Trigger Warning: infant loss I was born and raised in Detroit, the youngest of three and the only girl. At 16, I was diagnosed with Bipolar I and soon after sent nearly 1,000 miles from home to a residential facility in rural Vermont, where I spent 11 months. Experiences like mine have since been brought to light through an award-winning Netflix docuseries and the advocacy of Paris Hilton, who has worked to amplify the voices of survivors of the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI).

I look at this photo, taken nearly two years after my experience with postpartum psychosis, and think “Wow, I never thought I’d get here....