself out. I think
the next one that we saw after he fired the doctor,
he's like, nah, I'm good, I'm with y'a altte now
I feel fine. But then it was oh, she's pregnant.
And that was the one that woke him up in
(22:03):
the middle of the night where she actually got to
see like, oh, y'all been keeping.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Things from me.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
This is what's wrong with this man, And y'all stole
my choice. I mean not that she, I mean she
didn't really technically have a choice, but stole it's still
a stolen choice.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Man.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
She didn't have all the story.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, and then it was when he was going to
address Parliament and then again when they invited Parliament to
the house that these were some of the major things.
And then I know that it's I think it's established
maybe in Bridgerton the main series, but he never recovered
after one of his children died. He was just off
(22:42):
and down in that spiral from that. So it's like
we can see the things that sort of put him
in this position. And while his mom said I want
his happiness, no she didn't. The only person who showed
that they wanted his happiness was Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Right, Which is interesting, right because she has now been
brought into this you know, like you said, didn't have
much of a choice regardless, but even further taking away
any kind of perceived choice that she had because she
was led into this marriage without getting the full story,
which is just sad.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Everybody had their hand in making her choices, and she
had very little advantage in being able to make any
for herself. She wasn't fully informed to be able to
make a choice, Like no one would even tell her
about this man that she was going to marry or
that she was supposed to marry.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
So she chose, well, I'm about to go over the wall.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
But then she meets him and it's like, oh, it's
a cute meat, right, cute me cute, But he doesn't say, hey,
I have mental health problems right, or I might be
slipping into madness. So whatever language you would have used
to just sort of describe it, he didn't say it.
So she is going off what she's seeing in that
moment and using that to make her choice. And then
(24:01):
it's like, y'all lied to me, y'all been keeping secrets
from me, and I'm supposed to just live with it.
I'm just supposed to be okay with it. I'm just
supposed to figure out how to manage with it and
sort of being put in a precarious situation, and the
whole theme is just be grateful, right. Her brother said
it to her, like you think your life is going
(24:22):
to be so hard as being a queen? Like get
over yourself, right, Like they are worth fates. And then
it's she's hearing be grateful again from his mom, be grateful,
and then he further takes her choice away. He doesn't
tell her why he's doing what he's doing. And it's
just like, and while it sounds noble, right, like I
want to keep her safe from me, So I'm going
(24:44):
to put her over there and I'm going to stay
in cue and we'll come together when we need to
come together. But other than that, I'm going to keep
myself separate. I'm just like, why are you taking her choices?
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And people don't like to hitus, but to me, it
sounds very much like this idea of part and provision, Like, Oh,
a person's job is to protect and to provide, and
I'm just like that protection in that providing often renders
the other person without enough information to make a choice
for themselves about how they would like to be protected,
(25:16):
about how they would like to be provided for. Everybody
is taking away the choice, but everybody feels like they
are more qualified than she to be able to name
the way that she will be provided for and protected,
and not seeing what their provision and their protection is
(25:37):
actually doing to her because the person that saw it
most closely was Brimsley, and he was beside himself trying
to figure out what to do, which I would say
feels above his pay grade, but he was doing it nonetheless, right,
like you're the King's man, help help me, help me?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Like what are you doing? You got me live for you.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
The least you can do is help me, man, right,
And like, yo, she don't want to be here?
Speaker 5 (26:04):
What do I do?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And just not getting any help, just trying to manage
this and trying to maintain a certain level of secrecy
because all of it was just so sad because they're
watching her drown in her own depression and her own
loneliness and no one will save her.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
She's strong enough.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Sounds very much like what we already tell black people.
You're strong enough, you got this, you can do this.
It's not as bad as it could be, right, Like,
isn't that what we are constantly taught to tell ourselves,
as well as what other people tell us, like what
you're complaining for, it could be worse. And I'm just like, wow,
the establishment of whether or not your life is good
(26:44):
for you, it's based on how bad other people's lives
are for them.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
So I did think it brought up an interesting point
around like when might you have some of these discussions
in a relationship?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And I feel like we talk about this sometimes with
you know, like STIs and like when do you just
close this to a partner? But if you are somebody
struggling with mental health concerns, like when would you tell
a partner or a potential partner about what's been happening
definitely before the wedding, then I feel like we can
agree on at.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Least a little bit before the wedding, right, like give
somebody before the proposal. Even I feel like that's a
really good question because I know that personally for me,
I've been dealing with my own mental health stuff right,
A lot of anxiety. I had this beautiful cycle from
anxiety to depression and back again. Mostly I live in
(27:35):
the space of anxiety. I don't really live in the
depression part, but the anxiety.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Whoo Ever, since a.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Panic attack on a plane, it's been out of control
and I'm just like, you know what, I don't think
I knew that I had anxiety before my husband and
I got together. I thought that this is just how
people lived, like, oh, this is regular, And I think
that a lot of people think that their mental health stuff, Oh,
that's just regular, it's normal to feel anxious. Oh, I'm
(28:02):
just an anxious person, right, that's the sort of thing
that people say, I'm just an anxious person.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
I'm like, nah, shawdy, you're not.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
You're not.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
The world around you helps to cultivate the anxiety that
you're consistently living with because of the way that it
treats black people and black women particularly, So I'm like, no,
you're not an anxious person. You will probably be quite
relaxed if you weren't here, if you weren't dealing with
these things in the way that we're dealing with these things,
you would probably find that you are not actually an
(28:33):
anxious person, but that you have been put into a
fraud situation that the only natural reaction is to be anxious.
I would say for me, thinking about it in terms
of like, well, when do you tell a partner, I
think that when you're going into a space where you're
establishing that you're not just y'are not just talking but
(28:54):
and you're not even just dating, but that you're moving
into what you think is going to be a relationship.
When you're establishing the best of what that is going
to be. When you're having those discussions, that is also
a time to say, like, hey, before we make this
decision about whether or not we're going to be together
and ultimately what our goal in being together is, you
should also know that I deal with a great amount
(29:16):
of anxiety, that I also deal with a great amount
of depression. This, for me, is the informed consent that
was missing throughout the series, right, because when a person
is uninformed, you've stolen their choices. You have no idea
if they're going to say yes or no. But certainly
if a person is informed beforehand, they can also make
(29:36):
sure that they have additional provisions to meet the need that.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
You are going to have.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
So for me, having this conversation with my husband, you know,
like after the fact, at this point, he's already made
the vow of through sickness and in health. Right, So,
and this is I guess the less than healthy part
the conversations even have been about. Now that we're in
this relationship and this has up here is how I
like to deal with my anxiety when my anxiety comes up.
(30:04):
This is what I like to do, what feels good,
right or saying for you to also do while maintaining
your mental health. Because my mental health is my responsibility,
I don't make it my partner's responsibility. And I think
that sometimes we selfishly try to believe that because we
are partner, that is their job and it's not. Your
(30:25):
mental health is your job. Just like your orgasms are
your responsibility, so is your mental health. So for me,
it has been establishing that I have to be doing
something for my mental health and that my husband, while
I would prefer for him to help care for me,
he doesn't have to. But he is a part of
the group of people that do. So the entire burden,
(30:48):
as it were, of my mental health is not placed
just on him. It is dispersed among many people that
I consider to be both friend and family alike. Right,
So I call my mom, but every now and then
to be like, hey, goodie, it's eleven in the nighttime.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
My anxiety does spiked up?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
You up? I usually said, I emoji's like you are,
but just knowing that I have to have a plan
that includes him, but doesn't require that he be the
only thing that is helping to keep my mental health together,
because I don't think that's fair either, And I think
(31:29):
in this really it's Charlotte M.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, because I think you know, when most people
worry about like disclosing something like this or sharing with
a partner, the concern is like, oh, they're gonna leave me, right,
like they are not going to know how to support
me or whatever, when really it's an invitation, like you said,
to kind of think about like, okay, what feels good
for you, like what feels okay to support me? And
(31:54):
like what does my care look like? In addition to
not making it one person's responsibility, right, like a whole
care team, a whole group of people who can support
you in your mental health, which I think again was
definitely missing from this conversation. But we did see like
Brimsley was the Queen's man, what was.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
King George's person?
