UNWANTED BABY AND ABORTION AS CAUSES OF STRESS
An unwanted baby
“I didn’t want him. I can hardly say it. I simply did not want him. I did not want a third child. Now, he is so beautiful. So beautiful, and I love him so. Do anything in the world for him. But the thought recurs. How wicked of me not to have wanted him!”
Perhaps we should be more prepared to accept our human frailties. And forgive ourselves as we would forgive others. If she can forgive herself, she will be less prone to stress, and better able to care for him, and love him so much the more.
“I was rushed into it. They should not have done it. When you are young, you are not strong. Not strong enough to resist. They could not do it to me now. I suppose it was right. I could not have coped with a baby. It is all past now. But the past does throw a shadow. And the shadow is deepest when the sun shines bright, spoiling the pleasure of the moment.”
For many women an abortion is an incident in life. Something done, finished, forgotten. That is the end to it. The incident does not come to mind unless some specific enquiry is made. And it in no way contributes to the cause of any stress in the future. Yet with others, the shadow remains, repeated day after day, darkening the mind, and predisposing the development of stress from some other cause.
Let us remember that life is now, and the future tomorrow. If we continually thought of all the wrong things we have done, the shadow would be so deep that we would find ourselves living in blackest midnight, without light to see the pageant that life unfolds before us.
*9/98/5*
