Are You Suffering from Post Abortion Stress?

Yeah, this isn't stressful.

Okay, fine. It's 2011, I'm done being afraid.

I had an abortion.

I was 20. My father had left, and I had dropped out of college to work two jobs to help my mother keep her house and buy medications for her and my sister. Not the time for a baby.

I don't regret it. At all. I love children, but I've never wanted children of my own. Then was certainly not the time. As for adoption, I was barely eating at that point (No, mom, I'm not hungry, don't worry about it, buy Sissy's inhaler . . .). I certainly couldn't afford to take time off- unpaid- to give birth.

I do occasionally wonder about what my life would have been like had I chosen differently. Just the other day, I looked around at all the high school kids on the bus and realized I would have been on that bus with a 15 year old, my 15 year old. It wasn't regret, though. It was more like realizing that some now famous actor was in a show you like when you were a kid. "Oh, weird."

Life is like that. You make choices. Those choices preclude other choices, and eventually you are left wondering what could have been, not with regret, but with curiosity. What if I hadn't married him? What if I had tried to make the band work instead of going to college? What if, what if, what if? If you've made it to 35 without a few what ifs, you haven't made any choices at all.

Anyway, you can see where I'm coming from when I read about Post Abortion Stress.

If you have had an abortion(s), you may be suffering from post-abortion stress. Answering the following questions can help you figure out how the abortion(s) may have effected your life.

Do you feel nervous or anxious at the idea of telling a loved one about your abortion? Is your abortion a secret that is holding you back from greater intimacy with others?

I'm sorry, where do these people live? Mars? Certainly not the United States. In the US, abortion providers are murdered, abortion clinics are picketed every day and a million different blogs call me a murderer and worse- and I'm supposed to be comfortable telling anyone I had an abortion? I'm not comfortable telling you under a pseudonym. I've wrestled with it for years. But that's a symptom of a pseudo-psychiatric condition caused by abortion.

Fuck off.

It's my business, not yours. There is no reason for anyone to know that I've had an abortion. It's no more your business than what brand of tampon I use. I don't even tell gynecologists that I've had an abortion. Why? Because I have no way of knowing if the gynecologist, or her staff, is prolife, and I'd rather not find that out when my feet are in the stirrups- or after the receptionist tells everyone about it. These things happen.

But that's not stressful.

When you do choose to share your abortion experience with others, are you overcome with strong feelings such as anger, sorrow, grief, or guilt?

Do you have trouble talking about the abortion issue as a political issue? When you do talk about it, do you find it hard to respect opposing views, or do you becoming overly emotional, either in support of or opposition to it?

Who the fuck is calm about abortion in the US? See that picture above? That was one of the nicest pictures I could find. The vast majority included bloodied baby dolls and words I won't reprint here. Prolifers call me a murderer and then wonder why I might get a touch worked up when discussing abortion.

Seriously, fuck off.

Do you tend to look at life in terms of "before" and "after" the abortion(s)?

Sure. I also look at life in terms of before and after college, before and after my father left, and before and after I got married.

Have you experienced "reconnectors" to your abortion, such as nightmares, flashbacks, or hallucinations, such as hearing a baby cry?

Where on earth are these people having abortions, 1647, perhaps, or in the midst of a battle in Vietnam? Here's a quick description of a surgical abortion: it's just like a regular gynecological exam, except it hurts more, though no more than bad cramping with your period. It takes less than five minutes. It neither sounds nor feels like much, and they give you Valium anyway, so you're a little drowsy and out of it. An abortion is a medical procedure, not a tour of duty.

Was there a period after your abortion when you experienced an increase in the use of alcohol or drugs (illegal or prescription)? Have you experienced other forms of emotional deadening?

Have you experienced any suicidal thoughts? Do you take risks that put your life in danger? Do you try to hurt yourself? Have you developed any eating disorders?

There are no other possible explanations for mental illness or addictive behaviors once you've had an abortion! It's all about the uterus with women, after all. (There are 12 questions like this.)

Have you lost your faith? Have you lost a sense of God's peace? Do you think God still loves you? Are you afraid of God? Have your rejected belief in God for emotional reasons rather than thoughtful reasons?

Wow. That would be odd. I mean all those prolifers telling us how terrible abortions are and calling us murderers, it would be so strange for a woman to feel that God hated her if she had an abortion. Inexplicable, even.

Again and again and again, fuck off.