the end, finally

As Carrie Bradshaw would say, “Things are so over, we need a new word for over.” Yes, I finally broke things off with D. on Friday, and while I’m happy I did so, his passive-aggressive response to the whole thing is really dredging up bad memories of the weeks surrounding the abortion. I’m starting to view his behavior in a new light: not necessarily an indication that he’s in a lot of pain himself, but definitely a sign that he doesn’t give a damn about my own pain. This realization was so painful that I canceled my group therapy/post-abortion support group session last night. I just didn’t feel like facing those demons while struggling to cope with these new ones. Once again, the abortion — while not being an Active Issue — remains the harbinger of so, so many bad things between us. I wish he’d just grow up and move on and stop causing working so hard to be a complete asshole. Barring that, as with the abortion, all I can really do is focus on myself, my choices, my responsibility to heal myself and my refusal to react to his childishness. This isn’t about being strong; it’s about protecting myself — because surely he doesn’t give a damn about my being safe.

one word: tired

Even though D. and I almost never talk about the abortion (and the weeks before and after, when we weren’t communicating that often), I feel like it’s become a metaphor for all of our problems. All the things that happened when he found I was pregnant — disconnection, abandonment, anger, blaming, guilt-trips — crop up in smaller forms in other disagreements, and I am nearly at my breaking point. I tell myself, I should have been able to get pregnant and have an abortion (that we chose together) without my boyfriend abandoning me. And today — after a disagreement — I find myself saying, I should be able to be disappointed and angry at something he did without him refusing to talk to me. Am I in a relationship or am I in a power struggle to see how quickly my spirit can be beaten down?

a healing choice

It’s been nearly three months since I’ve blogged here, and it isn’t that the abortion has slipped out of my mind so much as I had to let it go for a while. In the intervening time, D. has come back into my life, but just as the same issues of anger and abandonment are cropping up, and he is refusing to talk to me, I’ve signed up for a post-abortion support group at the Chicago Women’s Health Center, which starts Sept 18, and I’ve reached out for therapy at the Family Institute. I’m tired of depending solely on friends to make it through such a difficult time, and I’m beginning to fully grasp the concept of being powerless over many things.

I’ve had a headache for at least eighteen hours, a dull pressure permanently furrowed into my brow and periodically accompanied by nausea. If I didn’t have an IUD, I’d think maybe I were pregnant, but the realization that I’m not doesn’t prevent the flashbacks of when I was, the day I spent alone in the hospital because D. couldn’t or wouldn’t come to stay with me, the days after when all I could do was curl up on the couch and watch mindless television in the hope that blathering idiots would take the focus off of the churning in my stomach, the cloudy morning M. drove me to the clinic, the sunny mid-day we spent afterward that I’ll never remember because I was too far gone on Ativan.

I don’t know if I’m ready for Sept 18, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. The support group lasts three weeks and includes some grieving rituals, which I know will be helpful. What I fear is reopening old wounds, in particular the deep sadness and guilt I feel over my first two abortions, both of which were second-trimester procedures. But it helps to know I’ve found a safe space in which to expose this raw feeling, since I’m tired of wincing every time I’m in a rough spot, and something else triggers something that rubs up against them.

I am hopeful for the future. I am grateful to have come this far. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I know I will work to make my life better. And in that sense, even though I don’t know if I’m ready for next Tue, I’m just going to have to be.