It's All Grace

Truly overwhelmed by the response I have received regarding my last post.  I've been thinking a lot over the last 24 hours about my journey and wondering what may lie ahead.  Lead me, Lord...

Today I am grateful for my wounds, for without them I wouldn't be who I am, even if most of the time I have not an inkling of who that is. There is no denying that there are parts of my life that never existed until I took the first step of this journey, steps into grace and with Grace.

"God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it,
not without pain but without stain." ~ C.S. Lewis

How to Win the Prolife Fight

I normally stay far away from the political areas of the prolife "fight."  The main reason being that the most effective weapon I have in my arsenal is the fact that I am a postabortive woman, but this weapon I can not bring to bear outside of this keyboard.  So, I choose to fight the good fight with the story of my journey, prayerful and hopeful that my story helps someone, somewhere, at some time.  I also tend to stay out of it because I'm not always sure who my enemy is, the prochoicer or the prolifer.

That being said, I have entered a bit into the prolife movement since beginning my journey.  My attendance is regarded as just another prolife Christian and usually no one knows the real reason I'm present.  I attend a prolife mass often and take part in a silent, prayerful witness outside of an abortion clinic.  I've attended the March for Life the last two years.  And, although I'm not carrying a sign that reads, "I regret my abortion," my Father in Heaven sees me and knows the intention of my heart.  I am hopeful that my physical presence, as just one of many others, is enough to help to someday turn the tide.

When I take part in any public prolife events with my secret harbored in my heart and mind, I brace myself for any kind of words or rhetoric that would cause me pain, or worse, doubt, or even worse yet, despair. My concerns are rarely, if ever, unfounded.  I look around and try to imagine that there are women and men around me who harbor the same secret since, statistically speaking, there just have to be.  I've seen the prolife signs and graphics that state the safest place for a baby should be in their mother's womb.  Well, I think that the safest place for a postabortive person would be at a prolife event.  Sadly, this is not the case.

I've written before about the use of graphic abortion signs and how I feel about them, but sadly, some in this fight will argue their effectiveness until they are blue in the face.  They can keep arguing about it, I think they are wrong, but I can't stop them.  They're still wrong.

If you've read my blog before you know that I'm a Lord of the Rings fan.  If you are familiar with the story, in the final installment of the trilogy, the good guys are in their last ditch effort to save all of mankind and the odds are not good.  Aragon needs to find the numbers to win the war, and where he goes to find them is not a popular decision.  Aragon himself is horrified at the thought of even asking these "murderers" to fight along side him.  He must go to summon the Army of the Dead, he must face the evil he believes them to be, evil, murderous, traitorous men who are bound in limbo because of their actions.  Aragon promises them release from their debt if they choose to fight with him.

The army agrees and the epic war is suddenly over when the ships carrying them dock and dead men pour out like a crashing waves against the bad guys, destroying all in their path. 

Redemption is a powerful motivator.

That's how I see the postabortive people in this world being the key to the prolife "fight."  55 million abortions in the United States in the past 40 years - 55 million babies translates to 55 million possible foot soldiers in the prolife fight.  55 million.  Even though the prochoice crowd has been chanting for 40 years about how abortion is a choice and a right - those who have chosen to exercise that right mostly remain in the shadows or in secret.  Few stand up and shout from the rooftops how fantastic is is that they chose abortion, fewer still stand up and shout how they regret their choice.

Why? Because the prolife fight can be one of the most scary and dangerous places for a postabortive person.  Whether you are public about the fact that you had an abortion and bearing a sign that says so or holding it secret in your heart, when standing in a sea of hundreds of thousands of prolife people, there remains a fear that the same, smiley, happy Jesus-loving people will unleash their wrath upon you. A wrath that sometimes simmers just below the surface. 