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Reynolds Reynolds, what's that making up names now?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
And I'm here, but you know, so his man. It
did very much feel like he was a part of
the care team for the king, right, like even into
misguided ways. Right. Of course, he was also very very
heavily involved in like keeping this from the Queen and
all of those things, but it did seem like he
ultimately did care for King George, so it did feel
like he had a little bit of an informal care
(32:37):
squad that just didn't include the Queen until it was really,
in some ways too late, because she found out like
while he was in the garden, and she's thinking like,
oh my gosh, like what is happening.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Here because he had like his doctor, he had his mom,
and he had his man. Right, so it's like these
three people, but they're also bound to be trying to
keep the secret of his mental health, which means that
he's not necessarily getting everything that he needs because they're
worried about trying to keep the secret. I think that
(33:07):
sometimes we have to choose what it is that we're doing,
because where our attention goes, our energy flows. And if
the attention is really on keeping the secret, then you're
not doing the best job you could be doing and
making sure that the person is getting the care that
they're needing because you're so busy trying to keep a secret.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
So I'm just like they're trying to keep.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
The secret and not realizing what other resources they may
have already had at their disposal as a result, Like
Charlotte finding out about it was probably the best thing
for this man's mental health, because she's just like, all right.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Cool, what can we do?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
And Brimsley is like, all right, we're gonna increase the wall.
Here we go clear a path that he can go
out to the garden and speak to his venus.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Right, he can go out and he can do that.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And even the way that she gets under the bed
with him, establishing that like, hey, when it all becomes
too much, let's ground here. You can ground here with me.
And ultimately what it also and this is part of
the sadness that because everyone is so involved with the king,
(34:17):
the people that end up being involved with the king,
including her, she's not involved with her children. She is
a great queen, she's not a great mother, and that
is hard for her to reconcile.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Right, And we don't find that out until you know,
all of this is falling apart, and then the children
are like, we don't even feel like you don't really
know you. Yeah, yeah, you know us.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
We don't know you. You are asking us to make babies,
but you don't even know that we have been trying.
You don't know what we have gone through because you
have been so preoccupied in this area that you don't
know us, you've not established anything with us. And it's
(34:57):
the dichotomy of like sorrows prayers, right, because that is
like the breakout line of his dang on things, sorrows prayers.
I wonder how many people missed that the first time
it was said was when she was young, well, not
the first time, but that you know, well in her life.
The first time it was said was when she was
young to Lady Danbury, and that it felt so warm
(35:20):
and so sincere sorrows and prayers, and that it was
a connection moment for the two of them, and it
was the thing that preceded them saying that, hey, we're
friends now and in a friendship, this is how we
will be, like establishing what a friendship will look like
for them. That what preceded it with sorrows and prayers. Meanwhile,
(35:40):
we heard the way that she said it.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
To her son, right, sorrows, sorrows prayers, right, very prefunctorily,
and then frustrated, like sorrows prayers, we need babies.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
More from our conversation after the break And I think
it's interesting, you know, the dichotomy of who we see
Queen Charlotte as in the Bridgington series, right, because we
(36:16):
don't know a lot about her private life at all,
Like we know that the king exists and he's kind
of kept away in this room and something's going on.
I don't remember hearing anything about kids in the Bridgington series,
and then we move over to Queen Charlotte and they're
fifteen of them, or at some point they were fifteen, right,
So I'm like, oh my godness, we don't hear anything
(36:37):
about all these kids in Bridgington. So you know, we
do see, of course, in the spin off, we see
a fuller sense of her life. But you know, the
thing that I think, and we talked about this in
texts before the podcast, we also saw, in connection to
his mental health, the very old school, barbaric ways that
mental health was treated during that time, right, And so
(36:59):
we're talking now with a twenty twenty three sensibility around
like a care squad and like all of this stuff.
But they were kind of doing some of this at
that time and didn't call it that. But what we
did see was them attempting to treat his mental health
with stuff like ice baths and leeches and all of
these things.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
So so I do want to hear it.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
I was like, I don't know what that part does.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Some of that stuff I had never heard of, But
I do want to hear your thoughts around just, you know,
kind of like the ways that in some ways, I
think psychiatric care is in some ways still reminiscent of
some of this, right, but I definitely feel like we
have moved quite a ways from like using leeches and
ice baths to try to treat mental health. So what
were your thoughts around that?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
That part for me was kind of scary to see
because they definitely thought that they were at the forefront
of mental health. And I'm just like, are we going
to look back and see ourselves and be like wow,
and someone's gonna be like that's barbaric And I'm just like, ooh.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Is it? I don't know that.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
I mean, because right now we're at the forefront of all.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
The things, right, Like people are talking about EMDR, we're
still using CBT, we have a little EFT that's emotional
freedom tapping as well as emotional emotional therapy, right so
it's like we've got all these other ways that we're
sort of helping people move through whatever they've experienced and
being able to establish a different level of mental health
(38:27):
for themselves and sort of coming up with this care piece,
and some of it for me still feels rather individualistic.
So when I think about the barbarianism of it, right,
when I try to step back, just like, well, we're
still in a way trying to tell people you're an
individual doing this thing, and be an individual doing this thing.
On the one end, I think that through what you
(38:49):
have done with Therapy for Black Girls and your upcoming book,
which I'm really excited about, I think that that piece
around the Sisterhood re establishes that community is important in
a way that the American individualistic ideals will not fit
with the real mental health and not even just mental health,
but whole person well being that we're looking for is
(39:11):
established actually in community and not in silos.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
But their stuff is like they have a community, but
when you are the monarch, you don't have a community,
especially not a community of equals. Quite frankly, you have
yes men. And I feel like we see that same
issue now, right, Celebrities are often held apart, and in
being held apart, their mental health becomes fodder for others. Right,
(39:39):
you have us in the general population who don't know
these people, and so many of us are so loud
in the way that we comment on other people's lives
as though we are owed something from them. I'm thinking
specifically of how left the conversation went with Gabrielle Union
and what was like point zero two whatever percent of
(40:04):
a conversation where she mentioned.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
Fifty to fifty, but it wasn't about.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Being fifty to fifty, right, how it went to you're
a pick me and your husband is trash because he
don't even want to care for you.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
It gets me thinking about the mental health of Robin Williams.
I think about the mental health of like the things
that we've seen, like with Drake.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
I'm late.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
You don't have to tell me how late I am.
I know, but someone recently had me listen to his
song Marvin's Room, and I did a deep dive analysis
when I got on the phone with this person about
what I heard, what I didn't hear, and what it
all means. And I'm just like I'm thinking about celebrities
are in a sense held apart. They're held apart and above,
(40:46):
and particularly black celebrities right because now they become a
representation for all Black people and what they're allowed and
not allowed to do, the ways they're allowed and not
allowed to behave, the things they are allowed and not
allow out to say before we say that they're a sellout,
before we say that there's something wrong with them, before
we decide that we want to discard them, especially black women.
(41:08):
While other people are given a certain level of grace,
black women are not often yielded that same amount of grace.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Meg vs. Stallion was a.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Victim of violence, and people were talking trash about her
because they felt like they were losing out on this
other person who perpetraates violence against black women, right, or
even how we talked about Cosby and almost like we
were trying to establish that it should be okay for
him to do the same things that other people were doing,
(41:37):
or even r Kelly, that it should be okay for
him to do things, and we're gonna blame these people
instead of those people. And this piece around being held
apart and not having necessarily the same access. I think
they have financial access to mental health, but I don't
think they have the access of anonymity around mental health
(41:57):
the same way that everyday people are allowed to sort
of have it and I think that same thing with
King George, right, but there's a power dynamic. There's the money,
but there's also the fact that he is the monarch.
So even when he gave up power to this mental
health practitioner, loosely strongly for them, very secure, but loosely. Now,
(42:21):
Like I remember that scene where he was shaving his
face and King George Justice, he just holds his hand
and it's just like, I'm gonna finish this and you're fired, right,
because he still has the power to be able to
do that. But if he was in the asylum, the
one that they called Bedlam, would he have had the
power to be able to say.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
I'm done and I'm gonna leave now.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, you know, I had heard about leeches like being used,
but some of whatever he was doing, I think he
even used words like submission and like you have to
kind of like turn over this kind of.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Thing to me that he didn't break him first.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, so it very much felt like an ego trip
kind of thing for the doctor. And you know, like
I feel like, for what they knew at the time,
they were probably practicing the things that they thought were
helpful for people's mental health. But I feel like even
with that, he was crossing some lines because it felt
like it very much became around like okay, you have
to submit your power to me and like let me
(43:14):
break you kind of thing like that scene with the shaving.
