Badass Bitches From History: Harriet Jacobs

Bonnie (SOAM) Badass Bitches From History, My Own Ramblings 0 Comment

I’m back kinda! Long story very short (more later), I’m disabled enough right now that I cannot work full time so I’m currently planning to bring life back to SOAM both in its historic form of honoring the mama body, but also in new ways. One of my favorite things is history so here is the first in a new series of posts about underrated badass bitches from history. It seems appropriate that I should choose a badass black mama for this first one as it’s Black History Month. Let me know what you think and who you’d like to know more about in the future!

-born a slave -outsmarted her slave owner and got her children sold to their (white) father to protect them -LITERALLY LIVED IN A TINY CRAWL SPACE FOR SEVEN YEARS WHILE SHE WAITED TO FLEE THE STATE -In a time when few slaves were allowed to learn to read or write, this queen *wrote her own fucking memoir*

Today I’m thinking about Harriet Jacobs. Look. This lady was a fucking badass. She was born a slave and wound up as a young girl in the ownership of this real fucky fucker named Norcom. She was pretty so Norcom fancied her especially and began building a home for her so that he could keep her to himself. Fucking scary.

So she starts a relationship with this other white dude who, iirc, was like pretty decent for a white dude at the time. His name was Sawyer and he was fairly influential at the time. She gets pregnant with his baby and, as punishment, her owner’s wife banishes her and threatens to kill her, so she lives with her grandma while she has two kids with this halfway decent white dude, Sawyer.

So Norcom, her abuser/owner, won’t leave her the fuck alone even tho she’s got this other white guy. He comes to harass her at her grandmother’s after she has her babies. He likes to remind her of his position as owner of her and now of her children. So when she’s just 21, she fucking runs away. Sorta.

Ultimately she winds up- and this is the fucking superhuman bit – SHE LIVES IN A TEENY SPACE UNDER HER GRANDMOTHER’S ROOF. LIKE 9x7x3. And she lives there FOR SEVEN GODDAMN YEARS. Her uncle had some mad carpentry skills so he built a little trap door that was nearly invisible if you didn’t know it was there. She’d come down in the dark of night to stretch her legs and do her business and then she hid away again.

Her babies were so young that she couldn’t let her kids know she was nearby in case they let it slip so they had to believe she’d gone. Harriet would peek at them from her crawl space during the days and watch them play. I can’t even imagine the kind of heartbreak she must have had to live in during this time. To watch her children grow up before her eyes, but without her.

Her abuser/owner got a little pissed off and figured he’d revenge her by selling her kids and her brother. BUT NEVER FRET because this Sawyer dude was waiting there to trick Norcom into selling them. He hired a slave trader to make the offer and Norcom didn’t realize Sawyer was behind this trick. There is some bullshit slave law crap about why you can’t just like buy people and then set them free so it was the best option at the time and the kids were able to remain living with their grandmother.

Eventually Harriet was able to leave not only the attic space, but also the state. She settled in New York and worked to free as much of her family as she could. Since she had been lucky enough to have been taught to read and write, she was able to write her own memoir. Which is fucking rad just FYI and you should read it. This is all the very short version. There are many more twists and turns in her book. She writes of her struggles to balance the Christian morality ideals (ie to not have sex outside of marriage) with her reality as a slave (being that sometimes you gotta bang a dude to save your life). She struggled openly and honestly with the very simple concept of bringing children into slavery at all:

“Sometimes I wished that [my son] might die in infancy. God tried me. My darling became very ill. The bright eyes grew full, and the little feet and hands were so icy cold that I thought death had already touched them. I had prayed for his death, but never so earnestly as I now prayed for his life; and my prayer was heard. Alas, what mockery it is for a slave mother to try to pray back her dying child to life! Death is better than slavery” (p 80).

Harriet Jacobs was such a skilled and honest writer that I hope you choose to read her book. In fact, you can read it FREE at Project Gutenberg. Click here!

