It's honestly crazy what's happened to you, I am so sorry, and I hope you're doing better now. Congratulations also on becoming a parent!

That being said, as a more experienced writer on Medium, I can recommend that you simply share a friend's link of your articles at the start of each article. That way, when someone without a membership sees the article they can still read it. That way you can continue writing and still not gate keep. Because otherwise, you just might as well join Substack: write for free, gate-keep articles to a few paying subscribers when you've reached a significant enough number of followers.