So then it made me think like, well, what's really
going on here? Like what's the dream of planning we're
working on here?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
This porridge that they wouldn't even serve to know, like
you need you're gonna wait these pull clothes, I'll make
all your choices for you. And it's basically like the
mental health practitioner in that case becomes then is he
not the monarch? Then I'm like, if you have power
over the king, then that means for me you also
(43:45):
you ultimately in some ways almost have ultimate power. And
it seemed like it got worse when anybody tried to
subvert that power, right, like when the king's man comes
in and it's like what are you doing? Because like
get him out? Damn now you now you remember that
you don't have power here. Even though your job is
to secure this man. You don't have power here that
(44:07):
I mean, the king is screaming and all that other stuff,
but he's also not saying stop, right, and how much
of that is he can't say stop versus he doesn't
want to say stop because he's believing that he is
going to make himself safe as it were to be
with Charlotte, Because I mean, I don't know if you
caught the part where they talked about locking up the
(44:28):
shears and dulling the knives and all the stuff that
they did to sort of establish a safer space for
this man to be in because of what his mental
health and the way that it presented itself. And while
we didn't see him become violent, doesn't mean that he
was incapable of such. But that's because I also have
a different view of certain people in I feel like
(44:51):
people in power have a different proclivity level to violence.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
But that's my thoughts. You don't have someone here well.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
I also feel like it is probably what was characteristic
of mental health at the time, right, not that it
is something that everybody experiences to different levels and like,
you know, what does it present, but that there would
ultimately be violence because that is what it means to
be not well psychologically.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
So I think that that it was a part of
it too.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
But even then they still didn't want to even say
that right. They were forgot what they said, but they
were just like, are you trying to say that he's mad,
because that's treason.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
M m.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
So they were trying to say that it's his nerves, right,
They were trying to establish it as a bodily thing,
not a mental thing, because a mental thing means that
he is unfit to rule. And it sort of makes
me think specifically of like, even now, how much has
actually changed in mental health? Right, and not even just
mental health, but mental as well as physical health. Anybody
(45:45):
who is deemed a person with a disability is still
hidden in our culture. You can't even establish residency in
another country if you wanted to leave, because if you're
considered to be disabled here, you are not going to
be an accepted expat elsewhere. And I don't know how
many people are aware of that. I didn't become aware
of it until a friend told me about it, right,
(46:07):
and I was just like, oh, that's ridiculous, it's messed up.
But these other countries, they want the best, and people
with any level of mental illness are not considered the best,
are not considered people who should quite frankly, should be
allowed to live because I mean this country has a
eugenics history that includes getting rid of people that they
(46:28):
thought to be dumb or inherently criminal, etc.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Etc.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
And yes, it included black people and a lot of
other people of color, but it definitely included disabled people
who we still to this day believes should not be
allowed to pro create, who we still to this day
make decisions for about what they are and are not
allowed to learn because we want to protect and provide,
so we withhold information the same way that we do
(46:52):
for children. We withhold information under the guise of protecting
and providing while not also establishing, or while not also naming,
that we also have power over these people that we
say that we're protecting and providing for. We don't want
to put people in the position to be able to
make choices for themselves. And I think that in some
ways George didn't make the choice to go through this
(47:14):
particular treatment right because he was like, and I know
that there's always something extra that is held back from
the general populace that it reaches them years after you
have done the establishing work.
Speaker 5 (47:25):
I know that you have this stuff.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
I want it for me because I want to be okay,
Because I feel like meeting Charlotte for him was like, Yo,
she's fine, fine, and she's smart, and she unconventional, and
she got to be safe if she's gonna be with me,
and I can't provide and protect specifically physically, mentally emotionally
if I'm not well, which sounds to me again like
(47:49):
fill up your cup, please put on your mask before
helping others.
Speaker 5 (47:57):
Still not doing that.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
So there's so much more to talk about, and I
know we probably didn't even get to none of even
half of all of your notes, but we do need
to need to wrap up so that weekend, you know,
let the folks have a nice tight episode. So we
are not sure if we're getting a season two of
Queen Charlotte, but if we were, what would.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
You like to see in a season two?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Ooh, I would probably fast forward many years, and I
would like to see the dichotomy of relationship between she
and George and she and her children. I think I
would be interested in that as well as more Lady
dan Barry, because I really like that, particularly the establishment
(48:39):
of her learning about herself and what she likes instead
of inhaling the breath that her late husband exhaled. Right
since she was promised to him since she was story,
which means that she probably never learned about herself. She
always learned about this other person. So I would love
to see a little bit more of that, and if
they were to do more flashing back, I would like
(48:59):
to see if Lady Danberry and Violet they ever have
a flat out, asked, flat out about the garden, if
they're ever gonna ask like, hey, did my daddy tends
you to your garden?
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Because I really wanted.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I definitely feel like it was implied when we saw
her have the birthday crown, but you're right, they did
not have a frank conversation like, Okay, where's your daddy
in the garden?
Speaker 5 (49:26):
Was my daddy playing your warden? I want to know,
like I need to know, But I think I.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Think that's a little bit about what I would like
to see if they did decide to do a season two,
particularly because of that piece around you were a good queen,
you weren't a good mother, like you weren't a present mother.
And it got me thinking about a conversation that Lady
Danberry and Violet, Lady Violet whatever had when they were
(49:57):
at like the opera or whatever, like she's got to
be lonely, and how they were both establishing that our
husbands have died and we have been able to mourn,
heal and move on. Her husband is here and then
he is not here, so being in a constant cycle
of mourning, right, it made me think of a doctor
(50:18):
Jetta's book, The Gift of Grief, and just like Violet
loved her husband and so she has the gift of
grief and that her grieving him also reminds her of
how much she also loved him, whereas with Lady Danberry
it's about spite, and then for Queen Charlotte, it's more
like he's not even dead, but I constantly am anxious
(50:41):
about him dying. Is the King dead? It's constantly the question, right,
And then there's a sense of relief, it seems, but
not quite because I imagine that it begins to build right
back up the second that the pressure valve is off.
What would you want to see in season two?
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I would love to see you a Lady Danberry spin off,
like a separate thing all for her, because you're right,
I think there's so much about when this late husband passes,
like what did her life become like I don't think
she ever remarries, but we see that she has this
relationship with Violet's dad, so I would love to see that.
But I agree, I would also like to see the
relationship with Charlotte and her children, because again in Bridgeston,
(51:20):
we don't even really hear anything about children, so like,
what was that like for her to kind of be
raising that many children?
Speaker 3 (51:26):
But also, like.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Ruling, I also don't know that we know when she
officially kind of became the ruler because she clearly is officiating.
So at what point was like a conversation had about
Georgia's health where the power then transferred to her?
Speaker 3 (51:42):
So I like to see that, even.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Her to her eldest son, who was still that in
his mom role basically not proxy, right right, yeah, So
what was that process?
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Like, at what point did people you know, like recognize
her as the monarch as opposed to like any of
the men in her life.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
I wouldn't be interested.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Because I mean, of course, now I'm also doing like
a separate like comparison with like Hamilton, I'm looking like
man King George. I'm like I'm finally making history collections
that I feel like we're not properly established. When I
was in elementary school when they was talking about some
of this stuff, I'm it's much more interesting now, say
things come on, teachers, pull from the fake and give
(52:20):
more color to the history as it were. I think
that Lady dan Barry would be very interesting, especially her
very early years, since she was promising she was three
and she was already a part of a royal line
and what they said Sierra Leone right, yeah, So I'm
just like, oh, there's a lot there.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
I feel like Shanna was playing seeds too. If any
of these storylines get picked up, she would have something
to build on.
Speaker 5 (52:48):
If you're listening.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
If you're listening, please call upon especially doctor Joy because
she got this.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
So remind the people where they can find you across
the socials as well as your website.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
You can find me at doctor Donna Orio well on TikTok,
on Instagram and on Facebook at a nod right is
my practice, so you can find that also on Instagram
a n n O d r i ght, and of
course just come to Donna oioo dot com. It will
lead you anywhere that you're trying to go, and I
hope that you will also take the time to not
(53:28):
only come learn about me, but also just hang out
with me. I offer in my Black Feelings every Tuesday
because again I believe that mental health is in community,
and I have an upcoming retreat, So come to Mexico
and hang out with me in October.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
Love it well. Thank you again, Doctor orio Will. We
should include all of that in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
I'm so glad Doctor orio Will was able to join
me again this week. To learn more about her work,
or to check out her past appearances here on the podcast,
visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com
slash Session three ten, and be sure to text two
of your girls and tell them to check out the
episode right now. If you're looking for a therapist in
your area, check out our therapist directory at Therapy for
(54:17):
Blackgirls dot com slash directory. And if you want to
continue digging into this topic or just be in community
with other sisters, come on over and join us in
the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet
designed just for black women. You can join us at
community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode was
produced by Frieda. Lucas and Elise Ellis and editing was
(54:39):
done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all so much for
joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing
this conversation with you all real soon.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Take good care, what's
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for session three ten of the Therapy
for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation
after a word from our sponsors. Before we get into
the conversation, please note that this episode does include spoilers
(01:18):
for Queen Charlotte, a Bridgeton story. If you haven't had
the opportunity to watch, please put this episode on pause
and return once you've had time to enjoy the series.
