Stacey Abrams is a woman who has always kept irons in the fire. She’s an Ivy League–educated lawyer—Yale class of ‘99—and the writer of eight romance novels, all published under the pen name Selena Montgomery. She’s a business consultant and the cofounder of a beverage company that focuses on infants and toddlers. She’s the former Minority Leader of the Georgia General Assembly and the first black woman to lead in the House of Representatives, where she served for a decade. Oh—and she’s currently running for governor of the Peach State. Suffice it to say: She’s got a lot going on.

Yet, despite all the bona fides, boundary breaking, and her rising star status in state government, Abrams is far from immune to a problem that plagues a lot of people in America: crushing debt. In an essay she wrote for Fortune this week, the gubernatorial candidate opened up about the $50,000 in deferred taxes she owes the IRS as well as the more than $170,000 in credit card and student loan debt she’s trying to pay off.

“I am in debt, but I am not alone,” she wrote. “Debt is a millstone that weighs down more than three quarters of Americans.” It’s also an issue that especially affects women, who hold an estimated two thirds of student loan debt in the U.S., as well as 63 percent of credit card debt. But, as Abrams went on: “It should not—and cannot—be a disqualification for ambition.”

In her case: It hasn’t been. But that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been hard, and even sometimes humiliating. Glamour spoke to Abrams about making the choice to go out on a financial limb—and why even if it's cost her, it's been well worth it.

Glamour: Debt is fairly normalized in our culture. But I think it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around $200,000. Can you explain how that came to be?

Stacey Abrams: I’ve always been very cognizant of how much time I’ve spent in my head weighing whether I can take chances or opportunities because of money, and sometimes because of my mistakes with money. I learned financial literacy by racking up credit card and student loan debt. I managed to pay off the credit card when I started practicing law in 1999.

But five years later I was back in debt again because my parents had the catastrophic experience of Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out the community in which they served as ministers. I became their primary source of income. A year later they adopted my niece because my brother and his girlfriend weren’t able to care for their child, and that has also been my financial responsibility for the past 15 years. In order to pay for that, I had to defer my taxes. What I decided is: I can defer taxes. But I can’t defer cancer treatment for my parent, I can’t defer health care insurance, I can’t defer food and shelter for my niece.

Glamour: Do you feel like there is a gendered element to those expectations that goes beyond family loyalty?

SA: Women are often called upon to be the backbone. Not just in the moral and emotional way, but in a very real financial way. It’s often daughters who take in aging parents; it’s the moms and grandmas who take in children who need support. That’s not to diminish the role that men play, but for women—especially in Western culture—there’s an expectation that we’re responsible. When you layer that with the wealth gap and the income gap, we’re expected to do more but we know that we make less, and we have to cover more. And it winds up having a crippling effect of women’s access to power.