In Babies and more We have spoken on several occasions of abortion, in an attempt to support all women who at some time in their lives have lived the experience of losing a baby, and for this reason there are many who contact us to thank us and Tell us something like "I'm glad someone understands my situation."
And they feel that in their direct environment they are not heard, their pain is not understood, and they try to banalize and minimize for the usual reason: people can't stand their own suffering or that of others, and ends up being unconsciously pedantic demanding the woman to forget.
But a woman does not forget when they tell her, when it has been a short time, nor when a lot of time has passed. A woman does not forget. That is why today we are going to give this theme a twist to explain what they are the nine things you should not say to a woman who has suffered an abortion.
The first five could include them in the so-called "messages to minimize the problem." With different phrases, messages and arguments try to convince you that your problem is not as big as you think, that there are worse things, that you don't really have too many reasons to complain and even that you have to see the positive side of the matter.
Six, seven and eight are included in the group of phrases and tips in which they suggest you forget. They arrive when a time has passed and they consider that you should have overcome it ... at that moment your pain bothers them and they ask you in an increasingly insistent way to turn the page, to leave it, not to mention it, because they see that it is not normal Keep up with it.
And nine, we mention it when we get to it ...
1. "If you have not moved on it is because you did not have to be born"
It is obvious that the woman does not contribute anything. It is an attempt to rationalize what has happened, to take away the logical emotion of a pregnancy and make him see that he should not suffer for the fetus because if he is not born, it was wrong ... and you can not want something that is wrong.
But a woman does not suffer only for the fetus, for the unborn baby, but for for the loss, and for its truncated future. As we have said on other occasions, a woman already feels like a mother (usually) when she knows she is pregnant, and from that moment she has her baby, thinks about him, makes plans ... and the absence leaves an emotional void difficult to fill.
It is not a physical emptiness, because it was not born, but it is a void in her imaginary ... the difference between what she expected to happen and what finally happens, and it can hurt a lot.
She already knows that if there has been an abortion something was wrong. No one needs to "reassure" her in that sense because she doesn't say anything new and because it doesn't really reassure her.
Moreover, when a person feels that he is not understood, that he is denied the possibility of feeling pain, he distances himself emotionally and the arguments he may receive from the other do not serve him. The only thing he does then is to mark her as "a person with whom I cannot speak about this and to whom from now on I will smile and say 'Good' when I wonder how I am."
2. "Quiet, you are young, you can have more"
The substitution argument. You must not suffer, your problem is not big because you have time to have another baby. As if the next baby replaced the loss. As if the important thing was simply to be a mother, regardless of what happens with one or the other baby.
As if a 20-year-old girl who loses her boyfriend is told that she is young and that she can have more partners ... is the ultimate goal to have a partner, whatever? And if you stay widow with 40 years? You shouldn't complain because you have time to remarry, right?
Just as emotions are deposited in a love relationship, in a pregnancy as well. Y if they break, if they get lost, it is normal that it hurts, although it is time to have more.
3. "Better now than in a few months"
It is an argument of thanks ... thanks that you have aborted now that you are a few weeks and not after the baby is about to be born. He is grateful that he has died in childbirth at birth and not when he is already several weeks old.
Of course it can always be worse. You can lose a child and it can always be worse, because there are people who lose two ... or who in an accident lose their entire family. But that does not make it hurt in all situations.
Relativizing can be useful at times, but it must be oneself who does it, who relativizes, who knows the problems that other people face and decides if theirs is bigger, smaller or different. And whether or not it is worth suffering for it ... and yes, an abortion is usually worth crying, because it is a way to overcome grief and learn to live with that loss.
Moreover, if we say this we are telling him that he has no reason to complain, and the dissonance is evident: his body tells him to cry, but everyone else tells him that he does not have to, and that also hurts, and much, because they make you feel silly, weak and lazy, precisely when you do the logical thing: cry for your baby.
4. "It is almost better, that now the thing is very bad"
Another argument of thanks in which the person who says it implants his opinion. She says it because she wouldn't have a child now and considers it the best. As the other person undergoes an abortion, decide that it is a good time to drop that argument: with how bad the thing is, you better not have had it.
These are the ones that hurt the most, because the suffering of women is not taken into account at all. In fact, it is one of those who want to slap the other, for the lack of tact and empathy, and end up as the first: "I will never talk about this with this person ... fake smile and continue living."
5. "Well, don't get like this ... you already have a child"
Because of course, read with sarcasm, the important thing is to be a mother, not to have children. It doesn't matter if you have one, two or three. If you are already a mother you have no reason to complain, because there are others who try to have one and do not get it.
It is another one that relativizes and tries to minimize your feelings. If you have already been a mother, it seems that it has to hurt you less because you already gave birth in your day.
6. "Are you still with that issue? But it's been weeks already!"
From here people start telling you what is normal and what is not. And what is normal? Well, according to people who forget quickly and complain little. If the weeks have passed and you still think about the baby you were going to have and you didn't have begin to feel uncomfortable, and then they tell you that it's okay, that it's been a while and that you forget, don't talk to them about it, leave it now, get over it.
They don't know what the grieving process is, nor do they want to know it, so you can't count on them for anything related to this issue.
7. "You have to be yourself again"
Because of course, if you are crying and suffering because you have lost your baby you are not yourself. According to them, you will be yourself again when you become the one you were before pregnancy, or before the loss.
They want you to forget: you didn't know the baby, you didn't take him in his arms, he is not alive, you must forget. Forget and move on as if it had not happened so that you stop suffering and stop telling them that you suffer (everyone has their own problems and yours is long ago ...).
The problem is that after an abortion one cannot be the same again, because he doesn't forget.
8. "You are giving more importance to a baby you did not even know than others"
That you still hadn't bought many of the things you needed, that he wasn't born, that you didn't hold him in his arms ... that you didn't know him! And you continue with it, day after day, as if you had lost something palpable.
He is told so because it is not understood that you can love an unborn baby and you can love a hope, an idea, an illusion, a future that is believed to come.
9. When they don't even tell you anything, because they start to avoid you ...
It is not something that people say and should not say, it is the moment when they simply they decide to stop saying anything, because they know they remind you and you talk about it again. In fact, they start to avoid you, they don't want to match you and if they do they are distant and simply correct.
On this subject I will speak soon, so I do not extend. But it is also something that should not be done, at least if we are joined by a friendship with the woman who has suffered an abortion (and that is sometimes done with good intention: not to talk about it so as not to remind her ... as if she had forgotten) .
What to say to a woman who has suffered an abortion?
If you can't tell him any of this, which is what most people say: What to say then?
Well, it's very easy. The same thing you say to someone when you have lost a loved one: that you are very sorry, that you are sorry, and that you are there for what you need.
You offer him a hug, you offer him your warmth, your love and you offer your shoulder in case you need to cry, and your presence in case you need to speak. It seems little, because you do not give an obvious solution, but it is much more than what others offer, those who tell the woman who has suffered an abortion what she has and does not have to feel.