We first meet Queen Charlotte in season one of Shonda
Rhime's hit show Bridgeton as a commanding and dignified queen
consort on a ruthless pursuit to name the social season's Diamond.
(01:40):
But the prequel spinoff shows a different side to the
Queen's rise to prominence and power. We see a young
Charlotte betrothed against her will, her budding relationships with King
George and Lady Danberry, and navigating the ins and outs
of her newfound queendom. To discuss Queen Charlotte a Bridgeton
story in depth this week, I'm joined once again by
(02:02):
my partner in pop culture, sex and relationship therapist, doctor
Donna Oriowo. We explore the complexities of mental health, sisterhood,
and race relations present in the series, comment on storylines
we were surprised and delighted by, and make predictions for
the future of the Bridgeton franchise. If something resonates with
(02:23):
you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on
social media using the hashtag TBG in session or join
us over in the sister Circle To talk more in
depth about the episode, you can join us at community
dot therapy for Blackgirls dot Com. Here's our conversation. So,
(02:43):
doctor Oriowo, I'm so excited you are able to join
me yet again for another one of our pop culture
explorations on another new favorite shared show, Queen Charlotte, which
is the spin off from Bridgeton, Like I feel like
I remember at point they announced that this spin off
was coming, but then it kind of snuck up on me,
(03:04):
and you were in my text messages like girl, have
you seen Queen Charlotte? And I didn't even know that
it was out yet. But of course then spent the
rest of the weekend binging and very very satisfied and
excited that I did. So there were so many different
things to talk about, I think as a part of
Queen Charlotte. So first of all, what were your overall
(03:24):
impressions of Queen Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh, my goodness, Like, I really loved it, and I
think it's in the rewatch that I also felt a
tremendous sense of sadness like her life for me, at
least as it was displayed on the show. I know
it's fiction, so I don't nobody got to tell me.
It was just really sad, just really sad. The themes
(03:46):
that sort of came up for me were around power
and control. Of course, the mental health piece, the sexuality
piece also was coming up. There's a tremendous feeling of
sadness for not just her her, but also for Lady Danberry.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
See, that's the part I think that really spoke to
me because I feel like there are so few shows
where we really intimately see like the interior lives of women,
especially older women.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So there's of course this whole flashback piece of when
they were younger versus when they are now older, which
is where we see them in the current day Bridgerton
kind of series. But I just feel like they talked
about so many issues that we just don't ever really
hear talked about in pop culture related to older women, right,
related to like desire and they'll having very healthy sex
(04:35):
drives even in later life.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
And the.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Garden. The Garden was in bloom, So I really loved that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I just think that they did a phenomenal job really
exploring some of those areas that we just don't hear
talked about a lot. So you said the theme that
kind of came up for you most was sadness related
to kind of how Charlotte's life unfolded. Tell me why
sadness felt predominant for you.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Sadness was predominant because from the very beginning, her choice
was stripped away. We see her anger, you know, she
pushes the statue off the stand because she realizes that
she's just been like, oh, so you're just gonna you're
just gonna put me over there, You're not even gonna
talk to me about it. But then a tremendous amount
of loneliness ensued, right right when she felt like, oh, okay,
(05:21):
maybe I will be with this guy instead of going
over the garden wall. Look, if you haven't watched it,
I'm all spoiled. So he might want to listen to
this later. But the piece around, just like she thinks
that she's found this connection and then this person withdraws
from her, and how sad. Everything sort of just was
(05:43):
after that, with moments of happiness with him right like
she's learning him but also learning what it takes to
actually be with him. And then that piece that she
talked about, like having to set oneself apart so she
can't go to where she wants to go, She can't
do the thing that she wants to do, and doing
those things would also require her to mostly do them
(06:06):
by herself, because she has to be regal and queenly
and cannot be seen to just be hanging out with
everybody else, less the monarchy, feel less mono.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So it was interesting in the watching because you're kind
of trying to balance like both of these timelines, right like.
Of course, there are some contemporary pieces of it, even
set in whatever year this was, But I did think
it was interesting because we know most arranged marriages like this,
right Like, it seemed like there was not a lot
of time for people to get to know one another
(06:42):
before they actually became married. And so they had this
cute little moment at the wall where she keeps asking,
tell me about the king, tell me about the king,
and people are just like, oh, he's a glorious king
and da dada, and so she's like.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Oh, yeah, this must be awful.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I'm getting out of here, right, And so she tries
to scale this wall in this like huge dress, and
he is out there and finds her, and she finds
out that that's the king, and so of course it
seems like they have this pretty powerful connection, and she
decides at that moment that she's not going to run away.
She's going to instead before with marrying him, thinking that
you know, this little moment of connection they've had will
(07:17):
be enough, I think, to grow into something deeper and stronger,
and then of course we see that night then he
completely changes.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Right and withdraws.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I thought it was interesting the way they set it
up because I feel like we saw at least two
maybe three episodes really from her vantage point, right, So
we're kind of experiencing the show and going through the
wedding in their first couple of years of marriage really
from her vantage point, and only in like I think,
episode three do we see like what's really been going on.
But I feel like some of those seeds have been planned.
(07:48):
When she asked, why are they coming all the way
here to find me as a queen?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So so what is it about? Yeah, they know nothing
about me, Like why am I the one who's being
asked to marry the king? So?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
What were your thoughts there?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Once we kind of finally found the plot twist, so
to speak, around the secret that the king's mom had
been hiding.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Honestly, it sort of brought up ideas around consent just
in general, and I realized that, you know, like back then,
obviously historically women were not even considered people.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
They were considered property.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But because Shondaland is adding in this additional storyline around
race relations. At that time, all of it is hitting
a lot differently because she's looking very much like property.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Her brother basically sold her off to be with this family,
and it's like he used his power to make her marry,
but they used their power to make him want to
make her marry. Right, It's not really consent because of
the way power is at play. Right, So you got
the might of the British Kingdom, this big monarchy, going
(09:00):
to this smaller area in Germany and saying.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Like, all right, we looking for all bride. What's up?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Right, And that they chose her purposely because they felt
that she would be grateful and thus wouldn't look into things,
except that she showed us in episode one that she
is also.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
A critical thinker.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Her critical thinking questions were like, well, are you even
considering why they would come all the way here to
find a bride. It's not to say that her brother
wasn't critically thinking, because he was, because he was just like, look,
I'm thinking about how we can solidify ourselves and keep
some of these wolves at bay, right, the ones that
are surrounding us already, Because we are what we are.
(09:40):
And at the same time, while they're helping us to
keep this at bay, we also get to establish this
stronger alliance and we get to have some of the
benefits of being part of this thing. And on top
of that, I can't disagree. I can't say no because
this is the might of the British Empire.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
We don't want none, we don't have what we need.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
To fight that, right. So it's like that's his critical thinking.
Her critical thinking is you're not thinking about why they
came all the way over here? What secrets are they
keeping that they will come all the way over here
when they got plenty of those people over there.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
And you know they don't like black people like that,
Like what's up with you?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So it's the battle of the critical thinking in that way,
and just like how are we going to establish what
are we doing versus what do we have to do?
