Samantha Vincenty

Again, if you feel that a family member poses an immediate threat to you (or your child, partner, or pets), you’re well within your rights to cease contact immediately. If any of the additional examples above sound familiar, it’s okay to choose to step back from interacting with them entirely—either for a sustained period or temporarily, while you figure out a plan to reset your boundaries and your expected frequency of contact. As Tawwab writes in Drama Free, “healthy boundaries give you peace even when the other person hasn’t changed.” Is their behavior “toxic” or merely annoying? As Tawwab puts it, “Is this situation persistently harmful, or is it just annoying?” For example, if you try to share bad memories of your childhood and your sibling always interrupts to tell you—or even other family members—that you’re lying and it never happened, that’s harmful. But if they always cut you off mid-sentence because they possess poor listening skills and it’s their turn to talk now? Their self-absorption is annoying and frustrating, and while that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t say something, it’s not necessarily “toxic” behavior. Learning to deal with others’ aggravating personality traits is part of life, and as Tawwab points out, “many of the people we love annoy us.” A few of the strategies outlined below—sharing how their actions make you feel or, if that’s unsuccessful, rethinking how often you see them—can also help you learn to accept nontoxic, if extremely irritating, behavior.Have I had a direct conversation with them about the problem(s)? When someone has been in your life since the day you (or they) were born, they might assume that they know everything there is to know about who you are. This can be a comfort in some instances; maybe you’ve always been encouraged by your grandmother’s observations about your artistic spirit, for example. But it can also feed into family dynamics that leave you feeling suffocated and resentful. Maybe you have a sibling who seems to take pleasure in sharing childhood stories that embarrass you. Or a mom who brings up your weight if you even look at a birthday cake. Perhaps your sister-in-law thinks that, because you’re single and child-free, she can show up at your door on a Saturday with a last-minute unpaid babysitting gig. Whatever the situation, once you’ve identified a pattern that you’d like to put a stop to, it’s time to get vocal. By letting them know the effect their behavior is having on you, “we can give people an opportunity to change,” says Tawwab.  Just remember that your end of the conversation is the only thing you can control here. “It takes some willingness on the other person’s part to admit, ‘I hear that, and here’s what I’m able to do about it,” Tawwab says. But in truly dysfunctional families, she adds, people are often unwilling to even hear your grievance, let alone take action. “They may say, ‘Eh, let’s just move past this,’ or try to make you believe that the problem is you, not the situation they’re creating,” she says.

Sharing your feelings, instead of bottling them up and developing your own bad-faith narratives about what might be going on, can head off unnecessary arguments. “When people don’t find a way to communicate that they’re feeling insecure, they tend to blame their partner instead,” Dr. Hoffman says. “It becomes, ‘You’re avoiding me,’ or ‘You’re not answering my calls,’ instead of identifying what the real issue is.” It’s your partner’s job to help you figure out what will make you feel reassured (up to a reasonable point—more on that below). “One of the most important questions in any relationship is, ‘When I need you, are you able to respond in a way that says you understand me, that you care about me?’” DeGeare says. You might require deeper conversations or more sexual connection going forward in order to feel secure, for example. Words of affirmation from your partner, such as “you’re the only one that I want to be with,” can help, says DeGeare, who also suggests repeating mantras to yourself that reinforce those feelings of trust and security (“We’re in this relationship because we want to be”).Make sure you’re not overcompromising.Sacrificing your own needs can happen in any relationship, but Dr. Hoffman sees this play out much faster with long-distance couples because people are eager to agree to whatever it might take to make it work. “You’ll start to say stuff like, ‘I said I needed to talk before bed—but it’s okay that they don’t call me back at night,’” she says. Again, the ability to compromise is a relationship green flag, but there’s a difference between meeting the other person halfway and giving up on the things you value entirely. Ceding your needs little by little can bring on anxiety symptoms like insomnia, tightness in your chest, and intrusive thoughts, Dr. Hoffman says. Left unaddressed, she adds, this anxiety can spur an insatiable need for reassurance that no affirmation or amount of phone calls will satisfy, which in turn leads to tension and arguments. If you find that the compromises you’ve made have slowly led you to feel physical symptoms of anxiety, or you simply feel more bad feelings than good ones when you’re talking with your significant other or thinking about your relationship, you may need to consider breaking up. There’s no shame in saying, “I love you, but a long-distance relationship isn’t working for me,“ DeGeare says. Don’t stay just because you made that aforementioned plan.When one of you has crossed agreed-upon boundaries—cheating, not talking to the other for days on end—that’s obviously a flashing sign that things aren’t working. But DeGeare says she’s seen many LDRs meet a quieter death that both partners are reluctant to acknowledge. “It’s very easy to drag out a long-distance relationship, especially if you’re not fighting,” she says. Letting a stagnant relationship continue happens within in-person relationships too, of course. But in DeGeare’s experience, it’s much easier to do when you’re not in each other’s faces every day, and you may not have realized how easy it’s become to put the other person out of mind when you’re not on the phone together. 

