Anti-Hero Healing: What Shadow Work Looks Like When You’re Black, Queer, and Tired of Being “Good”

During Pride Month, we are called to remember the blood spilled for liberation, the voices raised against hatred, and the bricks thrown to dismantle systemic oppression. Pride is not just a party. It is protest, memory, and reclamation. And in that reclamation, we must also interrogate the lie of being “good.”

Being “good” doesn’t get you remembered and it won’t necessarily get you respected. More often, it gets you trampled, erased, and exhausted. For Black queer folks especially, being good has often meant assimilation: squeezing into molds that were never made for us, hoping that respectability might buy safety in a world that still criminalizes our existence, commits hate crimes, and justifies sexual violence. But if protecting your boundaries, speaking your truth, and reclaiming your body makes you a villain in someone else’s story… Maybe that’s not so bad.

At the heart of Black queerness, intersectionality reminds us that the ways our identities overlap can either empower us or contribute to our oppression. Our identity is made up of all our parts and pieces, and is often interpreted by others like the cover of a book, without ever reading our chapters. Our choices, our values, our story is ours alone for us to write. As the narrator of your life, you have the autonomy to be whoever you choose to be and can reinvent yourself how many times necessary throughout your journey.

Let’s look at Elphaba, the so-called “Wicked Witch” of Oz. Her story, famously rewritten in Wicked, gives us a perfect mirror. Born green and outcast, Elphaba is mocked, misunderstood, and rejected but also fiercely powerful, principled, and protective. She doesn’t choose villainy, it is projected onto her. And in that projection, she finds liberation.

From a Jungian lens, Elphaba embodies multiple archetypes: The Orphan, The Rebel, and The Magician. The Orphan craves connection and authenticity; The Rebel breaks down oppressive structures and The Magician uses transformation to heal and reimagine. These archetypes aren’t just myths, they’re parts of us waiting to be acknowledged. Especially for queer people, reclaiming our inner villain isn’t about malice, it’s about power, protection, and self-respect. If history has taught us anything, it’s that shrinking yourself to be palatable doesn’t save you. It only ensures you disappear. Burnout and emotional fatigue are the cost of trying to live small in a world that was already too controlling.

Ask yourself, If setting boundaries makes me “bad,” does betraying myself make me “good”?

Let’s be real. Boundaries are not rejection, they’re protection. They are the sacred lines we draw to shield ourselves from harm. Think of a boundary as the space between you and a speeding bus: it’s not cruelty, it’s survival. Healing our traumas doesn’t require perfection, it requires honesty. Leaving behind the old versions of ourselves that are no longer serving our current journeys may be difficult and even at times frightening, but when we push through we are able to come out on the other side as the person we really want to be.

When we deny ourselves rest, expression, or confrontation, our bodies keep the score. Emotional responses like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn are survival mechanisms. But living in a chronic state of emergency and constantly negotiating safety, approval, and identity, leads to burnout and illness. Research even shows that prolonged stress increases the risk of chronic illness, including cancer.

The truth is, when we push our feelings down just to be accepted, we end up turning on ourselves. That inner war often shows up as shame, people-pleasing, or self-erasure. We overcompensate. We hustle. We hope our achievements will earn us the love we were denied. And yes, praise feels good. But internal validation? That’s liberation.

Bryant (2022) writes in Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole, Authentic Self: “Homecoming is a return to authentic living that is based on truth, self-acceptance, and an aligning of action with values and purpose.”

Coming home to yourself is a revival that is also deeply spiritual. It requires tuning into the shadow self, the part of you that you were told to hide and allowing it to speak.

The shadow, according to Jung (1959), is the unconscious part of our personality that contains repressed desires, weaknesses, instincts, and fears. It is not inherently bad. In fact, it holds our greatest creative and transformative potential.

For Black queer individuals, the shadow may manifest as the rage swallowed to stay “professional,” the sexuality muted to feel “safe,” or the grief left unnamed in order to keep functioning. Shadow work is the process of inviting those parts to the surface not to be fixed but to be felt, heard, and honored.

This Pride Month, when you see a rainbow, consider its full spectrum. You too are a spectrum of emotion, experience, contradiction, and power. Embracing your shadow is not about becoming someone else. It’s about becoming whole.

Instead of using lists, consider reflecting on key insights: Think about the parts of yourself that others tried to shrink and how you might offer compassion and even celebration to those very traits. Imagine your shadow self choosing a symbolic tattoo. What message would it communicate, and where would it be placed? Reflect on the versions of yourself that you exiled to survive. What wisdom did they hold, and what might they offer now? Contemplate what you would say if being liked didn’t matter and who you would say it to. Consider even the petty grudges you hold, what truth do they protect and what lies do they hide?

Survival mode is not a personal failure. It is a response to prolonged threats. A dysregulated nervous system may appear as chronic fatigue, depression or anxiety, frequent headaches or migraines, digestive issues, trouble focusing, irritability, or sleep disturbances. Recognizing these symptoms is the first step in returning to safety in your body, your relationships, and your sense of self. In the book The Body Keeps The Score, author Bessel van der Kolk states “Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.”

This world will not reward you for being good if being good means erasing yourself. Instead, try being whole. Try being honest. Try being free.

Anti-hero healing is about reclaiming the parts of you that were cast as threats and seeing them for what they really are: protectors, prophets, and powerhouses. This is the work of shadow integration. It’s not just healing, it’s also a revolution.

You do not need to be good. You need to be you.

Fully. Fiercely. Freely.