Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Here is something I had written that was in "Celebrate Life"

The Monster in the Room

There are not too many
of us who did not have the experience of being frightened as a child thinking
there were monsters under our beds or in our closets.

 My parents always used
to leave my bedroom door ajar when I was little. I can still remember the
fright I felt thinking a monster was under my bed, or in the hallway about to
barge into my room to devour me. I ultimately would tell my parents about my
fears and they would assure me he wasn’t really present as we checked out each
space to my satisfaction until I felt safe enough to go to sleep.

 Years later, the
presence of another monster began living in my family. This time we all knew he
was real and there, but no one spoke about him. We all felt his presence. NO
matter how much we tried to ignore him, he affected each of our lives, but we stayed
in denial as if that would make him less real or make him give up and go away.

Unlike my childhood
days, there was no talk to alleviate the fears, and the safety I once felt within
family was no longer present. In fact, being with my family became the place
where I felt most threatened and most unlike myself. I could not believe, in
spite of his huge presence, we all acted as if he did not exist. Was I the only
one seeing? Was I crazy because he upset me? Did it really not bother them? We
lived a facade of closeness. In reality my family did not know me or what was
going on in me for years. The monster of abortion does that in families

The monster, was the
saline abortion I was forced to undergo by my parents when I was just a teen.
The abandonment, and isolation I felt at the time of the procedure carried into
our relationship on a permanent level. For years I suffered what many post
abortive women and men suffer from, fear, guilt, shame, anxiety and panic
attacks, suicidal ideation and the forever implanted image of my unborn son who
died from my saline abortion.The fears, anxiety and shame lived with me for
years. I picked a spouse poorly …you pick what you think you deserve…for me that
meant abuse. Each subsequent pregnancy I experienced brought with it a terror,
but of course, I never spoke of it.  Years later I found out my mom experienced
that same terror when I was pregnant. What should have been a joyful time was
filled with fear and dread, knowing God was going to get me back now by having
something wrong with my baby.

 After years of suffering
and living with this monster of a past abortion, that controlled my life, I
decided to confront my fears.. I refused to live in denial anymore, and
although I did not directly confront my family, they were very aware that I was
now speaking out and working to expose this hidden “monster” in families that
is abortion.

 In the past fifteen
years that I have been doing this work, I have seen its destruction in many
families. The parents who know their daughter has changed but do not know why.
The husband and wife relationship that has taken the form of strangers. The
teenager who knows her mothers secret, is desperate to help, but afraid to let
her know she knows. The sibling who feels guilty for being alive. The father mourning the loss of a child he
did not even know he had until it was too late. The list can go on and on.

 Over the last fifteen
years many new ministries and outreach programs are being formed to help those
suffering from a past abortion.

More people are
confronting the impact abortion has had on families and society.

 It took over thirty
years, but the monster of my abortion was finally addressed in my family, even
with my children who came many years after. It took time, and healing for
everyone, but we finally chased him out of our heads and hearts.