This is the post I have been avoiding. The one post that has kept me from writing for months. I didn't quite know what to say or how to say it. I find this post troubling and found myself in denial. Denial I feel yet today... after all these years. I didn't want the following to happen. I denied the following from happening. I wasn't going to allow anything get in the way from allowing me to have the life I so desired. This is the post where I found out I was with child. The child I denied. The child that had no choice. The child and circumstance that brought me to many tears for all these years. The one story that breaks my heart a little bit each day.
I pray to God to bring me words. To tell my story and I hear, "you have such a good hand." But, God I say, "do I have a heart?" I die at this thought. I don't want to be callous or appear pretentious. I never wanted any of this to happen. It shouldn't have ever been this way. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. This was never meant to be this way. Now, this is my story.
'My First Hospitalization' in the spring of 1999 led to a summer of terror. Terror in my mind filled with audio hallucinations. I was hearing scary thoughts. Frightening thoughts. Thoughts that were not my own. I kept running to my boss for comfort and protection for I felt safer there with he and his wife. I went to their house one day to discover no one home. I sat on their front stoop and cried. I was so distraught. I kept hearing voices that led me to believe NASA was going to hurt me. I couldn't reason with these voices. I tried. I tried sooo hard. But the voices did not listen. They would not go away. I felt so weak. And alone. I felt I had no one. I knew no one understood. I felt embarrassed. I felt brazen with pride...to reach out. Little did others know. If they only knew what I was hiding. I couldn't even shout it out...my turmoil, for who would believe it? It was clear no one would help. No one knew how to help. I didn't even know how to help myself. So, the pain and anguish continued. And I suffered. And suffered. I suffered more. Going into the fall still in the same year not much had changed. My fears and terrors led me to my psychiatrist. He prescribed medication for me to try and manage my symptoms. By mid-fall I was somewhat managing my illness. I was taking my medication as prescribed and trying my best to follow my doctor's orders. I was involved in a romantic relationship during most of this year. Yeah, I bet that went over really well. No wonder he left. Who could blame him? It wasn't until after he left me, and I found myself admitted to the hospital a second time by the staff of the HR department at my work. I was found still not behaving as expected of me. I was running around lost, confused and not knowing where I was headed. I still wasn't back to work at this time yet. I missed work most of this year. The year of 1999. But I found myself at work one day strangely reaching out for help. I am so glad I turned to someone for help. Little did I know the following.
The day I was admitted to the hospital for the second time was the day that changed my life forever. The pattern of my life was disrupted, and I lost my child by abortion. The morning of my admittance to the hospital I was lying in my hospital bed in my room by myself. Lying there wondering about my situation and what was going to happen to me. I felt so lost and confused. My life was becoming chaos. It was in ruin. My hopes and dreams fast fading and dying out of view. As the morning continued, I was told by a nurse on staff I was pregnant. She asked me, " what I wanted to do?" A small part of me leapt for joy but quickly faded as I remembered the circumstance, I was finding myself in.
In the afternoon on that same day, when I found out I was pregnant, a nurse entered my room and just as bluntly as my thoughts were becoming, told me I have schizophrenia. Just like that. No warning. No counsel. No plan. No sympathy and no explanation. Deal with it. But, oh by the way, "what do you want to do?"
I wanted my child but the words that came out of my mouth did not correspond to that desire. I blurted out, "I will have an abortion." I felt there was no way I could raise a child under the circumstance. How could I possibly be a good mother? Everything I heard and knew about Schizophrenia was terrible. "What kind of mother would I be?" I didn't see a choice! I imagined the worst. I did not see any possibility.
Later that same day, I called the father. He didn't want to speak to me. I told him, "You will have to listen!!" with consternation. I told him I was pregnant. Right away, without any consideration and using an accusatory voice and with a raised voice he said, "We cannot have this child! We cannot have this child!" I simply said without emotion, "I agree." He suddenly became quiet. He said he would pay for the abortion, and we hung up the phone. I died inside. Little by little I died. That day and every day since. I never accepted I chose to do this. The weight of guilt and shame destroyed me like I destroyed my baby.
Many, many years later, I became involved with a support group with women who found themselves in the same circumstance. This helped relieve some of the guilt and shame, but I still find myself becoming angry over the entire situation. I cried and cried through the years. And cried some more. My life has never been the same. Not only from the diagnosis of Schizophrenia but because of the loss of all the tender moments, all the hugs, all the kisses, reading books together, hearing, "I love You's.", watching my little one jump, run and play. Teaching him or her about love. I've missed all those moments. Never to be retrieved. Not ever. The opportunity to have a child never presented itself again. That was my one chance. My one opportunity to feel an indescribable love. To this day I still don't feel forgiven. I suffer in silence. I miss my child.
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