I'm not saying that every person at the March for Life or any event is capable of rendering harm to a postabortive person, nor has the desire to do so.  But, I can say that just about every one of my prolife experiences in the last couple of years has had moments that have triggered the fight or flight endorphins in my brain.  The first year I attended the March for Life, there was a gentlemen chaparoning our group, a member of the Knights of Columbus no less.  As we were walking he struck up a conversation with some folks behind me and began a very vocal condemnation of women who have abortions with the typical, "they should just say no to sex, keep their legs shut!"  His conversation lasted for a good 15 minutes with all of his opinions spouting about women who have an abortions.  Granted, he had no idea that a postabortive woman was walking right in front of him.  But, what if he had known?  What if he hadn't known, but he acted as if he was surrounded by post abortive women anyway?  What if at the rally before the March - he heard compassionate words regarding postabortive and those words sunk into his heart and soul?

What if every speech, at every pro life rally or event, began with mention of the postabortive and their pain and struggle and more importantly about the mercy of God?  When I do hear the postabortive mentioned at events - it's sadly an afterthought, as in "and... we can't forget about the women who have had abortions."  I think the postabortive should be the first mentioned.  What the man behind me at that first march wasn't aware of was millions of abortions happen as a result of coercion by parents, boyfriends, husbands, lovers, or friends.  Millions more occur out of fear and anxiety over hopeless prenatal diagnoses given by doctors.  Millions of abortions happen because the woman feels she has no choice at all.  And yes, millions of abortions happen because a pregnant women decides to exercise her right to have her pregnancy terminated, but that woman too deserves sympathy because she has bought into the lie and is a victim of the Culture of Death.  People like that man behind me need to be told these facts, over and over and over again.

All of the postabortive, regardless of the circumstances that led them to having an abortion, all of us deserve love, compassion, and mercy which we receive in abundance from God.  Who we need it from also is the prolife movement.  What would we be capable of then?  What if every flyer and every poster and every email blast for a prolife event invited first and foremost, the postabortive.  Invite us to come in secret or with our Silent No More signs.  Either way, assure us that the words spoken will be words of love and mercy.  Assure us that you will do everything in your power to make sure we are not harmed by word or deed.

The comment below is one I received on my blog post The Story of My Abortion:

"You. Make. Me. Sick. I sincerely hope you die a death as horrible as your unborn baby did. Good riddance."

I wonder how my events the above "prolifer" attends during a year?  I wonder how many other postabortive women she's said the same words to?  I've received a lot of comments on my blog since I began writing it - this is one that I can quote word for word.  It's the comment the Devil whispers in my ear when I board the bus to the March for Life.  It's the comment he whispers to me when I sit down to write this blog.  Thanks be to God for the strength to shake the words off and continue on, but there are days when I'm unable to shake those words off and they play in my ears like a sinful, sweet melody.

There has been talk recently about how to engage the prochoicers instead of preaching to the choir.  My suggestion to the prolife movers and shakers - there's another choir you are ignoring.  Engage the postabortive.  Engage us with love, and compassion, and mercy free from any semblance of judgment regardless of why we had an abortion, whether we had an abortion 26 years ago or yesterday.  Be at the ready, with open, loving arms, to embrace us with the knowledge that there is no judgment here.

How could the main stream media resist if the March for Life numbers swelled from hundreds of thousands to millions?  The prolife movement is self-defeating.  You are either ignoring or alienating your toughest, largest, and what could be your most passionate, ally.

Make it the mission of every prolife event to be, first and foremost, an ocean of mercy towards those most harmed by abortion, the women who have them.  What an army it would be - 55 million strong with all of the children lost interceding with and for their mothers.

Then maybe there is a chance for victory.

You. Make. Me. Sick.
I sincerely hope you die a death
As horrible as your unborn baby did.
Good riddance. - See more at: http://www.postabortionwalk.blogspot.com/2011/07/story-of-my-abortion.html#sthash.muPw0eRv.dpuf

26 years

I've been kind of obsessing over numbers lately, numbers of years since I've been with my husband (19), the number of years since becoming a Mom (11), the number of years I've lived away from the town I grew up in (18), and now the shadow of the most looming number is creeping nearer and nearer. Two weeks from now will mark the 26th year since my abortion.

26 years.

Seems like forever and yesterday at the same time.  When I began this journey, I had to sit down quite a few times and piece together a timeline to clear up the fogginess that 20 years of repression can cause.  Over the past several months, we've been doing some reorganizing at home and I've been coming across lots of memorabilia and keepsakes.  I found a box of all of my datebooks and calendars that I had kept.  I found my wall calendar from senior year of high school - one of those school year ones that start with August.  Right there in black and white on my calendar on August 22, was "AWS," in cute, bubble letters no less.  Allegheny Women's Services.

