You know from earlier blog posts that an important part of my ministry is facilitating Post-Abortion Recovery Bible studies to women who have been wounded by a past abortion. Many women remain “silent sufferers,” for whom abortion has been a traumatic life-changing experience.
These “silent sufferers” are family members, neighbors, co-workers, those sitting next to us in church. With 43% of American women having had an abortion, there is a strong likelihood that half of the people you come in contact with have been affected from their decision to abort, many exhibiting symptoms of Post Abortion Stress.
A major part of healing a loss includes the grieving process. Grieving is a normal and healthy response to a major loss through death. It’s a painful process, but one that helps relieve sorrow. After an abortion, however, women often attempt to bury their grief, turn their emotions off, and run from God. Eventually, most face the fact that abortion ended their preborn baby’s life.
Post-abortion grief results in getting “stuck” results in unhealthy types of grief, caused by the silence, shame and guilt of having an abortion. There is no dead child to hold, no photographs, no funeral, burial or grave to visit, no clergy. The only memories are of a rushed, painful procedure. After the abortion, reminders persist: expected delivery date, children the same age, sounds at a dentist’s office, a baby in a TV ad. It’s only been in the last decade that mental health professionals have recognizes the many faces of post-abortion trauma.
Abortion choices create a situation of disenfranchised grief in women’s lives. Disenfranchised grief is grief experienced by an individual that is not openly acknowledged, socially validated or publically observed. The loss experienced is real, but survivors are not accorded the “right to grieve” by anyone around them.
A common effect of disenfranchised grief is depression, manifesting itself in small periods of sadness or more full-blown stints of depression. These periods may be accompanied by crying spells and low times of “blue” days.
Unprocessed grief can also cause people to “stay stuck” in anger without even realizing the source of their anger. Not connecting the depression with the unprocessed grief surrounding an abortion choice is typical.
Other ways to avoid “the abortion box” stashed in the corner of one’s mind are medicating the pain with drugs or alcohol, becoming dependent on people and even eating disordered behaviors. It is a known fact that limiting food becomes a way to process grief.
It is this tension of emotions — relief and sadness — that disrupts a woman’s overall life and well-being. Unless she finds a safe place to talk and cry she will probably live her life with a mask on, keeping her secret neatly tucked away out of fear, condemnation or invalidation.
We have a saying in the world of therapy. “Secrets kill.” Thus is the path of many women after abortion. Don’t talk. Don’t feel. Keep the secret. Get on with life.
Seek out a post-abortion recovery Bible study near you. If you need help, contact me. Transformed lives are the result.
Tagged: abortion recovery, grief and loss, mental health, pro-life