Pictured: Cover of Harriet’s book, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”

Slavery is over in the US (well. that’s debatable) but the effects are still present today. Reading narratives directly from the minds of black women and men throughout history is important work.

Harriet is a woman I hold in my heart when things seem impossible. I hope she means as much to you as she does to me.

(One last thing- if you do decide to read her book, note that she uses fake names for all the people in her life in order to protect them as best she could from retribution. In this post I’ve used their real names.)

I’d like to do more of these posts in the future. Who are your favorite underrated badass bitches (or dudes or anyone except cis straight white men bc they have enough spotlight)? Leave me a comment and I may choose yours!

A Sad Announcement

Bonnie (SOAM) My Own Ramblings, News 0 Comment
My hips. They are dying. Literally.

As many of you know, these last few years have been a challenge for my family. As a single mom of two kids with special needs, I have been worn thin for a long time. Managing health care in the US, particularly for those who are low-income such as myself, and especially managing mental health care, is draining in and of itself. I am so tired, you guys.

But this summer I added a new diagnosis to the list. A rare disease where my bones are dying. Literally. (And I mean that “literally” literally. It’s called avascular necrosis.) I was immobilized for nearly all of July from the pain. The flare seems to be over so I am able to move physically again, thank goodness, but the disease has added a new fight to my life. Because it’s rare, even specialists don’t necessarily know how to diagnose and treat it and I have spent too much of my very little energy this summer trying to get appropriate care for this disease. I have not yet succeeded.

You can see the AVN collapse here.

Anyway. All this to say that I had hoped to spend time and energy after my graduation last December in growing SOAM to something new. I have to set that aside indefinitely for now.

Poverty is a very real trauma and I am so tired, you guys. So very tired.

SOAM will stay up and active as long as I can manage it. Please submit your stories! If any media wants to do interviews, I’m still open to that! But as for the in-person classes, parties, workshops, and events? That is a dream that I must lay aside for now.

This summer I was not working (I work during the school year as a tutor) but I had planned to do other work to cover the lack of income. Unfortunately that did not happen due to my new diagnosis and its flare up, as well as some other shit the Universe thought would be fun to throw at me (I see you there, Universe, and I am not amused). So we are behind on so many things financially, including some essentials like, you know, mortgage and HOA payments. If you can help us during this difficult time in our lives, I would be so grateful. We have a gofundme you can contribute to, if it you prefer, you can ask me for my Venmo or Paypal. Feel free to share the link as well.

Thank you all for everything through the years and for everything that will be coming to us in the future!

Some things change, others stay the same & that’s OK. (Marissa)

Bonnie (SOAM) Before Pregnancy, Belly, Body Image, Breasts, Cesarean, First Pregnancy, Positive Body Image/Words of Enouragement, Postpartum, Pregnant, Submissions 0 Comment

C-Section Mama, Married 6years to my BFF

I was 23 when I got pregnant. Being a very short and active young adult, I’ve always been a wild one at heart. My favorite joy is dancing. I love to just turn the music on and have fun! That was me before pregnancy.

Now I’m 24. I’ve had my first baby. I’m 3 months postpartum and I still don’t feel like that girl again yet. Somehow she’s me – but somehow she’s somebody else. Anyone feel that way? I know many have, but I have never in my life struggled to feel myself. I’ve always felt confident in my own skin. Sometimes I felt too skinny or non-curvy but… when I had my son… I suddenly felt foreign. I feel my tummy and it’s foreign. I feel my boobs – they feel foreign.

