Abortion Stories, Inquiry and Trust
Valerie had her first abortion at 17. She quickly adopted narratives from those around her and started believing that she was a horrible human being. Decades later she started putting the puzzle pieces together, unraveling the stories and freeing herself.
Show Notes:
2:07 “I’m in my 60 and this is not something I’ve ever talked about… until yesterday when I talked to one of my adult children”
3:26 “for the longest time… it was monumental… I had three abortions between the ages of 17-21 and all three were fiascos… it felt a lot like disociating… I was in survival mode”
5:00 “I made it mean something really horrible about who I was as a human being… based on someone else’s lies”
5:40 “I spent a lot of time being a meaning making machine around this”
6:01 “I told my mother I was pregnant and her response was absolutely horror, and then a demand that I had an abortion… What were you thinking?... the pill was supposed to be effective, that’s what I was thinking”
6:27 “Everything was very clinical… there was no acknowledgement (of the emotional turmoil)”
6:53 “to not have a safe place to work it through just added to it”
7:08 “don’t tell anybody because it will be a burden for them to know… that just made me a bit of an imposition- I was an imposition… I was a horrible human being”
12:02 “prior to, I don’t recall it being a massive this; I allowed it to be something I got to be sad about, but I didn’t fight it”
14:38 “I thought, this is what I’m supposed to think now”
16:14 “What got me in the next two was the response of my partners”
17:28 “The going through it without being heard ever, is the place you start making decisions about who you are in a void”
18:22 “The cage that we grow up in, the cage that it’s either right or wrong”
It’s all made up- on both sides
Choose to think what feels good
25:03 “Our definitions of even the simplest words are so different”
27:11 With an unplanned pregnancy you are human, whether you choose to abort it or keep it you are human too.
28:03 “You are never going to do any less than your best at any given time”
30:18 “I had an expectation to be pregnancy free while taking the pill, and I wasn’t; that was a little crushing”
No one protesting vasectomy…
32:32 “Women are expected to be the gatekeepers”
33:33 sex ed class “There was some weight that we felt leaving”
“Got one past the goal” conversation
35:22 “It becomes a place where you are at odds with someone you you are sharing something very intimate”
I had a lot of shame for getting pregnant because I lost the game
38:41 “The way society has set us up for experiencing our own bodies is this way for women and this way for men”
42:01 “I understand now looking backward that her reaction comes from her shame, and in that space there isn’t a logical available question for her to ask”
44:08 “I had been programming myself intentionally and unintentionally based on what I think other people think”
44:59 “What if there is nothing wrong there?” “What if there’s nothing wrong happening if that moment?”
46:00 “ The questions that I would ask my girlfriends sitting around drinking margaritas are the questions I would turn around and ask myself”
Staying in the inquiry
In this moment there is no right or wrong
47:40 “The judgy part of my brain can get really snarky and start laying down all these rules and shoulds”
47:16 “I already was ready to agree, I just hadn’t yet”
The seed grows where there’s semi-fertile soil
50:58 “I get to be kind of intrigued with the whole journey”
51:44 “we really are one, we are in this massive thing together”
52:58 “This experiment in trust in life… we get to be open to inquiry without needing a conclusion”
Flying Squirrels - have enough to trust and glide
