Attorney Wellness
| Citation | Vol. 27 No. 2 Pg. 0064 |
| Pages | 0064 |
| Publication year | 2021 |
Are You OK?
Wellness Committee Vice Chair Candice D. McKinely shares her personal experience with COVID-19 and how she utilized self-care resources to aid in her recovery.
BY CANDICE D. MCKINLEY.
My body was very hot and I seemed to not be able to catch my breath. My eyes kept closing and my head was pounding. I needed help. I had contracted COVID-19. In less than a week, five other family members—including my daughter and mother—all tested positive for the virus. We thought we had done everything right, but it only took one of us to spread the virus like wildfire through our family. It was late June 2020; I was terrified. I thought that this might be what takes me out. I was not OK.
My emotions were all over the place. I went through various stages of anger because I may have caused my mother to become ill and worried that she may not be able to recover because of my negligence. Then I went through periods of anxiety. At night, I thought that if I fell asleep, I might not wake up because there was so much mucus in my lungs that I couldn't breathe. Finally, I accepted the fact that I had a potentially deadly virus in my body and it was up to me to succumb to it or fight.
"I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival." —Audre Lorde
I choose to fight because that is what I have done my whole life. Fight against racism, sexism, educational inequities, workplace harassment—I could go on. As a Black woman in the United States, I am conditioned to adversity. In a strange way, I was the right patient for COVID-19.
After surviving a traumatic health crisis in 2016, I reached out to an organization called the SisterCare Alliance for guidance and help. Through my involvement with this organization, I developed a personal self-care plan with the assistance of a powerful circle of supportive sisters. I treated my self-care plan like studying for the Bar—being completely committed to the process—and it has paid off.
Our Lawyer's Creed[1] contains three basic tenets: competence, diligence and good judgement. In order to live up to these tenets, we must be well. The Institute for Well-Being in the Law, previously known as the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, detailed in their 2017 report that "well-being is part of lawyers' ethical duty of competence."[2] It calls for "healthy...
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