This content contains descriptions of panic attacks and mental abuse
It had barely been a year since my mom unexpectedly passed away and I was desperately trying to get my footing. I might not have been in a great place mentally—I was regularly using cocaine and smoking cigarettes to deal with my intense depression and insomnia—but I had big plans.
I’d booked one of my dream modeling gigs and was full of hope. The aspiration I’d had since I was a little girl was finally gaining traction. I was also looking into options to be able to go to school for Natural Resource Management, had found a sense of purpose as a Planned Parenthood escort, and started my own charity for wolf conservation.
I called my best friend after a disappointing fundraiser, saddled with inexplicable anxiety. She casually confided that she was expecting her second child as if it were no bigger of a deal than what she ordered for dinner. I wasn’t sure whether to congratulate her blessing or apologize for her misfortune, but I opted for the former and shortly thereafter excused myself from the call.
Not fifteen minutes into a show with my boyfriend, the anxiety that had initially prompted the call slammed down on me so hard that I physically jolted. My friend’s revelation had given me an explanation for feeling like I was slipping between dimensions. My tampon box had gone undisturbed a little too long.
I brushed off my outburst and excused myself to the bathroom, verifying that I wasn’t being followed and pulling a plastic baton from my emergency stash in the hallway. The trimmings of the test were perky shades of pink and purple with a flower next to the results window. I enjoyed pissing on it.
“You could read the side of an Aspirin bottle and be convinced that you’re having a hemorrhage stroke,” I thought while I took the pregnancy test.
I pinched my nipples. No soreness. I reached for the test, eager to return to my show. I blinked. My vision was blurred. For a moment, I saw two lines. I blinked again. It didn’t correct itself.
Though my first instinct was to not tell my boyfriend, my paleness concerned him as I emerged and the words slipped past my lips without permission before I collapsed to the floor.
We were behind on bills and had been on food stamps for months. I was unemployed with an age-old felony on my record that made landing a steady job challenging. There had been multiple shootings in our apartment.
Beneath my panic attacks, screaming matches with my boyfriend, and tattered self-esteem, I wanted to find a way to have that baby. I turned to the pro-lifers that protested every week at my clinic. Their help was limited, to say the least. I turned to my colleagues at Planned Parenthood and was offered even less.
I turned to my boyfriend, but his original reassurance that we’d figure things out was now that I deserved to have panic attacks. With how toxic our relationship had been before this shock, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
As a Survivor type, one of my core concerns was to be left without support. Feeling cornered with no emotional, physical or financial stability and feeling abandoned or chastised by every single person that I tried to turn to for support, I took assistance and obtained an abortion.
Because I went against what I truly wanted, the depression from losing my mom and the abuse that I was coping with exacerbated ten-fold. I had no hope, no grasp on reality, and was in survival mode. I scraped by just enough to survive, but I went back to using drugs and self-harming because I had zero skills to manage what I was feeling and nowhere to turn. I was in a grim hell loop for the next three years when I got pregnant again.
I didn’t know what carrying a pregnancy to term was like. I didn’t believe in myself that I could raise a child. I didn’t believe I could be a good mom. What I did know was how my abortion had made me feel and that I’d rather die a hundred times over than be dragged back down that psychological rabbit hole of guilt and grief.
I had my son.
In the ten years since, I went to school for Holistic Nutrition and recovered from cocaine and self-harm. Despite being told by professionals that it wasn’t possible, I ended up getting decertified as having a Serious Mental Illness diagnosis. I became passionate about helping others in their mental health journey. In 2020, I launched a successful YouTube channel aimed to shatter the mental health stigma through conversation. I receive messages every day that my videos saved a life or helped someone through a difficult time.
If I could tell my pregnant self anything back then, it would be this: There is always a way. You can handle an unexpected pregnancy. (Little did I know that as a single low-income mom I would travel the world and interview many of my celebrity idols for a project that is saving lives.) Screw the boyfriend. Screw the protesters. There are seven billion people in this world. At least a handful of them will support and help you.
I didn’t do everything right. I isolated myself and went into survival mode when I was pregnant with my son, focusing on my school and staying connected to a close friend in my hometown. It made it unspeakably more challenging, but my son and I weathered the storm.
While I utilized a few online unbiased support groups, I know that there are even more now with the expansion of social media. There are also local mom meet-ups even in small towns and individuals out there on both sides of the fence who will have genuine compassion and empathy, who will listen to you and hold your hand. Don’t let the rotten apples speak for everyone. I wish I hadn’t.