But overall just this lack of consent, right, like no
one can consent, and the secrets that are being kept,
they're shielded in power, Like I'm not going to tell
(10:40):
you the fool full because I don't have to, and
because I really need this thing to go through and
I need you to produce babies, right, Like you have
good hips, you make good babies. And just like this constant,
the constant use of power to shield secrets and to
(11:00):
make sure that nobody ever has any level of informed
consent about what it is that they're doing.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
But you're getting consent.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, And you know it's interesting because I feel like
the power even for the king, right, Like it feels
like in some ways he was trapped by this idea
of like obligation and you know, expectation of like what
this title means and feels like in moments, wanting to
share the full story about everything going on with his
health is mental health, but also not really wanting to
be king, right, but being born into this title and
(11:31):
like understanding that this.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, he wants to just be a former, but.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Being born into this title, and like this is the expectation,
Like there is not an option to not kind of
fulfill this duty. So we know that like the secret
that they're keeping is around his mental health. That he
clearly has the mental health concerns. It seems like there
are some breaks in reality, but it also seemed like
some anxiety stuff. So we'll get it to that in
a second. Like, Okay, what do we think was actually
(11:56):
going on? But they also refer to this like great experiment,
and I don't know that I ever got an understanding
of what was happening. So was it that they were
trying to find a bride for him and you know,
wanting somebody who would not ask a lot of questions,
like you said, would be grateful to just kind of
be the new queen, And so they couched it as this, Oh,
(12:18):
we're trying to bring the racist together, and that's why
he's marrying somebody who is not a white person, Like,
what did.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
You make of the great experiment?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I think it was because she was too brown, which
is funny because she's also very light mm like colorism
speaking right, like relative to white people and relative to
those white people. They were like, oh, she's very brown,
and it was just like emphasized right like, ooh, she's
very brown, and that's a problem, especially a problem for Parliament.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
So they wanted to make it look like it was
on purpose that she was brown.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
So it's like, no, we're gonna actually be trying to
bring together the racist.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So that was a decision they made kind of on
the spot once they saw her and realized, got it, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
This decision that like, particularly the dowager princess, that part
was the first show of how much she sort of
is ruling in my eyes right, like she's ruling in
the name of her son by saying what she wants,
but saying that her son wants it, and no one
is going to question that because she's the mom being
(13:23):
able to say, like, well, the King wants her to
make this look like it's on purpose, so we are
going to extend the invitation to all these brown people,
to all these black folks. Six hours before the wedding,
She's just like, who don't want to come to a
royal wedding?
Speaker 5 (13:41):
Baby?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
They're not about to say no? I mean, and for real,
they didn't they came. I think it would have been
it would have certainly said something if none of them came, like, dang,
y'all look crazy out here. But of course these people
are gonna come, right, they came, and then all of
a sudden it's ah, lady and Lord, like what.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
We had no titles? Like what you're talking about?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Man?
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
And then I think at the wedding is when we
see this first which I think is like, probably my
favorite relationship on this show between Lady dan Berry and
the Queen and Queen Charlotte, because we see the sisterhood.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Was all all in effect. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
But we see that Lady dan Berry spots the Queen
upstairs and she's like, ah, this is why we're here,
right so now, so now the y'all have brought in
all these black folks to try to make this scene
as if we're all one big, happy family, where we
know that that is not the case. I love that
Lady dan Barry becomes a part of her court and
really becomes like her, only in some ways ally in
(14:44):
all of this, like, oh my gosh, what have I
gotten myself into?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
So we see even.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
The night of the wedding, Yeah, she goes to her
and says, you know, be careful. You know, if you
call for me, I will come right. So she's already
letting her know, like girl, I got you, And of
course the Queen doesn't know anything right. But later on
when she finds herself alone and is like, okay, I
need somebody, we see that she talks to Brimley and says,
if I wanted to be discreet, what I call Lady
(15:10):
dan Barry, and that is really the beginning of their
budding friendship.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And friendship and the loosest term, right because where power
is present, especially the type of power where you can't
be really open and honest, is it really friendship, right, right,
Like when one person is wielding a considerable more amount
of power than somebody else. Queen Charlotte was able to
(15:34):
sort of help establish Lady Danberry right, like to say,
like your line of succession that will continue, right, that
you can keep the house.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
That you can do these things.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
She was able to help her with those things out
of yes, there's a friendship or camaraderie. And at the
same time, I'm further solidifying you as my subject, and
I still have to be held apart even from you.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Right, because we saw most of their interactions were like
at the castle. It's not like they're downtown drinking tea together, right,
Like they're still in the castle, mostly behind closed doors.
And I think you're right, like I do think it
very much was a sisterhood kind of thing for Lady
Danberry to say, like, you know, if you call for me,
I'll come. But we also see Lady Danberry playing both
sides against one another, right because once the dowager Princess
(16:23):
finds out that Lady Danberry has been to the castle,
then she is saying like, okay, well, you're kind of
my ears on the ground kind of things telling me
what I need to know about what's happening between the
king and the Queen.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Also power, because it's like she didn't have a choice
whether it's not meeting with the dowagi or princess of
all people. And at the same time, just like the
way that she plays it, right like, well, I need
things and if I am going to be in a
position to be used like that was established with the
(16:57):
invitations that went out to come to the royal wedding,
they were all already being used in that moment. Well,
how can I get as much in trade for being
used in this way as possible? How can I secure
what I need from my family? How can I make
sure that my husband can stop feeling excluded despite the
fact that he is now Lord dan Barry, right, like
(17:19):
he's the Lord and you still treating him the way
that you've been treating him before. And I got to
do what I got to do for me because every
time this man feel rejected, he will come homp on
me and I'll want hump with him. So just like
even just establishing that piece, like she's trying to play
(17:40):
all these very different things she needs to do for herself,
which I actually find to be quite refreshing. I feel
like oftentimes when number one women in a lot of
TV shows are very one note, very very two dimensional,
they're not full thought out people. So these are full
thought out people, which I can really appreciate. But there's
(18:02):
also that piece around, like a good woman, a real
woman is a person who does for others but doesn't
think of themselves. And I like that she wasn't doing
all this stuff out of a sense of selflessness. Only right,
it's not only about how she can help her friend
or a person that she's establishing a friendship with. It's
also about how she can help herself. I feel like
(18:24):
it was a beautiful example of you got to fill
up your cup before you're even able to really help
and establish anything with others. But we also saw that
the second that they said that no, we friends' friends,
how things sort of teetered in this other direction because
it's like, well, damn, I can't give the dowager Princess anything,
because I told this woman now that I'm her friend
(18:47):
and that we've established this as a friendship, and I
want to make sure I'm keeping my side of this
and that means holding her confidence more from my conversation
after the break, So let us go back to the
(19:09):
whole conversation and the major plot I think of the
show related to King George's mental health. So you know,
we see again in episode three, I believe, is where
we realize from his advantage point, like some anxiety or
whatever was happening even on his wedding day and he
gets slapped to try to kind of come back to
his senses quote unquote, So we really see like them
(19:30):
establishing this theme of something's going on with his mental
health that they don't want people to know. So what
do you feel like was actually going on, at least
in the ways that it was portrayed in this show.
It looked to me that he had extreme anxiety, which
would make sense, and it would also like no teno
shade olivi inade because I know that parents never want
to hear this, but.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
It seemed like his mama gave it to one.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It seemed why she helped to establish this thing, that
little monologue that he gave, Well, if my maps are correct,
then that's the downfall of the monarchy. If I don't
need my peace, downfall of the monarchy, Like everything that
he does, everywhere that he behaves, would lead to the
ruin and the downfall of the monarchy. And that's an
incredible amount of pressure to put on anybody, let alone
(20:14):
to establish with a child, right that if he is
not perfect, that he is not worthy of the station
that he holds, and that he will cause the ruin
of everything for everyone because.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Of his lack of perfection.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That's a lot of pressure to put on one person,
just period, and certainly a lot of pressure to put
on a child. For me, what I feel like I
saw was every single time he had an episode, it
was preceded by a highly stressful event, like every single time.
I mean, like the first one that we saw that
(20:51):
we didn't know that we were seeing was when he
went out to the garden to go retrieve Charlotte, and
it's like, well, my wife is running away, and so
am I stressful.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
He got the back hand for.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That after the conversation with his mom when she came
to the council to make sure that they had participated
in the marital act. Yeah, and that was when we
first saw him call for the doctor, right. And so
again that was the first one I think where we
knew something was going on, Like you mentioned the situation
in the garden. You know, we didn't know because we
hadn't seen his vantage point at that point.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Word and mom showing up at the house, right, and
how he was holding it together until she left, right,
and then he just sort of, yeah, call the doctor.
Like the way he was trying to hold himself so
rigidly and was able to release, and in that release
the built up and held back I would say, chemical
(21:42):
reactions that are going on in the body. Then he's
trying to hold onto with two fists. He was able
to sort of let it ride itself out. I think
the next one that we saw after he fired the doctor,
he's like, nah, I'm good, I'm with y'a altte now
I feel fine. But then it was oh, she's pregnant.
