I post again, only 8 months after my first medical abortion and in 3 days time I am off for another.
By anonymous on 12/03/2007
I post again, only 8 months after my first medical abortion and in 3 days time I am off for another. This time, after binning off my married lover once and for all, I found a new man, who I fell hard and fast for and everything seemed perfect. We talked about having a baby (well, he talked and I listened) and in the end I agreed to have my coil removed and start trying for a baby. I got pregnant straight away and as I write this I am 6 weeks + 2 days. He was delighted when I told him; I became petrified.Basically, we have now split up. I want nothing more to do with him and I am having this abortion no matter what. I have thought about it over and over again and it seems the fairest thing to do for everyone involved. I do not want to be a single mother. I do not want to have a baby and then one day settle with a man who has to accept my ex's child. I could, but I am choosing not to. I have a plan for my life that does not include this. Then again it did not include two abortions in less than a year with two different men of equal a**holeness. I will be going alone this time.
My sister who is my role model and who I look up to has said she will come with me and look after me. I cajoled her and agreed. She does not know I am going on Tuesday. I cannot let her see me in that pain and see what I am going through.
Despite my ordeal with my previous abortion, I feel I HAVE to go through it again, almost because I feel I deserve the pain and the physical loss. Now I know I have problems when I can honestly admit that I want to experience the pain to help me experience the loss. No doubt I will be back with my latex gloves on fishing around again at some point, I hasten to add. I will be doing this one alone. I will drive myself to the appointment and am having it all done in one day. I feel I deserve the pain. Maybe it will be cleansing in a way. I don't know. I do think I need some help and that this has affected me deeper than I imagined. To see me from the outside and to talk to me, even my previous counsellor could not believe the kind of life I was leading, so I find it hard to think that I am able to be helped.
Editor’s note: Thank you for writing in again…Do you know there are two kinds of sorrow? There’s the sorrow that feels like we must pay for what we’ve done – a kind of penance, if you like. We feel the urge to pay the price in the currency of pain and suffering. Trouble is, it’s never enough and, in the end, we become more and more self-punishing and self-hating to the point of hopelessness. We go that way alone. It’s some of this sorrow I hear in what you’ve written.
If you are going to have this abortion on Tuesday just so you can connect with the pain in your life and somehow pay for or be punished for the things in your life you feel bad about, then I can assure you the relief will be only temporary, and in the end, it will compound the way you feel about yourself and make things worse. This kind of sorrow doesn’t lead to cleansing. Nor will it restore the independence and control of your life that you thought you had.
Whatever the circumstances of your life, your heart is what needs attention right now.
There is another kind of sorrow. It’s the sorrow that says I can do nothing to pay for this; all I can do is receive forgiveness. But you need someone else to help you with that. Whatever you have done in your life, whatever you think of yourself, you are a person worth loving and caring for. You don't have to go through this punishment and penance. You have a choice about this too. I invite you to talk to someone as soon as you can on the helpline or visit a centre on Monday.