It’s okay to sometimes feel like things are different. They are different. We can’t hold ourselves to the old us because all through life we will change and morph into new women. I realized that this must be what it feels like to look in the mirror at 60, or try to run or when your metabolism just wasn’t like it once was and now you eat one piece of pizza and blow up. It all hit me. Is this real life? It may sound so silly and vain but seriously some people simply haven’t gotten there yet. Instead of me feeling like I need to catch up with others or feel sad that I’m not the same and other women get to feel hot … I just need to give myself a firm swat on the buns and say “listen up lady – you are a boss babe, the woman you were is still there but she has grown, she is strong, she understands life in a new way, she went through tough labor, she stayed in the hospital 5 days, she woke up all night and she cried, she wanted to be her old self but she also wanted to snuggle her baby with all her love, she birthed a new life, she is a mother, she is loved, she is valued and she is special beyond belief. Don’t you dare discount that. You are learning big things, and your mind and experience have went through something many women have not had the privilege of, and the challenge of.” Life is an experience and a gift. May we always remember that motherhood is nitty gritty, deep and emotional but ever so rewarding and we mature in massive ways.

To be honest… I still don’t feel like me. In some ways it’s coming around but in some ways I feel as though some parts of me will always stay. I will always feel my stretch marks and go “whoaaa that’s intense”. I will also think “hehe omg it’s so soft and cuddly”!

Let us give ourselves time, relax, live healthy and stay strong. ? You can do it ladies. We are the mama family.

Update here!

A Brand New Profession

Bonnie (SOAM) My Own Ramblings, News 0 Comment

Hello from the other side of my first official tabling event! THANK YOU to those of you who donated to help get me here! Hello to all my new readers from BabyFest!

It was a fun day, connecting with other local birth workers. Everyone who stopped by the table was supportive of the concept and it was great to be able to share our message with more people. It was especially exciting to meet some of you who already knew about SOAM!

It’s taken me awhile to be able to post something here, and I apologize. My illnesses have been flaring and spending a day doing all that social work was a lot to process and recover from.

During the afternoon lull, while everyone stopped in at the Great Cloth Diaper Change, I had a moment to reflect on the morning and I was hit with a realization that’s left me equal parts excited and apprehensive: I’m not merely trying to start a business, I’m trying to create an entire profession. Obviously, I suppose I knew this on some level, but it wasn’t quite this clear, or this close to the surface. Knowing this, I’ll approach future tabling or public events differently, but I’m not exactly sure how. Perhaps a flier or brochure with more in-depth information? I don’t know. How does one find a way to create a whole profession? How do I find a place to fit in the birthing community (or, where do I fit outside the birthing community, because my work on body positivity does not begin or end with mothers)? I’m not sure of the answers to these questions. Perhaps I should have been a business major? haha

I am still moving forward with all the work we are currently doing, and I will continue to learn how to grow SOAM into something even more revolutionary. If you are local, consider booking a Body Positivity Party. If you believe in our mission at SOAM, consider becoming a patron – SOAM has helped thousands of women over the years, if only 250 people donated $5/month, we’d have over $1,200 a month to work with and everyone knows that starting a business (or profession!) costs.

Thank you, to my readers, to those who have submitted, to those who have contributed. You are what makes SOAM possible.

On Professionalism and Beauty (Anonymous)

Bonnie (SOAM) Submissions, The Beauty Myth 1 Comment

This post is a little different, but still so very relevant. It’s not about motherhood specifically, but about the social requirement to look a certain way in order to advance. And while a stay at home mother may not face these same sort of dilemmas because she may not face the same sort of promotions in her (very real) work, she can surely relate to this on some level. As a wise woman once said, “We still ask women to work like they don’t have kids and parent like they don’t work.” To add to that, we always ask women to look 100% or more, regardless of whether they work in the home or out of it.

Anyway, this is beautifully written. Enjoy.

A few months ago, I had a heart-to-heart conversation with my boss about opportunities for advancement within my organization. She is considered a “middle-manager” within the company, which is a gross oversimplification of her role, but I mention it because it’s ultimately not her decision whether I move up. The women who do make these decisions are “old-fashioned” and set in their ways. My boss consistently raves about me to the decision-makers, and I appreciate her mentorship and encouragement. She said that there is already a “buzz” about my abilities and strengths, and that my name consistently comes up as someone capable of an expanded role in my company. During this conversation, I thanked her for consistently “going to bat for me” and asked her if there’s anything else I can do on my end to help sway the decision makers.

