I always wondered why in my adult years I seemed to be drawn to the men and women who had been in the war and especially those who would tell me stories expressing their post traumatic stress. I would come to an event or a meeting and always seem to find the one table next to the VFW or the row with the seat next to the guy struggling with flashbacks. I was the one always in the corner talking to the man with the cigarette and flags pinned from his vest. I am the woman who will stop on the street and chat with the homeless vet giving him a coffee. We have a certain knowingness and familiarity with each other.
When the man would talk about his feelings of isolation, despair, flashbacks and struggles of bursts of anger or crying fits, I just got it. They would talk about their inability to sleep or the dreams and nightmares when they did sleep. I would shake my head with an understanding that to them probably seemed to come from nowhere. But to me was a deep and vivid understanding that I didn't feel comfortable conveying to them at the time.
One of my friends had been to Vietnam.... He didn't have to be drafted. He volunteered for a tour in Viet Nam. He was a proud American and wanted to serve his country. He believed in the cause of freedom. He was told he would be fine coming back and would have the support of the government and American people. He wanted to finish school, build a house and get a stable job. His dreams were to have a simple, happy and peaceful life after the war. It didn't turn out that way. He couldn't sleep and had trouble focusing for a job or school.
The first time I gave my abortion testimony was in front of a crowd of 2000 people at a mega church. I had spent years working through my feelings of guilt, despair, shame, anger and isolation. I had overcome my nightmares and tendencies toward suicide. I had been washed clean through Jesus. And I had been prompted by the Holy Spirit to tell my story. I was just about to release my book TO BE A MOTHER. And yet this was the first time I was telling my story in public. I talked about keeping my secret. I talked about wanting to die. I talked about feeling deceived by the government for having a law that legalized my choice. I talked about being lied to by the women's movement and not having been aware of the feelings of despair, anger, confusion and pain post abortion. Following the service, the pastor asked me to remain to help the prayer team in the event my testimony hit a nerve with some people.
I was surprised when the first person that approached me was a man with long gray hair and a cane. He had tears in his eyes and said "thank you for your testimony. I was in Vietnam as a soldier. I know about all of your feelings and want you to know that I will pray for you. Thanks for sharing." I think it was this experience and frank conversation with this man that followed that made me aware of the true similarities between veterans experiencing post traumatic stress and the woman experiencing post abortion syndrome. I am always surprised when something to this day triggers my experience of abortion even 27 years after the fact.
The worst part for us women who experience the syndrome is that those who advocated for our choice and the American Psychological Association deny a link to abortion and post traumatic stress. They often say that those of us who experience the symptoms had them prior to the abortion. And although they say that a fire, accident, sexual assault, earthquake, robbery, will trigger the syndrome, having a baby violently ripped from your womb should have no psychological effects on a woman who is of sound mind. Sort of like being encouraged to go into battle and then when you come off saying 'this hurts' your leaders says to you "oh you had that deep wound before you stepped into the battle."
My friend was of sound mind when he went off to Vietnam too. Things changed. I also changed from a happy girl singing in the sun to a woman who found it difficult to pull up the shades for years. But let's say that it is as the pro-choice organizations say 'women who suffer adverse psychological after effects most likely had issues to begin with." Why is there no warning or informed consent required? Why would they allow a woman with a history of depression to abort? Why do they still prescribe abortion to a woman traumatized already from rape? If an abortion on top of a pre-existing trauma will push them into this reaction of contemplating suicide then wouldn't abortion for rape or the chronically depressed be the last thing the woman needs?....
My friend is a psychologist that believes post abortion syndrome exists and yet is forced to code the insurance claims as POST TRAUMATIC STRESS. She has to find a car accident or fire or earthquake in her patient's past that is acceptable to the insurance companies because the abortion that her client experienced and witnessed of her 18 week old baby, accidentally seeing the body parts is not covered. Or the woman given the abortion pill, told to go home to "extract" the baby, sitting on the toilet with an arm of her baby in toilet paper, is only in despair because of some pre-existing condition? If a tornado can place you into post traumatic stress, certainly looking at the remains of your baby in the toilet can trigger a trauma as well....
I pray for the day when we can all be truly informed for what stands ahead of us as we walk into our choices as women too. Our babies are never our enemies. They are our blessings. Abortion not only kills a human being but it can destroy a woman too. I don't care how many studies the APA denounces. I am a soldier living in the battlefield that is covered with women wounded by abortion. I don't appreciate having to be there to offer only first aid when we need our medics to perform surgery. But it looks like the hands are tied because how do you fix a problem that doesn't officially exist on paper? In the meantime, those of us that have been able to find the way off of the battlefield covered in carnage, will have to be the ones to carry our sisters off the field...
Please read this article in its entirety at: http://www.motherhoodinrealtime.com
I am a veteran. Though I've been in a war zone, fortunately all of my few awards are for service not valor.
Thank you for your frank and helpful essay. Keep doing what you do to help mothers who have made this terrible decision - whether by coercion, by overt deception, by self-deception or by ignorance.
Peace.