Sadness
Some women have a sense of loss after an abortion. Some don’t at all. There are varying degrees of sadness — from a-little-sad to grief-stricken. Explore exactly what you are feeling sad about, so it isn’t just a vague, “blah” feeling. Then you are able to fix it.
“I really wanted a baby, but I just couldn’t provide for it… I saw the abortion as the death of my baby and my dreams… I felt empty… I felt alone because my boyfriend left me… I had wanted the baby, but my doctors advised against it due to my health.”
Positive Ways Of Coping With Sadness
“Go ahead and have a good cry. Then look at what you have gained instead of just dwelling on what you lost.”
“You can feel sad knowing it was for the best.”
“Don’t hide behind ‘being strong.’ The real courage is telling your true feelings to someone who will listen.”
“Beware of dreamy fantasies about how wonderful it would have been to have the baby, be realistic and imagine what it really would have been like for everyone involved.”
“Be ready for the possibility that you may feel a loss you never felt before. Then it won’t surprise you if it comes. If you feel sad, go ahead and grieve, but don’t let it run your life. Set aside a time of day for it, but the rest of the time, go about your business.”
“If you needed the abortion for your health, don’t say you were selfish. Your life counts too. My priest told me that God doesn’t want us to harm ourselves if the pregnancy is too risky.”
“If you had an abortion because the baby was deformed, think about this: How would you feel if you had the baby and it was severely deformed or retarded?”
Grieving a Loss
When you experience a loss, you need to grieve. Knowing about the stages of grieving can help you to understand what you are going through. The stages of grieving are
1. Denial — “This can’t be happening to me.” “I feel numb, like it’s not real.”
2. Depression and anger — “I feel sad, depressed, and tired.” “I’m angry that this is happening to me!”
3. Acceptance — “I accept that it happened and I am finding peace of mind.”
These stages of grief are painful but necessary to achieve peace of mind. Moving through grief can be like following a jagged line. You may move forward and backward. Don’t think you’re not doing well just because you have setbacks. They are normal. If you have had other losses in your life and not grieved fully, then things can multiply. “I had a miscarriage, then my baby died of crib death a few years before I had my abortion. I never got over them because I had tried to put them out of my mind. It messed me up and after the abortion, all that pain came flooding over me.” If you don’t grieve each loss at the time it happens, it may return later, often at the time of another loss. It is better to grieve each loss as it comes than to bear multiple losses at once.
Destructive Behaviors to Avoid
“Don’t do what I did. I started doing drugs and alcohol to avoid feeling.”
“I stopped eating and starved myself.”
“I slept all the time so I didn’t have to feel.”
“I ate all the time and didn’t care how I looked or felt.”
“I cut myself off and just cried all the time.”
“After my boyfriend left me, I told myself I was bad and would never find another man to love me. That wasn’t true, but I made myself feel lousy by thinking it.”
“I pushed it out of my mind and refused to think about it. It didn’t go away. It exploded in my face later.”
If you find yourself thinking these kinds of things then see a counsellor. Some people think that having counselling is a weakness, but it takes strength to ask for help.
Regret
When you experience a loss, you need to grieve. Knowing about the stages of grieving can help you to understand what you are going through. The stages of grieving are
1. Denial — “This can’t be happening to me.” “I feel numb, like it’s not real.”
2. Depression and anger — “I feel sad, depressed, and tired.” “I’m angry that this is happening to me!”
3. Acceptance — “I accept that it happened and I am finding peace of mind.”
These stages of grief are painful but necessary to achieve peace of mind. Moving through grief can be like following a jagged line. You may move forward and backward. Don’t think you’re not doing well just because you have setbacks. They are normal. If you have had other losses in your life and not grieved fully, then things can multiply. “I had a miscarriage, then my baby died of crib death a few years before I had my abortion. I never got over them because I had tried to put them out of my mind. It messed me up and after the abortion, all that pain came flooding over me.” If you don’t grieve each loss at the time it happens, it may return later, often at the time of another loss. It is better to grieve each loss as it comes than to bear multiple losses at once.
Reasons for Feeling Regret
Some women who feel regret think that they didn’t live up to their values. For example, they may criticise themselves for not having the child and then giving it up for adoption. They feel that they were “weak”. There are women who feel ashamed because they believe abortion is unforgivable and can’t bear to admit they had one.
They say they “didn’t know what they were doing,” and can blame the doctor, legalised abortion, the clinic, or their partner or parents. They fool themselves to ward off feelings of self-hatred and self-destruction. This is understandable but there are better ways of coping.
What to Do
Talking to a counsellor is a better way to gain peace of mind. A counsellor can help you stop blaming others, accept responsibility for your actions, forgive yourself, regain your self-respect, and move on with your life. Regretting a decision you can’t undo is a waste.
Making peace with yourself can improve your whole life. Help yourself deal with regret by writing down exactly what your situation and feelings were at the time. The closer to the abortion you do this, the more useful it will be. Keep that paper where you can find it.
Whenever memory fades and you wonder why you didn’t have the baby, read it and remember. You made the best decision you could at the time. It is never fair to judge past decisions with present knowledge. We can’t see the future. There are endless regrets we could torture ourselves but it’s much better to create joy now and plan for a good future.