In my relationship, reserving the energy to access our erotic personas has required establishing some structure. Here are a few of our (loose!) rules, plus two sex therapists’ advice on keeping it hot when you’re a tired-out parent.Touch as much as possible throughout the day. Kissing hello and goodbye, couch-snuggling while watching TV, spooning, drive-by butt pats: It’s all money in the sex bank. “There has to be a continuity of touch and sensuality so that it’s not a feast-or-famine situation where you don’t touch all week, and then all of a sudden there’s an expectation to have sex,” Voron says. In other words, foreplay isn’t an activity, it’s a lifestyle.  Prioritize relaxation over sex.Hochberger echoes the need to proactively create the conditions for desire, and prefers to frame sexy time as “relaxation” time to avoid expectations of intercourse or orgasm. In her experience counseling people in heterosexual relationships, “It can be really difficult for some women, more often than men, to snap into the headspace to enjoy sex because of the ‘oh, God, I need to do this NOW’ pressure.” Regardless of your gender or sexual orientation, pressure can evoke a stress response, transmitting a huge “NOPE” to the parts of your brain that control arousal and physical response.  “Our genitals respond to fear, which can result in vaginal clenching and tightness, as well as erectile unpredictability,” Hochberger says. “It causes our bodies to brace, rather than to relax into an experience.”Hochberger suggests lying on your back together with your eyes closed for some deep breathing. Consider emitting a deep sigh or moan on your exhale, she adds (this may make you laugh, and that can be relaxing too!). Breathing can help you access your erotic persona because it relaxes your sympathetic nervous system (associated with the body’s fight-or-flight stress response) and triggers your parasympathetic nervous system (which is related to rest and relaxation), Hochberger says. When your brain is telling your body that it’s safe, you can pay more attention to pleasant physical sensations. You can also try to reset and reconnect by looking into each other’s eyes, or hugging chest-to-chest, for one solid minute. “You’re allowing yourself to turn on another part of your body and shut out the outside world’s distractions,” Hochberger says. If tuning into each other turns into satisfying sex, great. If not, you’re still stoking the intimacy fire.Schedule time for intimacy.“Let go of the belief that scheduling isn’t sexy,” says Voron. “What’s more unsexy is just not having sex until you feel like there’s a spontaneous moment for it.” When you’re up at 6 a.m. every day, working, and shuttling kids to activities, months can fly by before this magical organic moment presents itself.What often happens next, Voron says, is that “one partner becomes convinced there’s a lack of interest from the other—when in reality, you’re both just not being strategic about carving out a time that actually works.” She recommends looking at your calendar together to find a time when your energy-level peaks overlap. For example, you might pick a Tuesday night because work hasn’t zapped your energy reserves and the kids don’t have the swim or karate lessons that delay their bedtimes later in the week. Or, if one or both of you are more of a morning sex person, it could be a stolen hour after daycare drop-off.Go ahead and schedule a backup time too.So many things can pop up to derail your Sunday Sex Night. You’ve suddenly remembered your promise to make cupcakes for a school party, or you’re still catching up on work you had to pause for parent-teacher conferences, or you’re running on three hours of sleep because your toddler refused to stay in bed last night (or they’re refusing to stay in bed now, when you want to hook up). Then there’s the most common culprit:  One or all of you is sick from the latest school-fueled virus. 

