For the World to Know

I wish I would have started typing this out right when I was most upset. I didn’t really dawn on me to tell my story until after I calmed down. I want to tell you about my abortion and the effects it’s had on me. Even though it’s been over a year, I still deal with this every single day. Now I’m mostly ok, but sometimes it does get overwhelming.

I take full blame for my actions, but I can’t help but ask when this will all go away. I wanted to keep the baby. The only reason I didn’t was because I knew what everyone else would say. I knew my boyfriend would be upset because he’s always talking about how we don’t have the money and that we need to save to have a kid. I knew my family would think I just wasted my time to reach career goals or *whatever* and that I wouldn’t be able to go out and “enjoy my early years”. I didn’t even have time to think for myself. I called the day after I found out and scheduled the appointment. It was all such a blur but during the 4 days that I had to wait for my appointment, I had already bonded with the baby. I wasn’t smoking, wasn’t drinking any Mountain Dew, no sushi, and I was already rubbing my belly. Completely cut everything out, cold turkey. That’s completely not like me.  It had to be a subconscious bond because when the day came, I went on down to the clinic and didn’t even think twice when the nurse asked if I was 100% sure I knew what I was doing. It didn’t even phase me when I had to take the second pill after I got home. After all the nasty, explicit stuff- I won’t subject you to read- happened, that’s when it hit me. I did this for everyone else and not myself.

The next day I went in to see my tattoo artist & told him I wanted a unicorn on my ear. He asked why, of course, & I just told him I wanted a damn unicorn because I like them. If someone walks up to me on the street & asks why, I’ll have some made up story, because I’m still ashamed to be open about it. This tattoo is the only one of mine that has deep meaning. I grew up watching ‘The Last Unicorn’ all the time. When my dad would take me to the beach as a kid, I would run into the ocean to save the unicorns. Very vivid imagination. Anyways, before you guys think I’ve gone completely off track- I associate this with things I cannot have. The baby was my unicorn. It makes a bit more sense if you’ve seen the movie or read the book. Moving on.

I went to work within the next days and tried to remove it from my memory. Obviously working at a grocery store at the time would be impossible with all the young moms and babies. I would randomly cry if I saw any of that. The managers started getting annoyed with this and I kept getting in trouble. So I quit. I couldn’t handle it. So for a month or two, I didn’t work at all. I stayed home and moped.  I blocked every single person on Facebook that was pregnant or had a baby. That didn’t last long because some girls that weren’t blocked ended up getting pregnant and blasting that all over my feed anyway. It’s not something you can run from.

After a while, I got a job at Target. Things were going well & my boyfriend also did his best to distract me by having us travel to new places & try new things. I knew that in the back of my mind the whole time. It was just a ploy, but I appreciated the effort. Working at Target was great, up until one night when I had a conversation with our HR lady, who happened to also be a manager there. Is that even ok? Seems like a conflict of interest to me, even before this incident. Anyway, this night she gets on the subject of her kids and somehow it turns into this whole thing about how I wouldn’t be a good mother. I promise it was more elaborate than that, it’s just over 9 months have passed since then and I honestly can’t even remember. Anyway, I was shocked, but said nothing until later, to the main manager. She told me I must have misunderstood what the HR lady said because English is her second language. That was no misunderstanding. That was a whole bunch of bullshit. Needless to say, I was fired. They really care about their employees, huh?

So at this point, having no job, I got really artsy. It kept my mind off everything that I needed to be working on. I learned to detach myself from all emotion. That worked for a few more months. Now it’s been hitting me all over again lately. I’m going in circles at this point. I have a hard time falling asleep at night, I mean, I always have, but it’s much worse now. And I’m scared to death of taking any pills, even if it’s aspirin. I just cannot do it. I have issues when I know my period is coming. After the abortion, I put a “period log” on my phone to track the days. It’s damn accurate, but like clockwork- few days before it starts and I’m freaking out that I’m late. It’s not PMS, people, it’s fucking trauma.

There are little things, I’m sure, that I should probably work on. Step 1 should be to throw away the pill bottle the clinic gave me. After I took the pill, I just threw the bottle into one of my drawers in the bathroom. Every once in a while I’ll come across it, if I’m looking for foundation or something. I’m tempted to throw it away, but it just makes me want to cry, so I just cram it further to the back of the drawer.

The other day, my boyfriend & I were driving with a friend when he randomly spurts out that his wife is pregnant. It was like, a little snippet in between talking about guns. He was so nonchalant about it. Pissed me the fuck off, he acted as if it were no big deal. I’m sure the reason he brushed it off so quickly, changing the subject back to guns, was possibly that he realized I was sitting right there, knowing what I had been through.

By the way, how much does one need to save for upfront to have a baby? Do people actually do that? Well, I’m sure to some extent, but are babies ever really THAT planned? I think even if you save a decent amount, you’re still never really ready for a kid. At this rate, I’ll be too old! That’s depressing. How are all my friends so happy with their babies, if it’s so hard? I’m going to be honest, a lot of the people on my Facebook  are fucktards- and they look like they are doing just fine. Why couldn’t that have been me? I am ruining the shit out of my relationship because I want to blame this all on him and on everyone else. Someone help me.

The problem is that I know exactly what I’m doing. I know how I’m making myself to be perceived by others. I know when I’m acting like there’s something wrong, but say everything is fine. I want that attention, but I don’t want to talk about it at the same time. I don’t know how to fix myself. I’ve read everything online about this, hell; I’ve even read self-help books. I think they are all pointless or too preachy. I could write those books myself, I just can’t follow them. I feel like they want me to be in complete zen and fucking meditate after reading that kind of stuff. I don’t want to be someone who reads a book & is completely changed. I just want this small little aspect to be fixed. I shouldn’t have to change my whole damn lifestyle. I don’t need God to enlighten me. I don’t believe in any of that and I don’t need you to tell me to start believing in God either. I don’t want to hear that I need a shrink. I already know that. My insurance doesn’t cover it.

I just want to be myself again. I want to be able to fall asleep better. I don’t want to cry over my periods anymore. I want to be able to look at babies and smile. Do I want a baby right now? Fuck no. I feel that even writing this has lifted a lot of weight, but I’m sure you see me in more of a bitchier light. This is over a year of oppression without help. I’m still angry, but I’m learning new tactics. And this probably isn’t something that you post publicly, but I’m doing this for me- not you, not anyone else. Like I should have done in the first place.