Medication and My Abortions Were the Mental Health Care I Needed to Parent

Article originally appeared in Rewire on May 3rd, 2021

Being a mother is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. There’s a lot of pressure telling us what we should do and how to change everything about who we are to give our children the best advantage in life. It’s hard living each day and caring for my children among the messages that we hear on social media, in the news, and from politicians telling us to do more—and for me, it’s even harder, as a Black mama who has had abortions and is living with a mental illness.

The pressure of motherhood is fucking stressful—and even more so when combined with the harmful stigma unfairly thrust onto all of us who are living with bipolar disorder and who choose abortion as a way to build our families.