She took a deep breath and, after she said that professionally, all my qualities were already apparent, that I should continue doing what I’m doing, she said that really what would help is if I polished my appearance more. She rolled her eyes as she acknowledged that having to talk about this in 2018 was ridiculous, and then said, “but [the boss] likes lipstick.” I thanked her for her honesty, the conversation continued, and eventually we meandered to other topics. But I couldn’t let go of how it felt for, yet again, my worth to be evaluated by my appearance.

I definitely agree that there should be professional expectations about hygiene, attire, and behavior. Working at a professional organization should require more than, say, sleepwear or swimwear. I come to work clean, brushed, and shiny. I typically wear capris and a blouse with dressy flats or wedges. Sometimes, I’ll wear a knee-length dress with leggings (because I’m self-conscious about my thick legs). I wear slacks and blouse, sometimes a blazer to staff meetings. I might wear a dress a couple times a year. When I want to, I wear makeup. I believe that this should be sufficient, regardless of my title at the organization.

While I felt angry at this unjust expectation, my anger wasn’t directed at my boss. At first, it was directed at the big-boss-decision makers. I was so discouraged that my past track record and current efforts to make a greater impact could be undermined by my inconsistent use of makeup. I sat with these icky feelings and approached them from different perspectives. On one hand, women in some societies do not even have the right to educate themselves, and how dare I flinch at only having to wear lipstick to have the career opportunities I do. On the other hand, FUCK the ladies who are in positions to promote highly qualified women into positions of power, these ladies who instead use their position to perpetuate the oppressive “power of pretty”. I have seen unqualified, unproven women and men rise through the ranks in my organization because they present themselves well. They play on this “power of pretty,” wear the lipstick, the heels, the suits and ties to conceal their incompetence. So I was initially very bitter about feeling like I would have to change my face in order to have an opportunity to grow professionally.

I acknowledge that conventionally beautiful, highly competent professionals everywhere also have their struggles. My anger is definitely not directed at them. My anger is not directed at the millions of people who enjoy makeup, who enjoy fashion, who enjoy altering their faces and bodies in any way on a regular basis. I support and applaud them all. My anger is directed at the implicit cultural bias that those who do not conform to standards of beauty are unjustly treated as less professional, less serious, less capable of excellence, simply…less. Specifically, my anger is directed at the misconception that women who do not wear makeup are not as ambitious or professional as women who do wear makeup. And I know that this issue goes more deeply. That some women are expected to change their hair, their speech patterns, their facial expressions, their bodies, and more along the road toward professional advancement. At some level, everyone has to sacrifice some part of their identity during their work day in order to conform to a professional environment. Women, I believe, are expected to sacrifice more. Women of color, trans women of color, disabled women, even more.

What’s New at SOAM?

Bonnie (SOAM) News 0 Comment

Hello, dear readers!

I’ve been hard at work here updating the website and working towards growing SOAM into something new and bigger. For one thing, check out the new logo that is (FINALLY) up and running. Brenda is an incredible graphic designer, a pleasure to work with, and someone I’m proud to know. Throw some business her way if you are needing design work. Check out the stuff we’re up to!

**FREE for a limited time! Body Positivity Parties in San Diego County – facilitated by me! All you have to do is invite some friends!**

Check out our new mission statement!

Come visit us in April at BabyFest!

Read our most recent posts:
Mothers and Mental Illness
A Primer on Fat Phobia
The Poetry of Our Bodies

A primer on Fat Phobia

Bonnie (SOAM) Activism, My Own Ramblings, News , 4 Comments

A few years ago when I was enrolling my oldest child in middle school, I had to drop off some forms at the school nurse and I saw this poster. It made my blood boil because the very first thing listed for harmful effects due to overeating and overweight was “Psychological problems.”

