I'm planning to get an abortion, but people around me warn that it'll be a traumatic experience. Should I be worried?
This topic is a fraught issue. Naturally, people will have powerful reactions to it. Your question is about the subsequent emotions you will likely feel. But how you react to an abortion will depend on your temperament, and on your circumstances.
Are you a ruminator? Your temperament influences how you will likely react to this decision. Do you often focus on the past, and become absorbed with what could, and should, have been? If so, from a clinical point of view, you may be prone to feelings of depression. When we turn emotionally laden scenarios over and over in our minds, exhaustion and difficulty is vastly increased. Obsessing over decisions, even when you have no regrets, can lead to feelings of depression.
Depression often has a self-condemning dimension, along with a belief that one deserves condemnation. If one's perspective on behavior contains that kind of moralism, he may well experience emotional disruption and pain.
I dislike using the word "trauma" with respect to emotions, because the metaphor does not accurately represent what occurs. Emotions are hard to describe, and we historically used the technologies of the day: Once we referred to emotions as rivers, clocks, hydraulics, and today we use other metaphors. The emotional disturbances we experience can be vast, but a trauma implies that we have no say in the matter, as if we merely had to wait until the bruising "healed."
Instead, we often turn sadness and regret (very appropriate emotions, often) into depression and self-hatred (not appropriate).
If you firmly hold that your very personal decision is the right one—indeed, the only viable one—then you will likely be able to put a difficult choice in perspective, and to let it rest in the past.
Tags:
abortion,
condemnation,
decision,
depression,
disruption,
emotional disturbances,
empathy gap,
feelings of depression,
metaphors,
moralism,
no regrets,
obsessing,
personal decision,
scenarios,
self hatred,
tax policy,
temperament,
trauma
