Flint is a faraway town in a state I’ve never visited. But I’ve felt a strong connection with the place ever since I learned about the water crisis there. Over the course of almost two years, 100,000 people were fed lies, repeatedly, about the safety of their water. Lead and other harmful contaminants poured from their faucets, causing irreversible harm not just to their brains — lead is a neurotoxic chemical known to shave off IQ points and make people more violent — but also to their souls.

I lived through the DC water crisis more than a decade ago. I had a baby, and I was doing my best to protect her, and I felt so frustrated by my own ineptitude in the face of the tainted water. That’s why, as the Flint water crisis began to make national waves, I kept thinking about the moms. How they were coping. What they were feeling. And I wanted to tell some of their stories.

The Flint moms I spoke to relayed a stunning array of health problems. I heard about seizures, elevated blood pressure, bone breaks, hair loss, rashes, intestinal problems, fatigue, and coughing. I heard about grades going down, about bones aching, and about weight loss and weight gain. All of these things may or may not have been related to the water, which still corroded the city’s pipes from the inside, delivering stunningly high lead levels directly to people’s water glasses.

Whether or not the contaminated water caused these problems for the moms of Flint, their trust is broken now. They love their community, but they are wary of it. They’ve been betrayed. They’ve had their hearts broken. Hearing their stories broke mine too.

Please read my article about Flint here.