#ProSe and Unbothered a Black Woman’s Battle Against the System

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to sue a multi million dollar health care Technology company. I woke up one day realizing I didn’t have a choice.

When you spend your life working twice as hard, staying quiet, trying to be the good one the reliable one and the system still turns its back on you, something inside snaps. That’s where this story starts.



The Job That Broke Me

The company I’ll call it Synerquest Health Group looked good on paper. “Innovation, opportunity, diversity.” The usual PR bullsh*t. I thought it was my big break a real chance to grow, to lead, to make something of myself in corporate America.

Me and my supervisor both Black. And that meant something to me. I thought, finally, I found someone who gets it. Someone who understands what it’s like to have to smile through microaggressions and build bridges out of barbed wire.

We were part of a team working on a major project for the FDA. I can’t say what it was, but it was important history-in-the-making type sh*t. And I took pride in my work. I decorated desks on birthdays, made my team feel appreciated, and believed we could actually make a difference.

But that belief didn’t last long.

The harassment started slow little things. Whispers. Side-eyes. A woman named Wendy (that’s not her real name, but close enough) made it her mission to make my job hell. I went to HR — the so-called “safe space.” HR didn’t do sh*t. In fact, they turned on me.



The EEOC Journey

When you report something that’s wrong and you get iced out for it, it changes you. I felt shut out. Ghosted. Like I’d been kicked off the damn bus for daring to speak up.

So I did what I had to do I filed with the EEOC. Alone. No attorney. No backup. Just my paperwork, my notes, and a whole lot of righteous anger.

The EEOC process is like waiting for somebody to remember you exist. You file your charge, pour your soul out, and then… silence. For months. I was checking emails like my life depended on it. I’d refresh my inbox until my hands shook. Every ding made my heart stop.

But even in that silence, I refused to give up.



Fighting With Google and ChatGPT

I didn’t have a lawyer but I had Wi-Fi.
I had Google. I had ChatGPT.

And I studied like I was preparing for the bar exam. I read every case, every statute, every damn definition until it started to make sense. I wrote my own filings, formatted my own exhibits, and filed everything pro se.

When I finally filed in federal court, I walked in shaking. I have PTSD, agoraphobia, and anxiety, so even stepping foot in that courthouse felt like scaling a mountain with bricks on my chest.

But then something wild happened the Magistrate Judge said I had at least one viable claim.

Do you know what it feels like to hear that as a self-represented Black woman who did the whole damn thing by herself? It’s like breathing after almost drowning.



The Clerk Who Cared

The federal court clerk I’ll never forget him. A sweet, jittery man with his own anxiety issues. He could barely stand still; he’d fidget, stutter, flip his hair, and still somehow manage to calm me down.

He told me one day, “I don’t want you to feel like I’m your court mother, but I want to make sure you’re filing things right.”

He couldn’t give legal advice, but he gave me something better hope. Every time I walked in, terrified I’d screw up a filing or miss a rule, he reassured me.

He was part of the system, yeah, but he treated me like a human being not a case number.




The Breakdown Before Mediation

Let me tell you what they don’t say about litigation: it will chew your life up.
By the time I reached discovery, both my cars had been repossessed. I was facing eviction. My phone was one late bill away from getting cut off.

I couldn’t even drive to my deposition I had to beg for a ride. After it ended, I sat in that parking lot for 30 minutes trying to breathe.

The defense attorney talked to me like I was beneath him. Like I was some broke Black woman trying to “get over” on the system. He made me feel small, like my pain was a punchline. But I stayed calm. Because I knew I had evidence real evidence. And I knew the truth.


The Day I Took My Power Back

Mediation day felt like standing in the middle of a storm I had been fighting for almost two years. My heart was pounding before I even left the house and leaving my house, for someone with PTSD and agoraphobia, is no small thing. Every email, every court notification leading up to that day had sent me spiraling into anxiety. But that morning, I told myself: If I can survive everything they put me through, I can survive this too.

When I walked into that building, it wasn’t about money. It was about reclaiming my voice — the one they tried so hard to silence. I was exhausted, scared, and angry, but I was also done being underestimated. Sitting across that table, I didn’t see lawyers and corporate walls. I saw the people who tried to break me. And yet, here I was no attorney, no legal team just me. A Black woman with her own truth, armed with facts, evidence, and faith.

There were moments I cried. Moments I laughed at the absurdity of it all. And moments I had to remind myself that no settlement, no piece of paper, could define what I had survived. What I agreed to that day wasn’t defeat it was closure. It was choosing peace over chaos, healing over bitterness.

When it was over, I walked out lighter. The terms are confidential, and I respect that. But what isn’t confidential is my story. The part where I rose. The part where I didn’t give up. The part where a woman who had lost almost everything two cars, her home security, her peace of mind found a way to stand again. They can’t take that from me. They can’t take her from me.

Because I am still here.
Because I am still Dakota Denise.
Because I am still Pro Se and Unbothered.
Rebuilding the Empire They Tried to Break

When that chapter closed, I didn’t sit around waiting for life to hand me peace I went out and built it myself. The first thing I did was simple but symbolic: I bought myself a car. Nothing flashy, but it was mine. It meant I could move again, breathe again, go where I wanted without asking anyone for a ride or a favor. Freedom on four wheels.

Then I made sure I had a roof over my head. I paid off what I owed, took care of my eviction, and handled my business like the grown woman I’ve always been. Once I had stability, I started rebuilding my dreams this time on my own terms.

I went back to school and got my marijuana certification, officially becoming a cultivator-in-training. I wanted to learn everything from seed to sale so I could grow, brand, and one day sell my own strands under my own name. It wasn’t just about weed; it was about wellness, creativity, and ownership. I wanted to put healing in my own hands.

Next came my brand my baby #BlazzUp Boutique. I started sketching, designing, and whiteboarding packaging ideas. I visualized dispensaries stocking my branded jars and bags, with my designs sitting right there on the shelves. I didn’t just want to sell fashion anymore. I wanted to build a lifestyle one that merged culture, cannabis, and creativity into one unapologetically Black, woman-owned empire.

And as the smoke started to clear, opportunities started rolling in. Some of my written work projects like Chi-Town Blazers, The Blaqq Widdow’s Rise, caught real attention. Producers, networks, people I’d only dreamed of working with before suddenly, they were reading my words and calling my name. Everything I had been through the anxiety, the panic attacks, the sleepless nights, the depression had led to this moment.

So, no. That fight wasn’t about a paycheck. It was about power. It was about forcing people who tried to erase me to remember my name forever. They might’ve thought they could silence me, but instead, they gave me the story that would change everything.

To be continued.......

Epilogue: Effective Immediately

I hit send.
That final email — the one that said it was never about the money, it was about the principle. The one that reminded them that I had made even the people with names on the building second-guess themselves. The one that carried my voice, steady and clear, after a year of shaking hands, panic attacks, and sleepless nights.

And then, just minutes later, my inbox blinked.

> “Effective immediately, I am retired. Best wishes.”



I stared at the screen. Ain't No way. That wasn’t coincidence — that was cosmic timing.

The very person whose name had been printed on the top of my first motion, the letterhead I saw when I started this whole war, was gone by the time I sent my last email.

Full circle.

When I first filed this case, I was just a woman sitting on her bed, typing motions on Google and ChatGPT, learning federal law between anxiety attacks, smoking blunts to calm the tremors in my chest. A woman they thought would fold.

But I didn’t. I pushed that case all the way from EEOC to federal court, pro se and unbothered.



When I filed my first motion, her name was printed on the letterhead.
When I sent my last email, she was gone.

#ProSeAndUnbothered