I didn't need the calendar to tell me that, but it was nice to have my memory confirmed as correct.  With grieving, I'm told, it's healthy to have a day to memorialize someone that you lost. A day to mark the occasion and then move on with your life I suppose.  The last couple of years I've tried by placing flowers at my retreat sight and on the memorial to the unborn at my church.  This year I'm not sure what I'll do.  I don't think I've really learned how to grieve at all.  I've never lost anyone close to me, my parents are alive and the only grandmother I really knew died when I was about 12 and it didn't really affect me much.  I don't have any experience with death or grief.

Lack of experience isn't the only thing that holds me back from grieving - I think that if I grieve for Grace that she's somehow going to be gone.  I ignored her for so long - I don't want that to happen.  If I grieve for her then I think I'll feel that she's gone and I'm trying to bank on the words of Blessed JPII that "nothing is definitively lost."  It doesn't feel right to grieve for her, when I talk to her sometimes.

Perhaps then, when August 22 rolls around each year, I'm not grieving for Grace at all.  Maybe I'm grieving for the loss of so many other things, things I've talked about on this blog of mine.  The loss of innocence.  The loss of dignity.  The loss of self worth.  I grieve for what the abortion left behind in me.  Fear of men.  Fear of doctors.  Fear of life.  I grieve for the life I think I should have had instead of the interrupted one I got.

The life I have now is pretty well blessed and I know that, but there is a part of me that's just, well... me, I guess.  I have talked about my struggle with depression a bit.  I've laid so much of my life out here on this blog, but it's difficult to talk about having a diagnosis of depression.  It's like an admission of defeat, of failure.  I've struggled with antidepressants for 20 years now.  How I need them. How I hate them.  Depression is a tricky, tricky thing.  It makes you feel horrible in ways very few people can understand and usually those closest to you have no idea what you are going through and how the simplist of ideas can become so twisted in your mind.  Sometimes nothing at all is easy. 

I tried to be medication free for a while and within just a few months of everything having time to be out of my system, the depression returned, with a vengeance.  I really thought I could do it on my own.  I choke on the words, but it seems that there is little I can do on my own at all.  After my abortion, I continued with my senior year of high school and left for college.  By the second semester of my freshman year, I had attempted suicide twice.  One not-so-serious attempt, and one pretty damn serious.   I had a third suicide attempt when I was 20 and soon after I voluntarily went for an inpatient hospital stay.  Through all three of those attempts and treatment, not once did I talk about the abortion.  Sometimes I wonder if I had been treated properly back then, maybe I wouldn't be where I am now.  I'll never know.

Suicidal ideation can be a very scary thing and it's something that you can't really talk about to anyone.  It's hard to talk about it without someone immediately thinking you need to be admitted to a hospital STAT.  That fear makes it impossible to confide in anyone.  It's possible to be depressed to the point of thinking of suicide and still function - I'm living proof.  But, it would be nice if I could talk about it.  For me, it's part of who I am. I just most often think that I am completely replaceable in this life and that the people I care most about would be better off without me.  Maybe those feelings will change, but I've had them all of my life it seems.  A feeling that I will never be good enough.  I will never be valuable enough.

So, what I'm dealing with are two very huge secrets in my life.  The fact that I have depression and probably always will and the fact that I had an abortion.  Two taboo subjects.  Two things that affect my life every day that my feet hit the floor.  It's exhausting sometimes to lead this double life of mine.  No matter how depressed I may be, no matter if it's the 26th anniversary of my abortion, I still have to get up, make breakfast, do some laundry, and go on with the day.  I can't wallow in it physically, so I wallow in it in my mind. I wallow in it emotionally. I wallow in it spiritually. But, I wear a mask for much of my life.  Sometimes, I wish I could take it off. 

It's for all of these reasons that I've decided to try a new medication.  Unfortunately, antidepressants take time to work.  I'm trying to be patient.  After a week, the constant lump in my throat seems to have subsided.  I feel a little, I guess it could be labeled as "better," but I'm not sure what better feels like.  I feel a little numb, but I may be mistaking normal for numb.  I'm going to try to give it a month or so and see.

