Possible trigger - abortion - please help me.

[blackfog]

I’ve name changed for this but I’ll try and include as much information as possible.

About 7 years ago, I had a termination.
I was with my ex boyfriend, I wasn’t too far along but it haunts me.
My ex boyfriend was incredibly emotionally abusive, he was physically abusive a few times too, and also cheated on me.
We had been together for 1.5 yrs when I found out I was pregnant, I was taking the pill.

I tell a lot of people the above, because of the guilt I feel at the truth - I forgot a pill.
It’s my fault that I had to put myself through that, and I don’t think I can ever get over it.
Because my ex was emotionally abusive, and he’d put me through yet another massive row before the termination, he said he was going to leave me straight after.
On the evening, I was in floods of tears, he told me to go in the other room because he wanted to sleep.
I got no closure, because soon after I had found out he cheated and I moved all of his things from the house.
He hasn’t contacted me since.

I then met my DH.
My DH and I met about 1 month after this happened, we now have a beautiful DD who is almost 4, but I’m constantly waiting for something to go wrong in my life to punish me for what I did.

There are so many people who can’t have babies and yet I got rid of one, I think seeing my DD grow in a way makes it harder because I’m waiting for something awful to happen to her because of what I did.

It sounds irrational written down, And I know this - I booked myself into a counsellor 4 weeks ago and I went and spilt all of this - she told me that it was ok to be feeling what I felt because it was ‘the death of a child’

This has made me feel horrific.
I am snappy with my partner, I can’t cope at work, I can’t think or feel anything - I’m just lost. I’m angry my ex partner has ‘got away with’ not feeling anything. Im ruining my marriage with the way I’m acting but I can’t see why this is suddenly affecting me much worse 7 years on.

I don’t know what I’m asking for, I guess just to see it written down or a hand hold?
I know I’m an awful person and I bought it on myself, but I don’t know what to do.

I’ve been to the GP and thy suggest medication, but I’m scared if I start it I’ll have to rely on it for the rest of my life just to stay alive.

If you were meant to have that child you would have. It simply wasn't meant to be. You wasn't meant to bring a child into an abusive relationship. How awful would that have been for the child? You had no choice and you did something selfless and it must have been so hard.

Of course your feelings are valid but I think the counsellor was very wrong to say what they said.

I can also understand why you feel worse now. You have a beautiful dd and you must be wondering what if?? But it wasn't meant to be - you didn't have the choice.

Yes you must allow yourself to grieve but please don't think you did a bad thing. You did what was best.

Forgive yourself. You owe it to your dd to be her mum

Oh and you might want to give medication a try. Most people need them for about 6 months. Some longer - I will be on anti depressants for the rest of my life but I won't die if I stop taking them. They have given me back my life

That's very sad, but you did the best you could in a difficult situation. Please don't think you're awful and should be punished. Are you going back for more counselling? It sounds as if you should. Does DH know about the termination ? If you're snappy with him and he doesn't know about it , I can see that it would damage your relationship. Let him support you and take the medication from the GP, it doesn't have to be forever

You couldn't have brought a child into an abusive relationship OP, sad and unfair as it is you did the right thing. Forgiving other people is hard enough, forgiving yourself is even harder but you should, you deserve forgiveness. Maybe if enough of us tell you that you will start to believe it?

It isn't a child though if you weren't that far gone - it is the ending of a pregnancy. Big difference. I had a miscarriage at over 3 months and never thought of it as a child. I had a child afterwards and can't imagine life without them and I wouldn't have had her if I hadn't had the miscarriage. Also the chances of you having your Dd are almost non existent if you had kept the pregnancy going. Please don't feel guilty - if you think about it taking any contraception is stopping pregnancies every month anyway. Focus on your Dd and giving her the best opportunities in life as you have done with your decisions so far.

You made the only good decision for you in the very real and horrible circumstances you faced at the time. You made it for good reasons. And if you hadn't you would now be linked to a nasty bastard, because abusive men often use DC for the sole pleasure of hurting their mothers. If anyone is the bad guy here, it's your loathsome Ex.

Have you not looked at the timeline? Because from what you're saying, if you had gone ahead with your first pregnancy you would still have been pregnant when you met your DH. Which means your DD would never have been born. Not her - not that particular baby. You might have had another baby - who might be 3, 2 or even not conceived yet. But the 9 month slot you're talking about would have been filled, so to speak.

