Real Stories
Discover authentic experiences that illustrate the journey through grief and healing.
Discover authentic experiences that illustrate the journey through grief and healing.
A partner’s experience of abortion can have a huge impact on men and change a relationship forever. As the father or step-father of an aborted child, men are often excluded from finding healthy expression for their grief. This story is from a man who speaks of his son’s abortion loss, and later his son’s suicide.
He found out about the abortion the next day when it was all over. He was kept out of the picture so he couldn’t pressure her, but really he didn’t know what to think.
What upset me most about all of this, was how (my son) ended up as the bad person and how things changed with his girlfriend after that. Everyone else got in there and said that they were both too young – which they were. But even so, no one gave them a chance to grow up.
Eventually they split up for good, but it was too late. No one had any hope for them and then after the abortion my son didn’t even have any hope for himself.
I didn’t want to hear about being pregnant or about choices – I just wanted the whole thing to go away
All my friends seemed to be with someone and I was really beginning to wonder why I found it so hard. By the time I was in my final year, I still didn’t have any kind of special relationship with anyone and basically, I just wanted to finish with study and get on with my life.
The problem was, I didn’t finish. When my period didn’t come, I went into shock. I had been careful but obviously it didn’t work.
In the end, I just blocked it all out. When I went to the clinic, they asked me some basic questions and took the paperwork away for someone to sign. I don’t remember anyone talking to me very much – All I remember is being told not to talk to anyone apart from the clinic staff and to take it easy for a few days afterwards.
It didn’t happen that way though. I didn’t settle into work for my exams. I didn’t tell any of my friends and it was too late to tell anyone in my family. The clinic organised some counselling but I didn’t want to go back there or have anything to do with anyone from that place. They were all OK with what I had done, but I wasn’t.
I know that my behaviour back then after the abortion was unsafe and reckless, but I didn’t really care.
How do I feel about it now? It’s the part of my life that no one can know about. It’s not something anyone could feel proud of and even when you hear people say that they support a woman’s choice, you know that it’s not really a proper choice. It’s like running away from something that’s never going to stop following you.
My experience of abortion is so long ago… But the effects of it have been with my all my life. I’ve told very few people about this experience – partly because I don’t want to become one of those people who ends up trying to justify abortion and partly because I can’t face having my friends and family, even after all this time, looking at me and just knowing
It staggers me that even my closest friends haven’t picked it up yet and part of me knows it is only a matter of time. I’ve had numerous counselling sessions for all sorts of other issues as well as careers advice, skills training, leadership and management training to help me sort out what my true calling in life is. Certainly it has all helped and I have managed a fairly credible career…
I once heard someone describe alcoholism like a circling shark and I’d describe carrying the knowledge of abortion in the same way.
It really is like a shark that circles around then goes away again. You know it will be back, each time a bit closer and because I am ‘trailing blood’, it always knows where to find me. My hope is that, over time, something will work and I will finally get beyond it.
Realistically, I know that for me, this particular shark is always going to be in my life and even if I stopped trailing blood, I know that sooner or later it would find me again. What I hope for now, is that when it does, it will no longer be hungry – it will just swim away.