I just wasn't any match for the depression that tears me part from the inside.  The medication won't teach me how to grieve.  It won't tell me what to do this August 22nd.  The medication won't give me back all the years I feel I've been cheated out of.  But, maybe it will help me to focus on something else.  Hopefully, it will help me to not wallow so much.  Hopefully, it will help to make these two halves of me whole.

A Hand to Hold & Hope

I was working on a few things today and I came across this photo.  It's a statue called, "Hope."  The first time I saw a photo of this statue was in a flyer for a "Garden of Hope" that is not too far from where I live.  It's a memorial for babies lost to abortion or miscarriage, for all babies lost before their birth.  I've wanted to try to visit it a few times, but I'm not sure how public it would be and I'm sure I would sit in my car waiting for there to be no one around before I even attempted to enter the place.

I just love the sculpture though - it's so tear-jerkingly beautiful.  Usually when I try to clear my head a bit and really pray... I picture myself walking along a pathway somewhere beautiful & serene, in nature somewhere, always by a lake or ocean for some reason... and there He is, waiting for me.  Waiting... for me.  Of all people!  When I'm able to actually get to that place in my mind, it's glorious.  I don't think I've ever imagined holding His hand - but that seems completely doable, right?  Why wouldn't Jesus hold your hand if you asked, or just took his hand in your own?  In the statue, it looks as though He took her hand though - either way, could you just imagine that?  I don't know if I would even have to say anything after that - the hand holding might be more than enough.  But hopefully I would talk.  And I do try to talk with Him, in prayer and I try to listen, of course.  I'm not always successful.  Usually I fail miserably. 

She looks like she's holding a necklace and maybe showing it to him - I'm not sure.  I guess I'll have to look closely if I ever get to see the sculpture in real life.  Most importantly is the fact that He is holding in his arm, on his lap, an infant.  I can't really concentrate too much on that part of the sculpture, it's too difficult.  Even now.  But even a cursory glance tells me it's beautiful and fills me with hope. 

The anniversary of my abortion is approaching soon... August 22.   It will be 26 years since my abortion.

I haven't thought too much about how I may mark the day, if I do at all.  Perhaps just going to Him in my mind will be enough.  On my Rachel's Vineyard retreat and in counseling I've learned that grieving for the child you lost to abortion is okay to do - but I'm not sure I've ever really figured out how to do that.  It's still difficult for me to say her name out loud. 

Also in my rounds on the internet today, I watched a video about the latest prolife events in Texas, et al.  I was shocked by some of the footage in a video when it showed an actual abortion being performed and a little, tiny, 12 week old hand being picked out of some blood and fluid.  I've seen most of the graphic pictures of abortions - but this one today was different.  I paused the video and just stared at the image of that little tiny hand.

I hope one day to hold Grace's little tiny hand in mine. 

I'm Nothing if Not Predictable

I started writing this blog 3 years ago, in June of 2011, about one year after my first Rachel's Vineyard retreat.  Coincidence?  Probably not.  I am a creature of habit even though I fancy myself spontaneous and unpredictable.  I'm still trying to figure out if the fact that I have major depressive episodes that are cyclical in nature - if the depression fell into step with my own personal time clock or if my personal time clock has been set to the meter of my depressive episodes.  One thing is for certain - there is a definite ebb and flow to what I'm feeling or going through at any particular time.

I can go along for a while, feeling pretty good and on an even keel and then, seemingly out of nowhere, everything is out of focus and I'm grasping at nothing, let alone a straw.  We've had a busy two months in my "real" life, well this blog is my real life too, perhaps I should say my "offline" life.  We've had major life changes, health scares, and general upheaval.  It feels as though my life looks like when you peek through a kaleidoscope. It can be very pretty, but you don't know where to look, it's all disjointed and fractured, but there is beauty in the mess.  My problem is not always seeing past the mess.  I tend to look at the all the fragments and feel frustrated at the lack of order and then I chuck the whole kaleidoscope as completely not worth it. 