And what an appalling thing for the counsellor to say. If she can't keep her views on abortion out of her work she seriously shouldn't be working in the field. That's unethical. Seriously. You're probably not up to complaining about her now, but please consider doing so in the future.

You have to forgive yourself you made the decision based on your life at the time. Your ex was emotionally abusive this was another stick to beat you with. Be thankful he is no longer in your life.

Think about and consider the medication it might help you process your feelings and emotions.

Can you talk to your DH?

I’ve litefally just burst into tears at the kindness of each and every one of you.
I find it hard to directly answer but to answer a few questions:

DH knows about the termination and a few details of my ex as I told him about this at the very beginning. He’s been amazing and so supportive - but what he doesn’t know is about the missed pill. And this is where my guilt lies.

I’m reluctant to go back for more counselling with that particular woman but I may see if there’s anyone else - I just want people to tell me what there thoughts are, and just being listened to by someone is hard because it didn’t give me anything - especially when she said it was the death of a child 😔

I do understand what you’re all saying about being tied to him - I just feel as if I’ve paid the ultimate price for my own stupidity and now, even years later, he’s still ruining my life and he doesn’t even know it.

You’re all amazing, I may go to the GP and ask for medication, but at the moment, DH and I are TTC and have been for 4 months. I’m not sure if I’ve triggered myself what with that and trying to open myself up to counselling. I’ve kept it buried for a long time and wanted to change my thought process about it before/when/if 2nd DC comes along.

I don’t want to come across as ‘woe is me’ I’m very very grateful for you stopping and writing responses

Missing a pill is not a hanging offence, Blackdog. Would you say to a friend in your shoes "Oh, well, you forgot a pill. Of course you deserve a lifetime of regret and disaster!"

Well, you wouldn't, would you?

Don't want to put a downer on TTC but depression in pregnancy is hard. I had it but it developed after I was pregnant. If yours is quite severe you might be better off trying antidepressants for a few months and TTC later. Why not tell all to your GP
and see what advice you get?

Don't run yourself down. There's nothing stupid or "woe is me" about you. You're upset and you want some support. Pretty normal stuff.

Sorry, Blackfog. Fat fingers.

Blackfog we all wish we did things differently and I am sure the majority of people have regrets and would change things if they could.

Why is it so important to hear other people’s opinions? A counsellor is there to listen and it to give personal opinions. I think there is an element of grief in what you are feeling and guilt although as a lot of people have said you have. nothing to be guilty about. You need help to get passed this and give yourself permission to live and love. If you are waiting for something awful to happen as payback you are never going to move forward.

Did you miss the pill on purpose to get pregnant? If it was an accident you have no reason to feel guilty at all and if you did have that baby it would have had an awful father and you most likely wouldn't be with your DH or have your current child now.
Try to use your experiences to make you appreciate what you have now rather than let it ruin your future x

I think the counsellor may have been trying in a very clumsy way to validate your feelings. She may have been suggesting that you saw it as the loss of a child you could have had. However, it was a spectacularly ignorant thing to say given the whole picture, and if she meant it as a statement of fact it is incredibly inaccurate. A (presumably first-trimester?) termination is not 'the death of a child'. I've had six miscarriages, which of course is not nice, but I think anyone would be justified in being a little at me if I claimed to have suffered the deaths of six children. If you hadn't had the termination, you may (goodness knows conception to birth is a long road) have had a child, a different one (as a PP says) to the one you have, now. That's not the same thing as the pregnancy you terminated being a 'child' at that moment.

There is no entity or authority waiting to punish you for what is not a crime, simply a decision you made which was the right and reasonable one at the time.

Take it from someone who has a child with an abusive man - you done the right thing. I was in total agonising turmoil when I was pregnant and , although I had my child who I absolutely ADORE, it would've been fairer on her not to put her through the trauma of having an abusive father. We have left him - which in itself was extremely difficult and dangerous. We still have problems. I lived in hope he would get better when he was a father. He got worse and uses the child as a weapon. I cannot sleep because of the threats he makes. I am about to get maximum legal security from him which again is harrowing and extremely stressful. As much as I don't regret having my child, I do 100% regret that he's the father. I think you made the bravest decision you could make. You prevented a lot of awful moments in a pure and blameless life. My child lives in fear along with me, what a terrible, terrible burden to place on an innocent head. Please try to make peace with your choice and during your sleepless nights ponder how much devastation you prevented by one painful act.