I want to be very clear here: Being fat does not cause psychological problems. Being fat does not cause blame, guilt, shame, disgust, or depression. Those things are all caused by fat phobia.

One more time: Being fat does not cause psychological problems.

But this is the message we are sending kids who are struggling at the most physically sensitive time in their lives. Puberty and brain development are on overdrive at this age as kids become aware of their bodies on a whole new level (and I don’t mean simply in a sexual way, but there is a deeper cognitive understanding of their physical shape and size and how it relates to the world going on at this age as well). Weight is already driven home in every aspect of our daily lives and as we bring media deeper into our consciousness through our devices and new, more insidious forms of advertising, these messages get harder and harder to notice and to critique. So these kids head into their new school which will be the driving force of their entire lives for the next two years and they see this sign and it says two things. To fat kids (or kids who believe they are fat) it says they are at fault for their size. To everyone else it says that bullying is okay – of course it doesn’t say that in so many words, but that is the message that inevitably ultimately settles into social habits in the brain.

So here’s the question: Are fat people to blame for their size? Sometimes, sure. Other times, they aren’t. For one thing, there are many physical conditions such as hypothyroid that cause weight gain and equally make it difficult to lose weight. And, of course, there are also life-saving medications that cause weight gain. Antidepressants or steroids can do this. And it’s a side effect to keeping a person alive and functioning, in which case Medicine has decided that weight gain is a better choice than not functioning or not surviving. Overweight is also a class issue and a disability issue where poverty or disabilities can lead to weight gain through lack of accessibility. But there’s yet another form of overweight caused by dieting. We have known for years that diets don’t work. They can sometimes shock your body into weight loss, but in doing so, the body reads its recent starvation as a time of famine and it slows the metabolism. Permanently. In this case, people have been trying to follow the good advice, often given to them by a doctor, but it is not sound science and it ultimately fails the person who is trying so hard to “be good.”

The bottom line is that overweight is a wildly complex issue and simply cannot be reduced to just one facet.

Quite literally the only thing you can determine from looking at someone’s size is your own personal bias against fatness.

(Someone awesome said that and I can’t find the actual quote to give credit right now. If you know who said it, leave me a comment and I’ll edit.)

Okay, you’re thinking, but if I KNOW someone eats unhealthy and doesn’t do anything to lose weight, surely I can judge them then, right?

Nope!

But, you say, I’m doing it for their heath. I care about their health!

This is a noble intention, yes, but just stop and listen for a minute.

Because here’s the thing: people who live in fat bodies are humans. You don’t have to be a Christian to recognize that Jesus was a pretty wise dude and when he said “Do not judge,” it’s good advice. Judging places us in opposite corners, it creates a false sense of separateness. It isolates the person you are wanting to care for and reinforces the lies society tells us, as illustrated by the poster in my kid’s middle school. Depression lies in and of itself, and it’s hard enough to learn to determine the difference between what are and are not lies, but when you also hear these same lies in every corner of your life, it will, in fact, beat you down until you simply cannot function anymore. And to reiterate, the lies I’m speaking of aren’t about whether or not weight gain causes other physical ailments, but whether or not weight gain causes guilt or shame. It does not. Ever.

The fact is that people do unhealthy shit all the time. We drink too much or we don’t exercise, we don’t always wear seat belts or we smoke cigarettes. We go to tanning salons despite knowing the risks. We fuck up all the time. But no one is judged quite like fat people. And it always assumed their weight is their fault. Why? Why do we pick one sin and make that the one we are so cruelly vocal about?

Because you know what? A ton of thin people eat like crap and never exercise, but because their genes aren’t expressed in a proclivity to gain weight, we look at them and assume they must be healthy.

That right there? Is the ultimate proof that fat phobia isn’t about health at all; it is about size and it is only about size.

