I'M ADDICTED TO GETTING ABORTIONS

 I'M ADDICTED TO GETTING ABORTIONS

I’m Ashamed — I Can’t Stop Getting Abortions

I am writing this because I need someone — anyone — to know the ugly, trembling truth I keep hiding. I am ashamed. I am embarrassed. I am so tired of lying. But I keep going back.

The first time I told myself it was a one-time thing. I remember the fluorescent lights, the woman who asked, “Are you sure?” and the way my voice shook when I said yes. For a few days after, relief came like a wet cloth pressed to a fevered brow. Then the relief peeled away and what was left was a hollow ache that lives in my chest and in the small, private places of my body.

After that it became a pattern. A mistake, then a choice I regretted, then the next time I couldn’t bear telling anyone, then the next clinic visit. It started to feel like a rhythm I couldn’t hear but had to follow — quick decisions, quietness, secrets. I would promise myself I would stop. I would swear I would be careful. And then something would happen: fear, money, a man who said the wrong thing, or just loneliness — and I’d find myself alone again, making the same choice.

I am not looking for sympathy. I don’t want people to praise me or condemn me. I want to say how ashamed I feel when I meet someone I love and have to hide this part of myself. I am embarrassed in the way you feel when a private thing becomes visible — like the moment your secret slips out and you can’t take it back. People see my smiling face and the small life I manage. Nobody sees the nights I stare at the ceiling and count the ways I have failed myself.

Shame is heavy. It makes me clever at hiding. I lie to friends. I lie to lovers. I lie to myself. When someone asks why I’m quiet, I say “I’m tired.” When someone asks if I’m okay, I say “Fine.” I have told myself that secrecy is protection, but the truth is it’s only another kind of punishment. Every secret keeps me further from anyone who could help.

And there’s a strange kind of grief mixed in — grief for every possibility I erased, grief for the small futures I didn’t let happen. Sometimes I imagine the life I could have had and I feel like a thief who keeps stealing from her own future. That thought makes me want to scream. It also makes me feel like I deserve the loneliness and the hiding.

I have tried to stop. I’ve tried to be "strong" and to plan. I have read about contraception, joined online groups, promised a counselor I’d try harder. For a while, I would make plans that felt real: use protection, tell a friend, get on reliable contraception. I would keep it for weeks, even months. Then a panic or a mistake or bad timing would steal my resolve. Each time I fail, the shame bites deeper and the next decision becomes easier to make in secret — the habit feeds itself.

I feel so much embarrassment when I think about the future. I worry someone will find out through old bills or accident or a loose word. I worry about how people will look at me if they knew. That fear pushes me back into silence and into the same old choices.

What helps, in the small moments when I can be honest with myself, is the memory of one person who listened without judging. A counselor who did not call me names. A friend who offered to sit with me while I made an appointment for contraception. Those small acts of kindness felt like a lifeline. They didn’t fix everything, but they made thinking about change possible.

I don’t know exactly how to stop this cycle. I am trying to take one thing at a time. I am trying to be honest with one person. I am trying to make a real plan with a health provider who won’t shame me. I am learning to notice the moments when fear pushes me toward that clinic and to pick up the phone instead — to call someone, to breathe, to step outside and walk until the decision feels less urgent.

If you are reading this and you are anything like me — ashamed, embarrassed, trapped in a pattern you can’t break — know this: you are not a monster. You are a person caught in a painful loop. Breaking out will probably take more than willpower. It will take small practical changes and at least one person who will listen without shaming you.

I am still ashamed. I am still embarrassed. I am still trying. I don’t have a neat ending. I only have a promise to myself to try again tomorrow — to call, to find care, to tell one small truth. That is where I am now: messy, regretful, embarrassed, but not finished trying.