I don't know what to do. I despise contraception, because i use it, the double-dutch method if i can get it, and it still bloody fails!
Right now i'm so depressed i can't function - maybe that's the fact that i've not been able to clear my bowels for weeks, that i sleep 16 hours a day and i feel like throwing up even though im starving. I'm miserable beyond words.
I'm sure my boyfriend will either leave or well, become so remote our relationship will just wither.
I think an abortion is probably best for me. I had one before - i didn't want to but my boyfriend and i agreed it was the best thing to do, and I was very upset about it, it was the single most excruciatingly painful experience of my life, but this time it doesn't seem taboo, i feel much more...grown up about it. I just don't think i should ever have children, maybe the last abortion traumatised me, but i don't want children anymore. But i don't want to go threw with the abortion because it is so painful and messy and i'm worried afterwards i WILL change my mind - i'm so contrary. Add to that i still feel like a murderer for last time because that child was wanted (if not planned). This one was actually wished for...then i got my wish without trying for it and oh my god, what was i thinking! I don't want this! I don't i really don't, i'm not ready, motherhood is not beautiful, it is HELL. Even if you have just 1 child to raise, is it still not a financial drain and an absolute unremitting nightmare? I have no patience, and i am incapable of loving something that doesn't show me love, i'm one of those people who completely switches off when slighted, i don't like it, but it's my hard wiring.
I thought...when i have kids i'll be much more enlightened, i'll be matured...i'll own a house with a forest and i'll be able to teach them philosophy. It's all gone array!
I just think i'll be a terrible mother. I'm planning on starting a phd in clinical psychology, i'm still studying for my MA, i know i'll get help from the state to pay for child care etc but that feels like sponging....i was planning on keeping my savings for buying a cello! Not for putting a deposit on a house to rent! I will not be a stay at home mum ever, whatever age i am - this is the sort of example i want to make to my children in any case. But i don't know if i can cope with that.
I am a lazy cow i think, i might not be a party animal, but i do what i want when i want, i just...go, wandering alone at night with my camera, to the shore, ok, it's a bit lonely, but maybe i'm a loner. I'm worried i don't have the personality to have someone with me all the time, i'm too selfish. I will resent it. And children are just so damn ungrateful! I was a horrible horrible little brat and all my cousins etc have given their parents total hell too, and the father isn't much to go by either.
I just can't think of anything good about parenting. It's stressful, it's messy, babies and toddlers are unappealing and unattractive little mites who make mess and scream. Parks bore me. I have no idea what to do with little kids, older ones i like, little ones....hm, and then, i've not spent much time with older ones either.
I often find that my life feels dull now i admit, that i would possibly welcome a distraction - but i need 8 hours sleep or i turn into a terrifying hydra. i'm not a going out sort of person, though i make a big effort, i have a few not so close friends, a not close family who live miles away (not my choice; they just aren't very loving people, my mum all but threw me out when i was 15 because she wanted her space back) but that tells me having a child will be harder not easier = no support networks.
My boyfriend is taciturn and hot and cold which upsets me deeply. He doesn't want children until we are financially secure. Curiously when we first dated 5 years ago he was lovely and affectionate, he taught me how to love because i'd never experienced love before, but now we've swapped roles completely, now the more affection i show him, the more he takes me for granted and flirts with other women etc.
I am under no illusions (from experience of my family) that children get on with their parents, no, they argue, throw violent tantrums, grow up, piss off to the other side of the country and phone you occasionally if you're lucky - it seems like child bearing is a cruel joke. Funny...i've only started thinking like this since i was pregnant. I've read most parents regret their children, or rather, the oppotunities they prevented them having. I'm not sure what they will be; my cousin was a mother at 20 but she manages fine, but i just feel very, very uneasy. I can't even drive for goodness sake!
I'm terrified of losing my 20 something stomach to stretch-mark ridden bloat (like my hips, and breasts, got stretch marks as a teenager) I starved for many years to get from being an overweight teen to a slim and attractive 20 year old. That was suffering.
I know that IF my boyfriend was behind me, i'd go for it, because i'd have what i've always wanted - security, he is emphatically NOT, and i don't trust him at all because he is not reliable. He is sensible however, but we have no security, little money, and we have things rotting in the fridge because we are both still in the student frame of thinking...
So weird, a year ago i would have loved all the responsibility of being a mum, because i was at a lose end, but now i'm career directed and i think i must have gotten smarter or wiser, because all i can see now is a long tunnel of depression and physical and emotional pain - and i feel so ill. Post natal depression for me do you think?
And being a single mum? The thought terrifies me. I'll hurt it, ignore it, i won't be able to cope and my family will consider me a failure, again. I'm one of those people who buys a new toy and sends it back when they get bored..i know i can't do that with a child and i am TERRIFIED. Absolutly terrified. What if we don't like each other? I know if i give birth and my partner isn't there i will just cry and cry and it will be so much more difficult.
I want to send it to private school - can i be sure i can afford that by the time its old enough?? I can't say i have a hundred things to do that a child would prevent, i don't actually have that much i want to do other than write and paint and research. All i can think is, this man doesn't love me enough to love our child...and i want a family that is loving and secure because i've never had that. I just don't want to feel so scared and stressed and unloved and unwanted by this world that has lost all the magic i saw as a child...and i don't want my child to feel like that either. I don't want a burden, i don't want my child to feel burdened with me! I don't want to be tied to anything because it terrifies me, i want to be like a chameleon...(i love that movie chocolate, if i could have that and my child then i'd be happy, lol, unrealism.)
And what about a sex life? Dating? I read damage to the vagina can = never to have good sex again! My favourite past time! i can do some amazing things with those muscles at the moment. My boyfriend may not be interested anymore...well, he wont. And i am pathetically weak - i mean, i go queasy from the pain of a paper cut. Childbirth? I'll be traumatized for life. and then what if i DIE! I have books to write, i have research to conduct...what a waste of the feminist agenda...
I should note you are hearing the worst fears here, i don't have room for the positives in this post but point them out if there are any that you can see. I just can't deal with this anymore. I want to feel proactive. I don't want to make another stupid decision that i'll regret, either way. And why the hell do i keep craving vineger on salad?
And then i keep it and there is the risk of disabilities. Oh god...i can't comprehend the psychological toll of that on me because it was unplanned. I mean, blind, deaf, ok, that's not so bad. But seriously mentally or physically challenged? And the chances of that happening because i'm in this situation...well if feels like the chances are high because i'm thinking about it.
How much of this is down to stress and terror? I don't know. Tomorrow i'll be thinking 'i want it' but do i want it because my boyfriend is an arsehole and i want to hurt him? BAD reason! (i also want to get rid of it because i love him, lol) Or do i want it because i want to love it, i want someone to love me? SELFISH reason. Do i want it because i'm afraid of being abandoned again? Why not get a dog in that case?
Reproduction. I don't understand being human.
I don't understand why i can't feel happy.