And that was the one that woke him up in
(22:03):
the middle of the night where she actually got to
see like, oh, y'all been keeping.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Things from me.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
This is what's wrong with this man, And y'all stole
my choice. I mean not that she, I mean she
didn't really technically have a choice, but stole it's still
a stolen choice.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Man.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
She didn't have all the story.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, and then it was when he was going to
address Parliament and then again when they invited Parliament to
the house that these were some of the major things.
And then I know that it's I think it's established
maybe in Bridgerton the main series, but he never recovered
after one of his children died. He was just off
(22:42):
and down in that spiral from that. So it's like
we can see the things that sort of put him
in this position. And while his mom said I want
his happiness, no she didn't. The only person who showed
that they wanted his happiness was Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Right, Which is interesting, right because she has now been
brought into this you know, like you said, didn't have
much of a choice regardless, but even further taking away
any kind of perceived choice that she had because she
was led into this marriage without getting the full story,
which is just sad.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Everybody had their hand in making her choices, and she
had very little advantage in being able to make any
for herself. She wasn't fully informed to be able to
make a choice, Like no one would even tell her
about this man that she was going to marry or
that she was supposed to marry.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
So she chose, well, I'm about to go over the wall.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
But then she meets him and it's like, oh, it's
a cute meat, right, cute me cute, But he doesn't say, hey,
I have mental health problems right, or I might be
slipping into madness. So whatever language you would have used
to just sort of describe it, he didn't say it.
So she is going off what she's seeing in that
moment and using that to make her choice. And then
(24:01):
it's like, y'all lied to me, y'all been keeping secrets
from me, and I'm supposed to just live with it.
I'm just supposed to be okay with it. I'm just
supposed to figure out how to manage with it and
sort of being put in a precarious situation, and the
whole theme is just be grateful, right. Her brother said
it to her, like you think your life is going
(24:22):
to be so hard as being a queen? Like get
over yourself, right, Like they are worth fates. And then
it's she's hearing be grateful again from his mom, be grateful,
and then he further takes her choice away. He doesn't
tell her why he's doing what he's doing. And it's
just like, and while it sounds noble, right, like I
want to keep her safe from me, So I'm going
(24:44):
to put her over there and I'm going to stay
in cue and we'll come together when we need to
come together. But other than that, I'm going to keep
myself separate. I'm just like, why are you taking her choices?
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And people don't like to hitus, but to me, it
sounds very much like this idea of part and provision, Like, Oh,
a person's job is to protect and to provide, and
I'm just like that protection in that providing often renders
the other person without enough information to make a choice
for themselves about how they would like to be protected,
(25:16):
about how they would like to be provided for. Everybody
is taking away the choice, but everybody feels like they
are more qualified than she to be able to name
the way that she will be provided for and protected,
and not seeing what their provision and their protection is
(25:37):
actually doing to her because the person that saw it
most closely was Brimsley, and he was beside himself trying
to figure out what to do, which I would say
feels above his pay grade, but he was doing it nonetheless, right,
like you're the King's man, help help me, help me?
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Like what are you doing? You got me live for you.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
The least you can do is help me, man, right,
And like, yo, she don't want to be here?
Speaker 5 (26:04):
What do I do?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And just not getting any help, just trying to manage
this and trying to maintain a certain level of secrecy
because all of it was just so sad because they're
watching her drown in her own depression and her own
loneliness and no one will save her.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
She's strong enough.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Sounds very much like what we already tell black people.
You're strong enough, you got this, you can do this.
It's not as bad as it could be, right, Like,
isn't that what we are constantly taught to tell ourselves,
as well as what other people tell us, like what
you're complaining for, it could be worse. And I'm just like, wow,
the establishment of whether or not your life is good
(26:44):
for you, it's based on how bad other people's lives
are for them.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
So I did think it brought up an interesting point
around like when might you have some of these discussions
in a relationship?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And I feel like we talk about this sometimes with
you know, like STIs and like when do you just
close this to a partner? But if you are somebody
struggling with mental health concerns, like when would you tell
a partner or a potential partner about what's been happening
definitely before the wedding, then I feel like we can
agree on at.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Least a little bit before the wedding, right, like give
somebody before the proposal. Even I feel like that's a
really good question because I know that personally for me,
I've been dealing with my own mental health stuff right,
A lot of anxiety. I had this beautiful cycle from
anxiety to depression and back again. Mostly I live in
(27:35):
the space of anxiety. I don't really live in the
depression part, but the anxiety.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Whoo Ever, since a.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Panic attack on a plane, it's been out of control
and I'm just like, you know what, I don't think
I knew that I had anxiety before my husband and
I got together. I thought that this is just how
people lived, like, oh, this is regular, And I think
that a lot of people think that their mental health stuff, Oh,
that's just regular, it's normal to feel anxious. Oh, I'm
(28:02):
just an anxious person, right, that's the sort of thing
that people say, I'm just an anxious person.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
I'm like, nah, shawdy, you're not.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
You're not.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
The world around you helps to cultivate the anxiety that
you're consistently living with because of the way that it
treats black people and black women particularly, So I'm like, no,
you're not an anxious person. You will probably be quite
relaxed if you weren't here, if you weren't dealing with
these things in the way that we're dealing with these things,
you would probably find that you are not actually an
(28:33):
anxious person, but that you have been put into a
fraud situation that the only natural reaction is to be anxious.
I would say for me, thinking about it in terms
of like, well, when do you tell a partner, I
think that when you're going into a space where you're
establishing that you're not just y'are not just talking but
(28:54):
and you're not even just dating, but that you're moving
into what you think is going to be a relationship.
When you're establishing the best of what that is going
to be. When you're having those discussions, that is also
a time to say, like, hey, before we make this
decision about whether or not we're going to be together
and ultimately what our goal in being together is, you
should also know that I deal with a great amount
(29:16):
of anxiety, that I also deal with a great amount
of depression. This, for me, is the informed consent that
was missing throughout the series, right, because when a person
is uninformed, you've stolen their choices. You have no idea
if they're going to say yes or no. But certainly
if a person is informed beforehand, they can also make
(29:36):
sure that they have additional provisions to meet the need that.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
You are going to have.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
So for me, having this conversation with my husband, you know,
like after the fact, at this point, he's already made
the vow of through sickness and in health. Right, So,
and this is I guess the less than healthy part
the conversations even have been about. Now that we're in
this relationship and this has up here is how I
like to deal with my anxiety when my anxiety comes up.
(30:04):
This is what I like to do, what feels good,
right or saying for you to also do while maintaining
your mental health. Because my mental health is my responsibility,
I don't make it my partner's responsibility. And I think
that sometimes we selfishly try to believe that because we
are partner, that is their job and it's not. Your
(30:25):
mental health is your job. Just like your orgasms are
your responsibility, so is your mental health. So for me,
it has been establishing that I have to be doing
something for my mental health and that my husband, while
I would prefer for him to help care for me,
he doesn't have to. But he is a part of
the group of people that do. So the entire burden,
(30:48):
as it were, of my mental health is not placed
just on him. It is dispersed among many people that
I consider to be both friend and family alike. Right,
So I call my mom, but every now and then
to be like, hey, goodie, it's eleven in the nighttime.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
My anxiety does spiked up?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
You up? I usually said, I emoji's like you are,
but just knowing that I have to have a plan
that includes him, but doesn't require that he be the
only thing that is helping to keep my mental health together,
because I don't think that's fair either, And I think
(31:29):
in this really it's Charlotte M.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, yeah, because I think you know, when most people
worry about like disclosing something like this or sharing with
a partner, the concern is like, oh, they're gonna leave me, right,
like they are not going to know how to support
me or whatever, when really it's an invitation, like you said,
to kind of think about like, okay, what feels good
for you, like what feels okay to support me? And
(31:54):
like what does my care look like? In addition to
not making it one person's responsibility, right, like a whole
care team, a whole group of people who can support
you in your mental health, which I think again was
definitely missing from this conversation. But we did see like
Brimsley was the Queen's man, what was.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
King George's person?
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Reynolds Reynolds, what's that making up names now?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
And I'm here, but you know, so his man. It
did very much feel like he was a part of
the care team for the king, right, like even into
misguided ways. Right. Of course, he was also very very
heavily involved in like keeping this from the Queen and
all of those things, but it did seem like he
ultimately did care for King George, so it did feel
like he had a little bit of an informal care
(32:37):
squad that just didn't include the Queen until it was really,
in some ways too late, because she found out like
while he was in the garden, and she's thinking like,
oh my gosh, like what is happening.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Here because he had like his doctor, he had his mom,
and he had his man. Right, so it's like these
three people, but they're also bound to be trying to
keep the secret of his mental health, which means that
he's not necessarily getting everything that he needs because they're
worried about trying to keep the secret. I think that
(33:07):
sometimes we have to choose what it is that we're doing,
because where our attention goes, our energy flows. And if
the attention is really on keeping the secret, then you're
not doing the best job you could be doing and
making sure that the person is getting the care that
they're needing because you're so busy trying to keep a secret.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
So I'm just like they're trying to keep.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
The secret and not realizing what other resources they may
have already had at their disposal as a result, Like
Charlotte finding out about it was probably the best thing
for this man's mental health, because she's just like, all right.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Cool, what can we do?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
And Brimsley is like, all right, we're gonna increase the wall.