This article is part of SELF’s Keep It Hot package, a collection of content that celebrates love and lust. Throughout February, we’ll be dishing out advice and inspiration for feeling hot, getting horny, and nurturing romantic relationships.The first time I told a table of women that my partner and I sleep in separate twin beds, someone immediately asked the question everyone has about our situation, whether or not they say it out loud: “But how do you have sex?” The inquiry came amid a muted mix of oh’s and a couple of “that actually sounds amazing” comments that still seemed to telegraph a silent My SO and I will never, ever do this. But I’m happy to report that my partner and I get busy more often now than we did during the years (years!!!) that we wasted trying to be a one-bed duo. It’s time to stand in my truth—or rather, lie down in it with my personal duvet bunched around my shoulders, unencumbered by the resentment that comes with having a kick-y leg slung over me. Allow me to explain why that’s a turn-on.My partner and I are incompatible in bed. (Sleep. I mean sleep.)My partner of 11 years and I get along wonderfully in our waking hours. But we’re wildly incompatible when it comes to that thing we all spend about 30% of our lives doing. (I’m talking about sleeping, not sex—though if you are devoting a third of your hours to the pursuit of orgasm, I’d like to meet you and give you a Most Fun Person medal.) I’m cursed with lifelong insomnia that ebbs and flows. I’m such a light sleeper that, even with my trusty sleep mask and earplugs, the sound of a kitten’s cough could rouse me with a start. As for my partner…have you ever seen those videos of dreaming dogs that sputter and shake their legs in the air like they’re running? That’s what his periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD) (a condition common in people with restless leg syndrome) looks like, and it kicks in—literally—every 90 seconds. Exactly one and a half minutes after being shaken violently awake, right as I’d get sucked back into delicious drowsiness—BOOM. His double kicks would rock the mattress from side to side. And, while he stayed asleep, I was ten-cups-of-coffee-level alert again. Sometimes his arms would get into the act during a vivid dream too, like the night I was awakened by a flurry of light karate chops to my side. “There was a monster,” he explained, facing my barely visible glare in the dark. “I was defending you!” Funny, because I felt attacked.Cultural pressure to sleep side-by-side made us feel more distant from each other than ever.We loved sharing a bed at one point in our relationship: when we finally moved in together after 15 months of long-distance dating. Maybe it was because our brains were awash in oxytocin after living apart for so long, but when we weren’t having reunion sex, we cozied up and fell into uninterrupted slumber together—on a twin air mattress on the floor of a studio apartment, no less. Sure, from the outset of our relationship, the overwhelming majority of nights found me stumbling from the air mattress to the futon at 4 a.m. on account of bedquakes. But, we reasoned, we just needed to get one of those mattresses that could take a beating without upsetting a giant glass of Merlot, and all would be well. Besides, all happy couples sleep in the same bed, right?

I’ll be running an errand, or in the middle of a jam-packed workday, when an anxious pang hits me: You owe Swati a phone call. Or, God, I have no idea how Molly’s dealing with that thing right now. In the years before my closest friends and I moved to different cities, had kids, or just got swamped with Life Stuff, we saw each other with the enviable frequency of sitcom characters who are constantly walking into one another’s apartments. These days, even with friends who still live nearby, it more often feels like we’re waving longingly to each other from across a lake (this typically takes the form of vague “let’s catch up soon!” text exchanges). When I do manage to connect with a good friend, I feel quantifiably better afterward—like my soul is fluffed up and a little more present inside my body. I’d like to feel that way more often. Equally important: I’d like to be a better and more attentive friend than I’ve been in recent years amid life’s many distractions. (The pandemic further tested the elasticity of my friendships; one 20-year connection that had already endured years of strain snapped entirely, resulting in a friend breakup.) “People have a lot of broken connections in the wake of the pandemic—a number of my clients have a whole different cast of characters in their lives now,” Hope Kelaher, LCSW, author of Here to Make Friends: How to Make Friends as an Adult, tells SELF. An upside of this, Kelaher says, is that some people are realizing the vital importance of existing friendships. “In fact, I’m seeing more and more clients bring friends into therapy sessions,” she says. A slew of surveys suggest that I’m not the only person who’s struggling to prioritize friendship: Even before the isolating impact of the pandemic, people in the US spent way less time with friends than they did in previous decades. Not only can weaker social connections make us less happy, but this isolation is bad for our bodies, too.“Social isolation and loneliness are two different things, but we’re seeing that both of them are leading to a host of negative consequences for physical and mental health,” Laura Whitney Sniderman, MA, founder of Kinnd, a digital platform that aims to help people forge and sustain friendships, tells SELF. For example, studies have linked a lack of human connection to depression and anxiety, poor sleep quality, high blood pressure, and even dementia. Sniderman, who has a masters in clinical and counseling psychology, spends her days immersed in research on the science of friendship. Kinnd’s bond-building model is based on cultivating three qualities of a solid friendship: vulnerability, generosity, and reciprocity. The company’s app, launching sometime this year, will match up prospective pals.While making new friends is wonderful (and necessary, if you’re still looking for your people), “It’s often much easier to work on a meaningful friendship that already exists,” Sniderman says, citing a 2018 study that found it takes an average of 200 hours to achieve BFF-level kinship. Whether (like me) you’re desperately seeking ways to connect with your friends more often or you simply want to grow closer to them, these expert tips can help you strengthen your relationships with your favorite people.1. Set an intention to work on your closest friendships (for most of us, that means up to five people, tops). If you’re not sure how many good friends you’re “supposed” to have to enhance your life, we don’t blame you—we’re all pretty undereducated on the entire topic of being a buddy. “Friendship doesn’t command the same social respect that we’ve been giving romantic relationships, so you don’t see as many resources to support it,” Danielle Jackson, host of the podcast Friend Forward, tells SELF.