OP, it does sound to me like you're experiencing intrusive thoughts, which is a type of OCD or can also be a symptom of certain kinds of anxiety/PTSD. What I'm trying to say is - try the medication because maybe you just need a chemical boost to snap you out of what's essentially a spiral of negative thoughts. Please try. And find a different counsellor. You can get through this but you urgently need to start showing yourself some compassion here.

I have a painful abortion experience in my past that I carried guilt for, for many many years. So I want you to know, I'm holding your hand through that. It's a terrible thing to experience because of how incredibly touchy and emotional our whole culture is when it comes to abortion.

I will tell you how I eventually made peace and forgave myself:
I realised I had acted in the only way I could have.
I was in a terrible and abusive situation and it was better for me to quietly and gently close the door on that potential life, to blow out that candle with my own breath, than subject an innocent being to the hell I was in.

I have thought: I held that pinprick of light inside my body for a few weeks, and it never had to grow enough to suffer anything at all. I could close my hand around it and let it disappear back into my body, without it ever having to feel the pain and fear that I felt.

I decided after a long time that I had done right by that potential child - I'd put myself in emotional harm's way, so that they would be safe from similar harm.

It's a hard thing and it's not something you necessarily ever resolve in your head. But in time I think you can start to feel you could let this memory fade a little.

Please remember - you don't honour the potential life of your past pregnancy, by berating yourself for this. You hurting and blaming and hating yourself over something like this - it doesn't help anyone, it doesn't atone for anything. It just destroys you, and by the same token, it destroys your DD who needs a mother who models self-compassion! Would you want your DD to hate and berate herself as you do? Remember op you are as precious and lovely as your little girl! You've only ever done your best.

You can let go of this episode in your past and look forwards, you can progress to forgive yourself. Your DD needs you to x

I don't know a single woman who hasn't missed a pill! I've friends who've had to change contraceptive because they were always missing pills! In other circumstances, if you weren't with an abusive wanker, a missed pill pregnancy might have been a blessing. You're missing a pill was not the problem. Being in an abusive relationship was and that is ALL down to him!
You need to forgive the young you. If you were talking to a younger woman/girl in the same circumstances would you be judging her one lapse in memory?? ?

OP, missing a pill is an easy mistake to make. It does not make this all your fault.

If you tell your husband that you missed a pill and you think that's why you got pregnant and had to have a termination, what do you think he will say? "This changes everything, it was clearly all your fault and you deserve to feel this way?"

Of course not. So tell him the whole truth about how you are feeling.

Don't go back to that stupid counsellor - what an insensitive thing to say! You didn't kill a baby, you made the difficult decision not to bring a child into the world when you were in an abusive relationship and wouldn't have been able to give them the childhood they deserved with two loving and supportive parents.

If I were you I would talk to your husband and tell him everything, then go back to your GP and see whether they recommend taking anti-depressants.

You might also want to look for a counsellor with experience treating women who are struggling to come to terms with having had a termination.

Thank you all for your amazing responses, I really wasn’t expecting this.
Again I find it difficult to reply to everyone as I’m actually at work at the moment and on a break. This is another problem, my line manager has given me more tasks whilst someone else is on maternity leave but cut my time to do it in, so I think I just feel generally down.

In answer to some of the questions

I’m not sure how far along I was, but by the time I got my appointment and I had the first scan they told me about 7 weeks, so I assume after having to wait 2 weeks after I was about 9 weeks 😔 it’s just hurtful because I know the hearts beating, I know the face was developing.

In answer to Love - that’s exactly what I’m expecting him to say. That’s exactly what I was expecting all of you to say but I just needed to reach out and put pen to paper as it were.

I never expelted such a thoughtful and supportive response and reading all of your posts really has given me a lift.

I thought going to a counsellor was going to do this sort of thing - normalise feelings/give me some sort of technique to alter my thought process. But in actual fact she made me feel worse.

I know I need help because my marriage is suffering, and my DH has been wonderful, I think it’s just because I couldn’t tell him or anyone (very close friends) that I had forgotten my pill.
Mostly for selfish reasons, and so they wouldn’t judge. But the sympathy they gave me then made me think it just wasn’t justified because I hadn’t told the whole truth and so it really didn’t help.

I can’t thank you all enough.
There have been a few who have shared their stories and I really appreciate that. Xx

*expected not expelted.