Here we go clear a path that he can go
out to the garden and speak to his venus.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Right, he can go out and he can do that.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And even the way that she gets under the bed
with him, establishing that like, hey, when it all becomes
too much, let's ground here. You can ground here with me.
And ultimately what it also and this is part of
the sadness that because everyone is so involved with the king,
(34:17):
the people that end up being involved with the king,
including her, she's not involved with her children. She is
a great queen, she's not a great mother, and that
is hard for her to reconcile.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Right, And we don't find that out until you know,
all of this is falling apart, and then the children
are like, we don't even feel like you don't really
know you. Yeah, yeah, you know us.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
We don't know you. You are asking us to make babies,
but you don't even know that we have been trying.
You don't know what we have gone through because you
have been so preoccupied in this area that you don't
know us, you've not established anything with us. And it's
(34:57):
the dichotomy of like sorrows prayers, right, because that is
like the breakout line of his dang on things, sorrows prayers.
I wonder how many people missed that the first time
it was said was when she was young, well, not
the first time, but that you know, well in her life.
The first time it was said was when she was
young to Lady Danbury, and that it felt so warm
(35:20):
and so sincere sorrows and prayers, and that it was
a connection moment for the two of them, and it
was the thing that preceded them saying that, hey, we're
friends now and in a friendship, this is how we
will be, like establishing what a friendship will look like
for them. That what preceded it with sorrows and prayers. Meanwhile,
(35:40):
we heard the way that she said it.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
To her son, right, sorrows, sorrows prayers, right, very prefunctorily,
and then frustrated, like sorrows prayers, we need babies.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
More from our conversation after the break And I think
it's interesting, you know, the dichotomy of who we see
Queen Charlotte as in the Bridgington series, right, because we
(36:16):
don't know a lot about her private life at all,
Like we know that the king exists and he's kind
of kept away in this room and something's going on.
I don't remember hearing anything about kids in the Bridgington series,
and then we move over to Queen Charlotte and they're
fifteen of them, or at some point they were fifteen, right,
So I'm like, oh my godness, we don't hear anything
(36:37):
about all these kids in Bridgington. So you know, we
do see, of course, in the spin off, we see
a fuller sense of her life. But you know, the
thing that I think, and we talked about this in
texts before the podcast, we also saw, in connection to
his mental health, the very old school, barbaric ways that
mental health was treated during that time, right, And so
(36:59):
we're talking now with a twenty twenty three sensibility around
like a care squad and like all of this stuff.
But they were kind of doing some of this at
that time and didn't call it that. But what we
did see was them attempting to treat his mental health
with stuff like ice baths and leeches and all of
these things.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
So so I do want to hear it.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
I was like, I don't know what that part does.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Some of that stuff I had never heard of, But
I do want to hear your thoughts around just, you know,
kind of like the ways that in some ways, I
think psychiatric care is in some ways still reminiscent of
some of this, right, but I definitely feel like we
have moved quite a ways from like using leeches and
ice baths to try to treat mental health. So what
were your thoughts around that?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
That part for me was kind of scary to see
because they definitely thought that they were at the forefront
of mental health. And I'm just like, are we going
to look back and see ourselves and be like wow,
and someone's gonna be like that's barbaric And I'm just like, ooh.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Is it? I don't know that.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
I mean, because right now we're at the forefront of all.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
The things, right, Like people are talking about EMDR, we're
still using CBT, we have a little EFT that's emotional
freedom tapping as well as emotional emotional therapy, right so
it's like we've got all these other ways that we're
sort of helping people move through whatever they've experienced and
being able to establish a different level of mental health
(38:27):
for themselves and sort of coming up with this care piece,
and some of it for me still feels rather individualistic.
So when I think about the barbarianism of it, right,
when I try to step back, just like, well, we're
still in a way trying to tell people you're an
individual doing this thing, and be an individual doing this thing.
On the one end, I think that through what you
(38:49):
have done with Therapy for Black Girls and your upcoming book,
which I'm really excited about, I think that that piece
around the Sisterhood re establishes that community is important in
a way that the American individualistic ideals will not fit
with the real mental health and not even just mental health,
but whole person well being that we're looking for is
(39:11):
established actually in community and not in silos.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
But their stuff is like they have a community, but
when you are the monarch, you don't have a community,
especially not a community of equals. Quite frankly, you have
yes men. And I feel like we see that same
issue now, right, Celebrities are often held apart, and in
being held apart, their mental health becomes fodder for others. Right,
(39:39):
you have us in the general population who don't know
these people, and so many of us are so loud
in the way that we comment on other people's lives
as though we are owed something from them. I'm thinking
specifically of how left the conversation went with Gabrielle Union
and what was like point zero two whatever percent of
(40:04):
a conversation where she mentioned.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
Fifty to fifty, but it wasn't about.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Being fifty to fifty, right, how it went to you're
a pick me and your husband is trash because he
don't even want to care for you.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
It gets me thinking about the mental health of Robin Williams.
I think about the mental health of like the things
that we've seen, like with Drake.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
I'm late.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
You don't have to tell me how late I am.
I know, but someone recently had me listen to his
song Marvin's Room, and I did a deep dive analysis
when I got on the phone with this person about
what I heard, what I didn't hear, and what it
all means. And I'm just like I'm thinking about celebrities
are in a sense held apart. They're held apart and above,
(40:46):
and particularly black celebrities right because now they become a
representation for all Black people and what they're allowed and
not allowed to do, the ways they're allowed and not
allowed to behave, the things they are allowed and not
allow out to say before we say that they're a sellout,
before we say that there's something wrong with them, before
we decide that we want to discard them, especially black women.
(41:08):
While other people are given a certain level of grace,
black women are not often yielded that same amount of grace.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Meg vs. Stallion was a.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Victim of violence, and people were talking trash about her
because they felt like they were losing out on this
other person who perpetraates violence against black women, right, or
even how we talked about Cosby and almost like we
were trying to establish that it should be okay for
him to do the same things that other people were doing,
(41:37):
or even r Kelly, that it should be okay for
him to do things, and we're gonna blame these people
instead of those people. And this piece around being held
apart and not having necessarily the same access. I think
they have financial access to mental health, but I don't
think they have the access of anonymity around mental health
(41:57):
the same way that everyday people are allowed to sort
of have it and I think that same thing with
King George, right, but there's a power dynamic. There's the money,
but there's also the fact that he is the monarch.
So even when he gave up power to this mental
health practitioner, loosely strongly for them, very secure, but loosely. Now,
(42:21):
Like I remember that scene where he was shaving his
face and King George Justice, he just holds his hand
and it's just like, I'm gonna finish this and you're fired, right,
because he still has the power to be able to
do that. But if he was in the asylum, the
one that they called Bedlam, would he have had the
power to be able to say.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
I'm done and I'm gonna leave now.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, you know, I had heard about leeches like being used,
but some of whatever he was doing, I think he
even used words like submission and like you have to
kind of like turn over this kind of.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Thing to me that he didn't break him first.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, so it very much felt like an ego trip
kind of thing for the doctor. And you know, like
I feel like, for what they knew at the time,
they were probably practicing the things that they thought were
helpful for people's mental health. But I feel like even
with that, he was crossing some lines because it felt
like it very much became around like okay, you have
to submit your power to me and like let me
(43:14):
break you kind of thing like that scene with the shaving.