This article is part of SELF’s Rest Week, an editorial package dedicated to doing less. If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that taking care of yourself, physically and emotionally, is impossible without genuine downtime. With that in mind, we’ll be publishing articles up until the new year to help you make a habit of taking breaks, chilling out, and slowing down. (And we’re taking our own advice: The SELF staff will be OOO during this time!) We hope to inspire you to take it easy and get some rest, whatever that looks like for you.Quality family time can take many forms, and cozying up on the couch together can be just as meaningful as a game night or group dinner. Spending an evening (or afternoon) watching movies or TV shows gives us an opportunity to switch off all phones, tablets, and game consoles and get completely absorbed in a story together. Beyond the entertainment factor, certain themes and plotlines can provide a jumping-off point for bigger conversations.With that in mind, we’ve rounded up 22 of the best family movies and TV shows to stream or download on Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, and more. We’re hooking you up with comfort watches, stunning documentaries, and a certain beloved cartoon about an Australian dog clan (Bluey forever). Throughout, we focused on parent-vetted options that people of all ages will actually enjoy, as well as a handful of picks better suited for family members who can’t count their age on their fingers.When it comes to what’s “age-appropriate,” that’s a call we’ll leave up to you: Some parents prefer to stick to ultralight fare and avoid tough topics altogether, while others among us were introduced to horror movies by the third grade. (Not to worry; this list is 100% free of major frights—and onscreen makeout sessions that can be awkward to watch with people you’re related to.) No matter your taste, we’re confident you’ll find a new favorite on this list of the best TV shows and movies to watch with your family. 1. Anne with an EContentThis content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

The good news, according to Dr. Bobby, is that situational rage is the least complicated type of misdirected anger to work on. “The first step is recognizing, I’m not myself right now; I’m going through something difficult that’s making me think and feel in angry ways,” she says. “Instead of following your feelings, it’s much more helpful to say to yourself, I’m not going to get tricked into believing this narrative is true.”Take this scenario: You’re healing from a surgery and the pain is making you irritable to the extent that it’s clouding the lens you view life through: A slightly messy home looks hopelessly squalid to you. Whether or not you’re partly to blame for said disarray, you’re now furious with your partner for “never” cleaning up. Dr. Bobby recommends asking yourself, “How are my emotions coloring this story?” before you accuse your partner of chronic disrespect, which will likely leave them hurt, confused, and/or defensive.In other words, rewriting your anger-provoking narrative may create some space between you and the hot feelings that seem to be whispering, “Slam the cabinet doors real loud and just go OFF!” in your ear.Examine the patterns you learned from your family.The behavior and beliefs you’ve learned from your family of origin can majorly inform how you handle most things, including anger. “When we’ve watched them either raging or bottling stuff up and then exploding, we unconsciously absorb that as how to be in the world—particularly in relationships,” Dr. Bobby says.This can be uniquely complicated for those raised within a non-Western family culture, Siddiqi says. “A lot of first-, second-, and third-generation children grew up in families where anger wasn’t really talked about because it was a collectivist culture,” she explains. “It was never about their individual needs, but about what’ll keep the family unit happy.”Ultimately, Siddiqi says, this can lead to “a lot of cognitive dissonance” and pent-up frustration that people never learned to express directly. “Some clients that I work with will be totally fine with their parents on the surface, but actually be really angry at them about something and then take it out on their partner,” she explains.Siddiqi works with clients from a variety of cultural backgrounds to help them unlearn family-modeled patterns of destructive behavior through reflection and devising new “scripts,” meaning clearer language that lets them express their true emotions. “You’d be surprised at how many times people tell me, ‘I want to express my anger, but I don’t even know what to say,’” she says. “A lot of people don’t have the emotional education to know the difference between healthy and defensive words, or that a ‘you’ statement versus an ‘I’ statement can have a really big impact on the other person.”For example, when you’re asking for that alone time after work, Siddiqi recommends saying something like, “When I come home, I need time by myself before I share about my day. I feel overwhelmed when you ask me a lot of questions at once. I’d like to talk in 15 minutes so I can decompress. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