In real life, when I don't have one thing to focus on, when too many things are pulling me in too many directions, I can't deal with it.  I opt for nothing and retreat, predictably, quietly into my own head and begin not to care about any of it, whether it's pretty or not.  That's kind of where I am now.  I'm retreating.  The good thing about predictability is I know what comes next if I don't stop it.  Not that that realization is enough to stop it sometimes, but I'm aware of it. 

With all that life has handed us lately, both good and bad, I'm completely and utterly overwhelmed and second guessing every decision I've made in the last 12 years or so. 

What would be laughable if it weren't so damn sad is the fact that I know what I must focus on to make my life okay again.  The trouble lies in trying to find that focus and have it be part of my real life, my offline life and my online life, just part of me, always.

When I go back and re-read some of my posts - especially those soon after my retreats when I'm basking in His mercy, love, and light - I wonder why I ever leave those spaces in time.  I suppose life gets in the way.  I suppose I haven't truly surrendered all to Him.  I have a weak faith or a timid one.  It's easy for me to write on this blog and gush about the love from Him that I allow myself to feel, but ask me about it in real life or ask me to actually speak about it, I'm mute.  The last 4 years of my life I've learned more about my faith and what I believe and my Church than ever before, but get me in a room of people and I won't say a word about it.  Just the other evening I was out for some dinner and cocktails and the gossip inevitably begins.  One woman starts talking about so-and-so (who of course is not at the dinner to defend herself) and how this person is all "gung ho with her prolife crap..."  I sat there in silence, not agreeing, but not speaking up either.  I didn't way a word.  What a coward.  So, I return home and start to question if I really believe anything I say I believe.  How can I if I'm too afraid to talk about it or even mention it.   It was much easier to be outspoken about what I believed when what I believed didn't need defending. 

I think sometimes I'm afraid to even talk to myself about it.  I'm afraid to talk to my husband about it.  I feel guilty admitting sometimes that I have such trouble focusing and I need some help and the first help I need to get is His. When do I do well with life?  When I make time for Him.  And usually that involves some smells and bells for me because trying to focus in my own mind is a losing battle.  But it's still difficult for me to just say that I need some time to pray and then go to adoration or wherever is conducive for me to do that.  Maybe because I'm not even sure what I do would be considered prayer at all.  It would be even worse and more guilt inducing to say, "honey, I need some time to go sit in a chapel and, oh I don't know, sit there and do nothing because I don't know how to pray, I think."  When everyone I know is so busy with this and that and the other thing it sounds shallow to just sit and do nothing in a chapel somewhere because I believe that He is really there.  I only feel justified in doing those things when I'm at the end of my rope for whatever reason - so I begin to wonder if I'm creating the frayed rope to begin with. 

***

Well, I've stopped and started this blog post ten times over.  I'm not even sure what I'm writing about, if anything.  I'm not sure what I need right now.  And if I did know, I'm not sure I'd ask for it.  Kind of goes back to the "fine" answer whenever anyone asks how you are doing.  When you most definitely aren't fine and you just want someone to recognize it without your having to admit it and hug you, hold your hand, dry your tears.  I'm not sure if I'm just looking for trouble.  I'm not sure if I'm making trouble just to have a reason to run away.  I'm not sure if I'm just being dramatic because things begin to feel good and I can't handle good anymore.  It's been so long since good or happy has been part of my repertoire that I don't know what to do with it when I have it, let alone feel it.  

I'm not sure how much of all of this is being post abortive or just being me in general.  I'm not sure how much of it is just general malaise or something more that I'm not willing to admit defeat over.  My heart is just aching lately, a dull, physical ache.  I'm overwhelmed and quite tearful and not the kind of tearful over the Hallmark commercial on TV.  The only thing worse than crying and the deep, dull, ache that I sometimes or always feel, is trying to hide that I feel it at all.  The energy it takes to choke it all down where no one knows it's there doesn't leave much for life in general. 

I hate that everything I just typed would make a perfect anti-depressant commercial, just pick one.  I hate the 20 seconds of side effects that are listed at the end of the commercials.

I hate that I am this way.  I hate that all the healing and growing and work I've done in the last four years isn't enough.  I wonder if anything will be enough.