Also - wow this is going to make me sound crazy, but I may as well spill as I have with everything else.
I’m an atheist, and when I get really down I’m absolutely convinced that something will go wrong if god exists. My husband is very much Christian and assures me people are judged on being good or bad people, but I feel I am a bad person. I was looking on amazon for any supportive books but couldn’t find any, what I did find was one titled ‘abortion - the devils sacrifice’ 😔
Then I feel as if I’m going truly mad and need to go to church to repent what I’ve done, but if I don’t believe I think I’m being stupid. I don’t know. I do sound crazy I know this.

If you look at it from a more realistic and perhaps positive angle, you saved a potential child from an abusive upbringing. You were being abused and if you had chosen to keep that child, you would still be having to deal with that twat to this day. As it stands, you clearly made the right decision and are now in a loving relationship and have brought a child into the right situation. You did the right thing .

Abortion guilt is very common, I suggest a visit to the GP as counselling will help.

I'm glad reading people's responses is helping you, OP.

It seems like this missed pill business is weighing heavily on you and you would feel better if you tell your husband about it. You seem to think it will make a big difference to how people view your decision to have a termination, but I really don't think it will. People have terminations for all kinds of reasons.

Your husband sounds like a lovely man and he clearly doesn't agree that you are a bad person.

Oh and if you want to find books or resources which might help you come to terms with this, it might be a good idea to ask someone you trust (such as your husband) to find them for you so you can avoid searching on the internet.

There are thousands of so-called "pro life" activists out there with the sole purpose of pushing their agenda. They put provocative and upsetting material all over the internet in order to guilt people considering terminations into keeping the baby, and to make people who have had them feel as low as possible. They don't care about you or your mental health. They're the online equivalent of people who stand outside abortion clinics brandishing pictures of foetuses and aggressively telling women going through what might be the hardest moment of their lives that they will go to hell for what they have done.

These people are nasty, bullying scum and you absolutely do not want or need to listen to them.

Please don't think you have to reply to us individually, Blackfog. The purpose of this thread is to support you, not to give you another thing to worry about.

It might make a massive amount of difference to tell your DH about the missed pill. Explain that you feel terrible guilt over this lapse. If he responds as all the other posters predict you'll have a real life ally and a hand to hold. If he feels you're shutting him out, sharing this will bring him closer and give him the insight he needs to cherish you

I've been loved by a good man and, although of course they're not all the same, caring, thoughtful men get that issues around contraception, conception and miscarriage are far closer to a woman's heart and her body. Good men recognise biological differences - they'll never have to have an abortion - and are not judgemental.

The only time I've seen a good man act differently is a relative with very passionate religious beliefs. He's also bipolar and has been psychotic, so there's that. But I can't imagine any of the other good husbands and fathers around me rejecting their DW or DD over a missed pill.

You don't know if that conception could have even resulted in a child, I think miscarriage statistics are 1 in 4 IIRC.

If you had continued with that pregnancy, you wouldn't have been able to offer that theoretical child the life your DD has, you would have likely either been a single parent with possible money and contact issues with your ex, or in an unhappy possibly damaging relationship with your ex.

If it was an early abortion then is it really much different to the way some contraception like the pill works where the egg will fertilise and then the pill makes it unable to implant so it passes?
The same process of joining to make the DNA has happened and not much else in both situations.

Also if you hadn't made that choice you wouldn't have your DD.

Your husband has a rather strange view of Christianity if he thinks God judges people and condemns them as bad! The Bible makes clear that you cannot get into heaven by “being good”, as clearly no fallible human could ever achieve that. We can all only get into heaven through the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
It might help you to know that God loves you unconditionally. Why not throw all your sadness, misplaced guilt, and the trauma from your previous abusive relationship, into God’s hands, and ask Him to deal with it? You would find Him a source of loving support to help comfort you and heal you, along with all the kind thoughts and good wishes of everyone here on MN.
It’s time to be kind to yourself, accept that you did the right thing at the time, that nobody deserves punishment for a simple bit of forgetfulness.
I wonder if you are continually trying to punish yourself because your abusive ex has made you feel worthless, and subconsciously you feel you deserve to suffer all the time? Perhaps there is a conflict between your present happy relationship and the feeling that you somehow don’t deserve to be happy? I’d suggest exploring this either in prayer or with a different and more supportive counsellor.
Sending a hug, and the hope that you have a happy and guilt free future, OP. God bless.