Hi loves, hope you are well this new year, this blog post is going to be triggering for some but liberating.
I will be sharing my experience with post-abortion trauma, but please note I am not a mental health expert in any way.
This is a mixture of my lived experience and the research I’ve done over the years.
There is a debate by medical experts on whether post abortion trauma or Syndrome is a real thing. I agree with the debate in so far as the argument that the abortion itself doesn’t cause trauma or depression.
But I truly believe the circumstances around the termination combined with our socialisation as human beings and specifically women into believing that each and every pregnancy is a blessing play a role in the mental and emotional state after a termination.
I have had three abortions in total, one illegal and two safe and legal. There were differences in all of these but also some similarities. I am the co-founder of a group on Facebook called Abortion Support South Africa and the stories I hear from people who have had abortions often mirror my own or are different and some in need of therapy:
Some of the signs of trauma that I have experienced and others have shared with me include:
-Feeling incredible loss
-Feeling incredible guilt due to stigma
-Post Traumatic Stress disorder from an unsafe physically traumatic termination
-Some safe abortions can be extremely painful as well
-Anxiety about future pregnancies
All of these and probably more are real but we dont hear about them, talk about it because abortion is severely stigmatized and often we find ourselves alone.
In 2009 I was raped by an ex boyfriend, got pregnant and experienced a very traumatic unsafe abortion. I was a teenager in my first year of university.
I had overwhelming feelings of guilt for 3 years after that. I was depressed, my self-esteem was so eroded I felt unworthy of anything good.
It was only until I attended a seminar of some sort on abortion at Varsity that my life changed. One of the speakers was a tutor of mine who I respected very much.
I left the seminar feeling angry that I live in a society that treats abortion as a moral issue instead of a human rights issue.
I left knowing I was a victim of the system not of my own decisions.
I say that because abortion is a constitutional right and I should have fully understood that in my 2009 and gotten support. I should have by law not been turned away from a public facility when I went to inquire about getting a termination.
The abortion preoccupied me more than the rape because of all the myths and stigma around it.
The decision to terminate is not an easy one because of many different factors. I was faced with the decision again years later but this time i wanted to stay pregnant but my situation was not allowing, so, i had to terminate.
Thats when loss hit me, with an abortion it feels you shouldn't feel loss because you terminated, but I call bullshit on that. Some of the things we loose we chose to lose it doesn't make it easy to loose them.
What killed inside was the what ifs, what comforted me was knowing just because I was pregnant, there were no gaurantees. I've experienced a miscarriage- So I know about no gaurantees.
If you have experienced forms of trauma above, I am you ❤️
If someone you know confides in you about their termination, don’t be an asshole, be supportive, and remove judgment. It has no place there.
If you find yourself struggling, please see if you can get professional help. Some therapist or counsellors are problematic and judge, beware of those.
Please share this, someone might benefit.
Do you relate?