So then it made me think like, well, what's really
going on here? Like what's the dream of planning we're
working on here?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
This porridge that they wouldn't even serve to know, like
you need you're gonna wait these pull clothes, I'll make
all your choices for you. And it's basically like the
mental health practitioner in that case becomes then is he
not the monarch? Then I'm like, if you have power
over the king, then that means for me you also
(43:45):
you ultimately in some ways almost have ultimate power. And
it seemed like it got worse when anybody tried to
subvert that power, right, like when the king's man comes
in and it's like what are you doing? Because like
get him out? Damn now you now you remember that
you don't have power here. Even though your job is
to secure this man. You don't have power here that
(44:07):
I mean, the king is screaming and all that other stuff,
but he's also not saying stop, right, and how much
of that is he can't say stop versus he doesn't
want to say stop because he's believing that he is
going to make himself safe as it were to be
with Charlotte, Because I mean, I don't know if you
caught the part where they talked about locking up the
(44:28):
shears and dulling the knives and all the stuff that
they did to sort of establish a safer space for
this man to be in because of what his mental
health and the way that it presented itself. And while
we didn't see him become violent, doesn't mean that he
was incapable of such. But that's because I also have
a different view of certain people in I feel like
(44:51):
people in power have a different proclivity level to violence.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
But that's my thoughts. You don't have someone here well.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
I also feel like it is probably what was characteristic
of mental health at the time, right, not that it
is something that everybody experiences to different levels and like,
you know, what does it present, but that there would
ultimately be violence because that is what it means to
be not well psychologically.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
So I think that that it was a part of
it too.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
But even then they still didn't want to even say
that right. They were forgot what they said, but they
were just like, are you trying to say that he's mad,
because that's treason.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
M m.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
So they were trying to say that it's his nerves, right,
They were trying to establish it as a bodily thing,
not a mental thing, because a mental thing means that
he is unfit to rule. And it sort of makes
me think specifically of like, even now, how much has
actually changed in mental health? Right, and not even just
mental health, but mental as well as physical health. Anybody
(45:45):
who is deemed a person with a disability is still
hidden in our culture. You can't even establish residency in
another country if you wanted to leave, because if you're
considered to be disabled here, you are not going to
be an accepted expat elsewhere. And I don't know how
many people are aware of that. I didn't become aware
of it until a friend told me about it, right,
(46:07):
and I was just like, oh, that's ridiculous, it's messed up.
But these other countries, they want the best, and people
with any level of mental illness are not considered the best,
are not considered people who should quite frankly, should be
allowed to live because I mean this country has a
eugenics history that includes getting rid of people that they
(46:28):
thought to be dumb or inherently criminal, etc.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Etc.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
And yes, it included black people and a lot of
other people of color, but it definitely included disabled people
who we still to this day believes should not be
allowed to pro create, who we still to this day
make decisions for about what they are and are not
allowed to learn because we want to protect and provide,
so we withhold information the same way that we do
(46:52):
for children. We withhold information under the guise of protecting
and providing while not also establishing, or while not also naming,
that we also have power over these people that we
say that we're protecting and providing for. We don't want
to put people in the position to be able to
make choices for themselves. And I think that in some
ways George didn't make the choice to go through this
(47:14):
particular treatment right because he was like, and I know
that there's always something extra that is held back from
the general populace that it reaches them years after you
have done the establishing work.
Speaker 5 (47:25):
I know that you have this stuff.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
I want it for me because I want to be okay,
Because I feel like meeting Charlotte for him was like, Yo,
she's fine, fine, and she's smart, and she unconventional, and
she got to be safe if she's gonna be with me,
and I can't provide and protect specifically physically, mentally emotionally
if I'm not well, which sounds to me again like
(47:49):
fill up your cup, please put on your mask before
helping others.
Speaker 5 (47:57):
Still not doing that.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
So there's so much more to talk about, and I
know we probably didn't even get to none of even
half of all of your notes, but we do need
to need to wrap up so that weekend, you know,
let the folks have a nice tight episode. So we
are not sure if we're getting a season two of
Queen Charlotte, but if we were, what would.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
You like to see in a season two?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Ooh, I would probably fast forward many years, and I
would like to see the dichotomy of relationship between she
and George and she and her children. I think I
would be interested in that as well as more Lady
dan Barry, because I really like that, particularly the establishment
(48:39):
of her learning about herself and what she likes instead
of inhaling the breath that her late husband exhaled. Right
since she was promised to him since she was story,
which means that she probably never learned about herself. She
always learned about this other person. So I would love
to see a little bit more of that, and if
they were to do more flashing back, I would like
(48:59):
to see if Lady Danberry and Violet they ever have
a flat out, asked, flat out about the garden, if
they're ever gonna ask like, hey, did my daddy tends
you to your garden?
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Because I really wanted.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I definitely feel like it was implied when we saw
her have the birthday crown, but you're right, they did
not have a frank conversation like, Okay, where's your daddy
in the garden?
Speaker 5 (49:26):
Was my daddy playing your warden? I want to know,
like I need to know, But I think I.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Think that's a little bit about what I would like
to see if they did decide to do a season two,
particularly because of that piece around you were a good queen,
you weren't a good mother, like you weren't a present mother.
And it got me thinking about a conversation that Lady
Danberry and Violet, Lady Violet whatever had when they were
(49:57):
at like the opera or whatever, like she's got to
be lonely, and how they were both establishing that our
husbands have died and we have been able to mourn,
heal and move on. Her husband is here and then
he is not here, so being in a constant cycle
of mourning, right, it made me think of a doctor
(50:18):
Jetta's book, The Gift of Grief, and just like Violet
loved her husband and so she has the gift of
grief and that her grieving him also reminds her of
how much she also loved him, whereas with Lady Danberry
it's about spite, and then for Queen Charlotte, it's more
like he's not even dead, but I constantly am anxious
(50:41):
about him dying. Is the King dead? It's constantly the question, right,
And then there's a sense of relief, it seems, but
not quite because I imagine that it begins to build right
back up the second that the pressure valve is off.
What would you want to see in season two?
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I would love to see you a Lady Danberry spin off,
like a separate thing all for her, because you're right,
I think there's so much about when this late husband passes,
like what did her life become like I don't think
she ever remarries, but we see that she has this
relationship with Violet's dad, so I would love to see that.
But I agree, I would also like to see the
relationship with Charlotte and her children, because again in Bridgeston,
(51:20):
we don't even really hear anything about children, so like,
what was that like for her to kind of be
raising that many children?
Speaker 3 (51:26):
But also, like.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Ruling, I also don't know that we know when she
officially kind of became the ruler because she clearly is officiating.
So at what point was like a conversation had about
Georgia's health where the power then transferred to her?
Speaker 3 (51:42):
So I like to see that, even.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Her to her eldest son, who was still that in
his mom role basically not proxy, right right, yeah, So
what was that process?
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Like, at what point did people you know, like recognize
her as the monarch as opposed to like any of
the men in her life.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
I wouldn't be interested.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Because I mean, of course, now I'm also doing like
a separate like comparison with like Hamilton, I'm looking like
man King George. I'm like I'm finally making history collections
that I feel like we're not properly established. When I
was in elementary school when they was talking about some
of this stuff, I'm it's much more interesting now, say
things come on, teachers, pull from the fake and give
(52:20):
more color to the history as it were. I think
that Lady dan Barry would be very interesting, especially her
very early years, since she was promising she was three
and she was already a part of a royal line
and what they said Sierra Leone right, yeah, So I'm
just like, oh, there's a lot there.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
I feel like Shanna was playing seeds too. If any
of these storylines get picked up, she would have something
to build on.
Speaker 5 (52:48):
If you're listening.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
If you're listening, please call upon especially doctor Joy because
she got this.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
So remind the people where they can find you across
the socials as well as your website.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
You can find me at doctor Donna Orio well on TikTok,
on Instagram and on Facebook at a nod right is
my practice, so you can find that also on Instagram
a n n O d r i ght, and of
course just come to Donna oioo dot com. It will
lead you anywhere that you're trying to go, and I
hope that you will also take the time to not
(53:28):
only come learn about me, but also just hang out
with me. I offer in my Black Feelings every Tuesday
because again I believe that mental health is in community,
and I have an upcoming retreat, So come to Mexico
and hang out with me in October.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
Love it well. Thank you again, Doctor orio Will. We
should include all of that in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
I'm so glad Doctor orio Will was able to join
me again this week. To learn more about her work,
or to check out her past appearances here on the podcast,
visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com
slash Session three ten, and be sure to text two
of your girls and tell them to check out the
episode right now. If you're looking for a therapist in
your area, check out our therapist directory at Therapy for
(54:17):
Blackgirls dot com slash directory. And if you want to
continue digging into this topic or just be in community
with other sisters, come on over and join us in
the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet
designed just for black women. You can join us at
community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode was
produced by Frieda. Lucas and Elise Ellis and editing was
(54:39):
done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all so much for
joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing
this conversation with you all real soon.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Take good care, what's
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