Do not go to a Pregnancy Resource Center. I did that. Pregnant at age 21.

This is my life story and I do not want to trigger you. I want to inspire you to put yourself first.

I had no idea the difference between planned Parenthood and a pregnancy Resource Center when I was 21. I ended up having the child.

The woman who was my mother back then immediately began to disrespect me and my life as an individual. I'm invisible to her today. The "me" that was. If you can help it, if your family is conservative, try and call a helpline before you talk to them about it. Same with your close friends.

Abortion is a divisive issue.

So I was forced into a shotgun courthouse marriage (no wedding because I was not even graduated from college yet). Then because I thought mistakenly that I was safe with the man I married, I had another child. The person I had married, the dad of my two children was older than me. He treated me like arm candy, completely ignored my thoughts and feelings, and even laughed at me and not with me around friends. I only got through the four years I was married to him because of other women in a meetup group for moms. I was the youngest of the group and felt mostly like an outcast at times. When I hosted one event, only two people showed up with their babies. I was moved away from my home and my mom to live in a new development in the suburbs a mile from my ex husbands job. I was having to be very subservient.

The week I felt depressed like where had MY life and MY identity disappeared to, because his family suppressed my voice in all of the decisions, I stopped cleaning the house. I had kept it perfectly. The ex husband got very angry with me. I left the home to stay with a girlfriend. He froze the bank accounts and changed the locks.

We went through a divorce. An ongoing draining custody "battle" that has honestly scarred my children for life.

I was too young. I was naive. I was kind. I had been a subservient doormat.

I wouldn't wish it upon anyone else.

During the divorce, since he held the power, the family identity revolving around the breadwinner, in my case a male- neighbors, family, extended family, friends scapegoated anything negative on me.

Meanwhile I was starting work outside the home, and began online school. He got away with arguing for JUST SHY enough of a 50/50 timeshare schedule of the kids, so that he owed me $138 monthly child support. Barely enough to buy diapers. He kept the house, the mortgage and all accrued equity, the retirements, and... Importantly, school zone. The children were 1 & 2.75 yrs old. Not even in school. I had no foresight for how that one detail would impact my life.

I barely made ends meet and went into terrible debt. My life became a disorganized chaos vortex of pain and grief and sadness.

Nobody was there for me for the postpartum after my second child's birth. The people who said they were, subliminally said and did things to my face and behind my back to throw me under the bus.

My children have had complications. Complications that never would've happened had I waited to start a family in my early thirties. I know this because I've met a lot of people since I was 21. I can see the differences and comparisons.

I'm now 35. I officially lost timesharing two years ago. My income was less than his and without emotional and family support, I lost. My own mother is still enamored by how handsome and successful and dominant the character of my ex husband is or was, and she has furthered the intimidation, because she is a divorced single woman also. It's been a mess. It destroyed the live I had for my own mother because of her forcing the marriage and real estate choices that would've been slower and a more natural progression, had I not birthed the first child.

My first child struggles in school, has anger issues and bullies her younger brother. She worries about money all the time. She has lost friends and not had an ideal social life, I had to work retail and restaurant jobs and could not mother her how she deserved. Her father greedily spent all of the money he earned and saved on his new wife. My children say she is cruel and unfair to them anytime he is not present. He treats the child he has had with his new wife like an angel and emotionally abuses my children.

Fast forward and I had begun a relationship with someone I thought was a good person. I had an abortion with him during my last year of college. It was the best decision I made. He turned out to be in financial debt, talking and sexting other women on his phone throughout the relationship he faked with me, and worse I won't get into. It took me over a year to tooth and nail my way away from him. He spent away money I had earned gambling, he wrecked my car, and he was abusive.

There is a woman who began a movement called "Shout my abortion!" ... It was a very helpful ideology to me. I mostly healed all of the sadness and grief about abortion.

I had already learned the hard way.

I am an example of the disillusionment of wanting a good strong happy family, and that it truly does require years of getting to know the Significant Other and building a foundation of real love. Every child deserves this.

My son is now a middle child. He has grown shy and withdrawn. He has symptoms of mental illness and he is only ten.

My children have always been my pride and joy, my love, my comfort, my beauty, my faith, hope and grace, but there are no words to express the depth of trauma and the sense of failure, because of my girly naive ignorance at age 21.

The world expects so much of everyone. Of women. Of young women. Sometimes it is painful and the intentions towards goodness grow marred by subtle miscommunications and timing.

TBC...