What My Mother Never Taught Me About Birth Control

Camrese birth control

 Photo taken by T.C.

It must have been around the age of 10 when I overheard a telephone conversation my Jamaican mother was having with a relative: "All I know is when Tamika get her period, mi a go put a coil up her ass!"

Terrified is an understatement of how I felt when I heard her say this. I thought I was going to get a beating for getting my menstrual cycle. "What kind of punishment is a coil?" I thought to myself. It took my mother almost a year and half before she found out that I started my period. My first cycle came around the age of 13.