Last Friday night I shared a progressive ad from plus size store Torrid which featured an overweight woman rocking a bikini. I especially liked this ad because, unlike so many attempts at size diversity, this woman wasn’t too smooth, and she wasn’t just a little chubby. She looked more like me with my weird lumps and cellulite. I liked seeing someone like that feeling confident in a bikini because it inspired me to remember that my body is just a body and I deserve not only to feel confident, but also to feel the splash of the ocean and the warmth of the sun. Fat people deserve joy just as much as thin people. Why? Because we are people. Period.

But the post blew up and we spent the next couple of days arguing over whether or not this ad should even exist. The excuses thrown into the mix included everything from “This is simply bad marketing because the people who would want to look like this model are too few and far between” (I mean, I think Torrid is kind of doing okay right now) to “I’m not fat phobic because I do not literally have a phobia about fat” (which is not even the way the word is used here, it’s arguing false semantics). Ultimately it boiled down to not wanting to normalize fatness. But fatness is already normal. People are fat. People need clothes. Fat people need clothes that fit them. Companies make those clothes. Companies want people to know they exist so they must advertise. By banning such ads, not only are you erasing an entire population of people from media exposure (the absolute antithesis of SOAM’s founding principles, might I add?), but you are also insinuating that you don’t want fat people clothed, or at least not in anything cute that might accidentally make them feel good about themselves.

There is a lot of information out there suggesting that fat may not be as dangerous as we have believed for so long, but this post isn’t even about that. Because that’s irrelevant. The point of this post is that fat people are PEOPLE. And people deserve equity. People deserve to feel cute. People deserve to feel joy. End of story. Period. It is nearly impossible to have a conversation about this with people who are not yet acquainted with these principles – and I get that, I really do! Ideal body size is a construct and constructs are nearly impossible to see and even harder to entirely demolish. I’ve been working with SOAM for 13 years and with body image for most of my life and I still struggle with it. I promise you, it’s okay to have a hard time grasping this shit if it’s new for you. But the reason it’s so hard to discuss is because every argument will inevitably go back to “but health…?” It’s time to fully separate health from fatness, and it’s the only way to move forward. Health IS important, yes, but not only is size a poor indicator of health (cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. are much better indicators), but another person’s health is not your business. Even if you love them. I promise. Shame never healed anyone.

Because I know people will be asking, I’ll make a simple acknowledgement that offering support is always loving and wonderful, but it absolutely must be with consent and on the person’s own terms because they are the only person on this planet who is an expert in themselves, and only they know which steps they need to take in their life at this moment.

So please, think about the people living inside the bodies, rather than the bodies themselves. End fat shaming. Now.

Mothers/Parents and Mental Health

Bonnie (SOAM) Activism, Depression and/or Mental Illness (Unrelated to Pregnancy), My Own Ramblings, News, Postpartum Psychosis, PPD - Postpartum Depression 2 Comments

This is a really important article from NPR that I shared on our Facebook page a few days ago. It talks about postpartum psychosis, which is when a new mother has a break from reality. This illness is rare, but not as uncommon as you would think, because most women are too afraid to talk about it. According to the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Women’s Mental Health, only 1 to 20 women per 1,000 will have this disorder. But here’s the thing: women are, consciously or subconsciously, held by society to be mothers. Women who fail at this in one way or another are judged harshly. Women whose mental health suffers and affects their children are dealing not only with the stigma of “bad mothering” but also with that of mental illness.

I am going to say this one time only: mental illness is just another kind of regular illness. The brain is just as much a body part as the pancreas, but one would never judge a mother with diabetes for needing to stop to adjust her insulin, or for needing insulin in the first place (well, at least we tend not to judge those with Type I diabetes – the stigma against fatness is a whole other blog post).

Sometimes our bodies fail us. It is simply a part of being a living creature; we are imperfect.

And I do not deny that mental illness is a challenging thing to deal with. Unlike many other physical ailments, it can affect personality and that is truly a hard thing for those who suffer with it as well as those around them.

But it doesn’t make the stigma any more valid.