Staying fully present isn’t always easy, though, when you live in a go-go-go society that can make reading alone in a park with your notifications muted feel like a rebellious, or even guilt-inducing, act. “We’re often so focused on doing the next thing that we’re not truly noticing what’s happening in front of us,” Mancao says. “We’re constantly doing multiple things at once, so it can be really helpful for people to practice slowing down and doing one thing at a time, with awareness.”Being present and appreciating what’s right in front of you can be a powerful act, and doesn’t have to take much time out of your day. “The #romanticizeyourlife TikToks I love most are the ones where people post, ‘I have 10 minutes in the morning and I use it to read’ or ‘I take a few minutes out of my day to journal’—small, attainable things,” says Hoffman.It can also reaffirm what you already love to do—and help you enjoy those things more.When the romanticize-your-life trend took off early in the pandemic, many of us were isolated from our larger communities, and activities that had previously shaped our sense of self vanished overnight. A lot of people sought ways to give our suddenly-restricted daily lives meaning, whether that took the form of baking sourdough bread, whipping up Dalgona coffee, or tie-dying…everything.And even though the most intense days of isolation have passed, Hoffman says many of us are still getting reacquainted with ourselves and trying to connect with what brings us joy, which is where focusing on simple pleasures comes in. “There’s still so much going on in this quote-unquote ‘post-COVID world,’ and romanticizing your life is about trying to find those small moments where you can feel good and take care of yourself,” Hoffman says.When looking for ways to do that, Hoffman recommends starting by asking yourself, What do I already do in my daily life that I can turn into a mindfulness practice? “As a therapist, I can tell you that convincing someone to add another thing to their to-do list is tough,” she says. “But if you’re someone who naturally takes a walk, for example, you can turn your phone off or maybe listen to something that really calms you down. Or, if you’re someone who takes long showers, you can think about how the hot water feels against your skin.”It might help you find the magic in mundane moments.In a September 2022 video, TikToker @liebmaple managed to romanticize something most city-dwellers don’t just take for granted, but actively grumble about: Commuting on mass transit.“As a kid, I always dreamed of taking the train every day to work or school because that wasn’t a thing where I grew up,” she says over a video of herself reading while listening to music on a train. “It’s such a simple thing, taking the train, but I’m insanely grateful.”Unable to muster appreciation for your packed rush-hour train trip? We get it. Romanticizing your life as a gratitude exercise is about finding your thing, or things, and cultivating a practice around them. That could be as small as buying a pack of your favorite ballpoint pens and luxuriating in how the ink glides across the page as you write in your journal every morning.In other words, the ultimate goal of romanticizing your life, according to Hoffman and Mancao, should be finding your own ways to stay present, ones that are authentic to you—not the life of another TikToker who is luxuriating in an Italian villa or “noticing” how good it feels to apply their $300 skin care routine. “We can fall into a comparison trap if we look at somebody else’s romanticization of their life,” Mancao says. Instead, “Look at these videos as inspirations, not as rigid guidelines.” Better yet, look around for inspo in your own life. After all, you’re the main character in that romance.Related:

You want to avoid blaming statements that start with “you” or “you always…” too, since they can also put people in defensive mode. “Try to keep it problem-focused, not personality-based,” Wessell says, and do your best to focus on one issue at a time, as opposed to hitting them with a list of complaints, which can, yep, also put them on guard. If you’re in a group-living situation and one person is the main source of the stress, Wessell suggests choosing one roommate to talk to them, because “having an intervention can make someone feel like you’re teaming up on them.”4. Don’t leave a note. Don’t post about it, either.While related to our previous tip, this one deserves its own space: Releasing your roommate rage in a sharply worded Post-it note or Finsta post can feel so satisfying in