‘Teen Mom’ Star Amber Portwood Isn’t Ready To Talk About Her Mental Health With Leah
We’ve seen the stars of Teen Mom struggle with a lot of different things in their lives, from addiction to abuse to mental health. One of the hardest challenges of all, though, is how the MTV stars talk to their kids about those topics when the subjects come up. For Amber Portwood, she’s decided that particular coversation isn’t one she’s ready to have yet with Leah. While talking to Us Weekly, the Teen Mom OG star revealed that it’s something they’ll have to work up to in the future.
“Leah doesn’t really know much about my mental health,” Amber told Us. “She just knows about [how] Mommy had, like, trouble in the past for drugs,” the 28-year-old explained, referring to her battle with opiate abuse. “That’s kind of where we’re going to keep that until we get to a place where she really understands.”
She’s making sure she pays more attention to when Leah feels ready than when she feels ready, though. “She’s starting to be older,” Amber continued. “She pretty much is acting like a teenager. You know, it’s like nine [years old] going on 14, so if she starts feeling a certain way, that’s my time to open up to her, to make her feel better, to understand that she’s not alone and that I went through this too.”
The mom of two is also making sure that she works around what’s best for Leah in all avenues, including scheduled visits. “She literally wants to do her own thing, so if that means she doesn’t come over on a weekend I’m supposed to have her, I go over there [to Leah’s dad Gary Shirley‘s house] and visit her then,” she said. “That’s what we’ve been doing… We spend, I think, a lot more time together now than we did before, which is so amazing.”
One of her favorite things about spending time with Leah is seeing how she interacts with her new baby brother. Amber and her new boyfriend Andrew Glennon welcomed their son James back in May. “The way that we are when we spend time together is just, like, the best moments, I swear, of my life, especially seeing her with James,” she said. “It’s amazing.”
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