Here is a fact for you: Most medications are tested on men. Women have very different bodies and very different neurology, particularly in regards to hormones. Thus, being a woman and needing medication of any kind, you are already at a disadvantage. To add in something as complex as postpartum psychosis which, as we already noted, is dealing with two stigmas, and to try to balance the body and mind with a medication that hasn’t been tested on women, especially postpartum women, is a problem. (Here is a video that talks a little bit about the gender gap in medication testing. The video itself is about pain, but it’s not irrelevant because we do know that the gut and the brain, as well as the immune system and the gut, are connected in ways we do not fully understand.)

And the stigma is built into the mental health system, too. For instance, in trying to find care for my daughter (it is okay with her for me to discuss this publicly), we were met again and again with limited care for mental health. There are clinics here who will only see a patient for 13 visits, with a second set of 13 visits possible if still necessary, but no more. This may be logical for a kid who is simply needing to learn some coping skills or needs help navigating difficult interpersonal connections. But for a kid with a true mental illness, it is simply not enough in any way, shape, or form. You’d never find a medical hospital with a 13-visit limit on any other kind of care. If a child goes through the expected number of chemo sessions and still needs medical help, they will get appropriate medical care. But this isn’t true of mental health care. The stigma is built into the system itself.

If you read that NPR article, you will see the difference between care models here in the US and those in the UK where babies are sometimes allowed to stay with mom. Here in the US, however, infants are not even allowed to visit and breast pumps are not readily available. This is a woman’s problem in that it affects women directly, but it is a social problem when we consider the time off work the woman’s partner will need to take, the childcare involved of the infant and/or older children. Something like this could make or break a family’s survival and here in the US where we don’t offer healthcare to everyone, health problems often do break families, forcing them into poverty and potential homelessness.

I am not over-exaggerating.

I’d also like to quickly note that, yes, police can be involved in mental health cases where it is not safe to transport a person yourself. If you need to call for care (at least here in San Diego – you will want to look up your own local information) you should ask for the PERT team (psychiatric emergency response team). They will handcuff the person while transporting them and, while this is often perceived as treating them like criminals, it is not the intention to do so. It is done for safety and probably policy reasons. Perhaps this is something we need to work towards changing – I’m down with that. But I’m sharing this right now primarily because I think this is important information for the general public to know – it’s certainly not something you want to be surprised by at your lowest moment, and it’s something that can be so easily misunderstood.

So, what do we do about this problem of mental health care, in particular as it pertains to women?

Well, first of all, we share the facts. Women are at a disadvantage when it comes to appropriate medical care. People struggling with mental health issues are at a disadvantage when it comes to appropriate access to services and care. Women struggling with mental health issues are dealing with this from every angle, and women of color or other oppressed groups are oppressed even more. So talk about this. Share the facts with your friends and family even if – especially if – they do not pertain directly to you. A voice outside the community can be a powerful ally.

Second, listen to your friends and family when they speak of their mental health issues. Do not tell them how to fix it, do not offer suggestions. Instead just tell them that you hear them. Offer to help them find services (here in San Diego the Access and Crisis Line is your first stop). Promise that you don’t judge them and that you love them. Remind them that this is just another illness like any other illness and the fact that it is happening in their head doesn’t make them any less worthy of help or love.

If – and only if – you are ready to share your own story of struggling with mental health, share it. The more people admit secrets, the more we find we are not alone – just like with our pictures of our bodies here, we can stand together and be stronger than we are alone. If you want to share your story here, you can do that here.

And if you are a mama or a parent who has struggled with mental health issues of any severity, I am here to tell you that you are not alone and that it does not make you a bad parent. You are worthy of love and life. It is scary sometimes to seek help, and I will admit that sometimes even mental health practitioners are terrible at understanding mental illness, but keep moving forward. Don’t allow yourself to believe anyone – professional or not – that mental health problems are something you should be ashamed of. It’s simply a thing that happened, just like any other challenge people face, no stigma necessary, no judgement at all. You are strong and worthy and beautiful just as you are. I see you and I hear you.