the moment, but it won’t improve your situation. It will likely lead to eye rolls from your roomie, deepened distrust, and possible mutual-friend drama.In assessing how good of a roommate you’re being (gasp), Mayone says to ask yourself, “Are you doing anything to throw fuel on the fire? Are you being indirect?” Passive aggressive moves aren’t always malicious, of course—they can also stem from shyness or issues with conflict—but they usually just make matters worse, she says. If you’re nervous about speaking up, taking a couple of deep breaths and keeping your complaint, again, focused on the behavior can prevent the conversation from getting too heated.5. Pick your battles.Which mildly irritating human quirks can you live with? You hate the smell of the hazelnut coffee they brew every morning, for example, but does it impede your ability to thrive in school? No. “Learning to tolerate someone that you maybe don’t prefer to be around is an excellent life skill—and one that you’ll have to use in the workplace all the time,” Wessell says.Plus complaints about relatively minor issues can drown out the important ones. This might make your roommate less likely to pay attention (or care) when you have a valid concern, like the fact that they’re always (loudly) FaceTiming with their back-home girlfriend when you’re trying to study or crank out a paper.6. Talk to a neutral third party if you need to.Wessell, who works as a therapist for resident advisors in her role at OSU, recommends confiding in your RA, if you’re living in a dorm, after attempts at direct communication with your roommate aren’t working. “This isn’t your mom or dad, this is not your landlord—it’s a person with lived experience in dorms who’s good at problem-solving,” she says. Your RA may have been in a similar situation in the recent past and could therefore offer you some valuable insight and advice.Wessell adds that if you’re experiencing reportable harassment—say, related to race, ability, sexuality, gender—feel generally unsafe, or if your roommate committed a crime such as theft, your RA can also help get the proper campus officials involved. If you’re living in a campus apartment, you can try contacting your school’s student affairs division for help.

Madeline Brewer earned a 2021 Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Janine Lindo on The Handmaid’s Tale (which returns to Hulu for season five on September 14). While viewers have watched Janine survive one trauma after another in Gilead, the show has also revealed some of the character’s backstory prior to becoming Ofwarren, including the safe and legal abortion she underwent at a clinic before giving birth to her son, Caleb. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, millions of people across the US have lost their reproductive freedom. This terrifying shift moved Brewer to share via a June Instagram post that she also had an abortion offscreen at age 20. Here, she tells SELF her abortion story in full, as told to writer Samantha Vincenty, and she explains why she’s never regretted her choice.I grew up in a historically white town in New Jersey that was pretty conservative at the time; it had 13 churches within a 2-square-mile radius, so when it came to the residents’ views toward reproductive health, interpret that as you will. But my own parents were very “choose your own adventure” about religion. My mom is one badass feminist, and she instilled a lot of that in me. My view on abortion was always “whatever you need to do for your body.”That said, when I was growing up, I never saw a single TV show in which a person made this decision and the doctor was supportive, in the way we portrayed Janine’s experience on The Handmaid’s Tale. Both onscreen and in the world around me, abortion was a whispered word.I was 20 years old when I got pregnant; at the time, I was attending acting school in Manhattan while living in Queens. I was an emotionally guarded person back then with no clue of who I was or what I wanted, really. All I knew was that I wanted to be an actor.Like so many people, I didn’t even realize that I’d become pregnant until weeks afterward. My boyfriend and I had used a condom the last time we’d had sex. I’d missed a period, but that wasn’t unusual for me: I was in college, stressed out, and dancing five days a week, so my body was already going through a lot.By strange coincidence, I booked Orange Is the New Black on the same day that I got pregnant. Two weeks later, after the greatest night of my life filming my first TV show, I was mugged on the streets of Queens while walking home from the studio. I remember being frightened for my life. But to be honest, I was generally scared of everything in those days. When I look back at myself on that first season of Orange, I think, God, that girl was so lost. And it was during this time that I had to make this huge life decision to terminate a pregnancy.