Post abortion syndrome...

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ForGood

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I for one know that postabortion syndrome exists as I experience it all the time - today was worse than most - but only for a short time for now. Ugh. So frustrating. I can never tell where the thoughts and ruminations come from though.
 
ForGood said:
I for one know that postabortion syndrome exists as I experience it all the time - today was worse than most - but only for a short time for now. Ugh. So frustrating. I can never tell where the thoughts and ruminations come from though.
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Pax et Caritas Christi tecum,

have you confessed and done penance? If so, then you must not dwell too heavily on the past. When we receive absolution God wipes us clean of the guilt of sin and does not remember it at all. It is Satan who wants us to doubt the efficacy of God’s grace through His sacraments.

Thus guilt (contrition) is good… it drives us back to the Lord, but shame is of the enemy, who seeks to cause us to abandon the hope that God gives us.

Do not turn your back on hope! Pray! Say a rosary! Visit your local church and do some Adoration (or even meditation before the tabernacle). Go and serve your community. But whatever you do, do not surrender to Satan’s temptation to think that we cannot be made clean by the sacrifice of Christ.
 
My prayers are with you. It has been decades for me and it’s still the single most thing I go back to when I’m beating myself up. Is it just my mind that takes me back? Is it the devil? I sob each time I pass a statue of Mary holding a small child that is a memorial to the unborn stationed just outside one door to our parish. My solution is to quickly pray for all unborn children, no matter the cause. (I also lost a preborn child thru no fault of my own.) I pray for them and all others. Then I pray for myself and all mothers. Then I recall the absolution I recieved in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Then I ask Jesus thru Our Blessed Mother to increase my Faith and help me remember His Infinate Mercy. You are not alone. The reason I don’t ask God to take my suffering away, or to take my memory away is that I want to suffer those moments (not wallow in them) in reparation and penance for myself and others. I give my suffering to Jesus, place my little cross next to His, take ahold of Our Mother’s hand and then move forward again. I hope this is of some small help to you. May you be blessed with deep knowledge of His Mercy. Amen.
 
ForGood said:
I for one know that postabortion syndrome exists as I experience it all the time - today was worse than most - but only for a short time for now. Ugh. So frustrating. I can never tell where the thoughts and ruminations come from though.
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I’m sorry :hug1:

Have you visited Project Rachel?
project-rachel.net/
 
Can you give a clinical definition of what constitutes Post Abortion Syndrome?
 
To all who suffer-Yes project Rachel.
We know only a priest can absolve one from sin. Seek the Sacrament of Reconcilliation if you have not. I can not offer that to you. But what I can say to you is this: I believe we who are a part of The Body of Christ are also called to forgive. If not why would the Lord put that in His prayer He asks us to pray? And our sins do affect the entire Body of Christ. So though I can not grant absolution and reconcilliation in the ministerial priestly sence, I do forgive you as I know many others here and in the Church do._ As Jesus asks us to do because He loves you.

What you have gone through is a terrible thing. But even an abortion is not bigger than the love and mercy of Jesus(or His Church). And you are valuable to the Church. And we need you.

In my past I didn’t do anything that resulted in a physical death. Worse- I lived a life that led others away from eternal life.Having repented, there is still damage that I can not undo.And in many ways that haunts me.When it gets over whelming, I throw myself on the Mercy of Jesus.And when I let Him He comforts me.The shouldas, coulda, and what if’s can get pretty loud in my head. But then I hear His voice-“Be still and know that I am God”. And then all I can do is trust The One Who is most worthy of trust.
I keep you in my prayers as the Lord continues to heal your hearts.Please pray for me also.
 
ForGood said:
usccb.org/prolife/issues/postabortion/bazelon22707.shtml
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Certanly the USCCB should be respected, but they are not scientists. One glaring error:
"Actually, in a well-known Finnish study, Mika Gissler et al. analyzed medical records of 1,347 women of reproductive age who committed suicide between 1987 and 1994. They discovered the suicide rate in the 12 months following birth was a low 5.9 per 100,000 women, while the suicide rate in the 12 months following an abortion was 34.7 per 100,000 women — a rate nearly six times higher. If crisis pregnancy centers can be faulted for exaggerating post-abortion suicide by one percentage point, what should we make of those who deny any increased suicide risk at all? "

This is either an oversight on their part, or intentionally misleading. Such a simple comparison is a common error. It is well known that people who get abortions are more likely to have experienced problems (abuse, rape, poverty, etc) before their abortion. In order to establish a causal link between abortion and suicide, a large number of factors must be taken into account, including age, history of psychological problems, history of abuse, socioeconomic status, etc. These factors are not captured by a straight up comparison.

They also reference David Reardon, Ph.D., and Priscilla Coleman, Ph.D. who have both been widely criticized for poor methodology. A review of some of their work was “…unable to reproduce the most basic tabulations of Coleman and colleagues… they [Coleman et al] found higher rates of depression in the last month than other studies found during respondents’ entire lifetimes. This suggests that the results were substantially inflated.”
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
Good, now it should be easy to test for the presence of those symptoms. What have been the findings?

Largely unsupportive, here are 4
nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0905882
psycnet.apa.org/journals/pro/23/4/269/
jama.ama-assn.org/content/268/15/2078.short
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11710423
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Source 1)
A flawed study. Post-partum depression generally strikes rapidly while post abortion mental trauma can take years to set in fully. By limiting the scope of the study to only the 12 months, the researchers (most likely deliberately) produced exactly the results they were looking for… but not results that have a solid grounding in reality.

Source 2)
I can see an abstract that makes some pretty awesome claims (and which contradicts source 4), but I have to pay to see the actual study and it’s methods. I’m not going to contribute to something that isn’t proven to be anything more than pro-abortion propaganda.

Source 3)
Not even a study, it tries to relate emotional consequences using an a priori method of argument. That’s nice, but it proves nothing.

Source 4)
Says exactly what the OP has said, that women have negative responses to abortion. Totally contradicts source 2.

But more troubling…
A woman with post-abortion issues is struggling and looking for a catholic response with how to deal with emotional guilt… and you’re being so presumptuous as to tell her she’s not struggling with emotional effects after an invasive surgery??? It doesn’t take a surgeon to tell you that ANY surgery can be traumatic and require some level of consolation. Your participation here looks a bit more like a barbaric attack rather than a legitimate defense of abortion.
 
Well you can call it whatever you like or don’t label it at all. But, I know for a fact that abortion changes a woman in a million ways and probably a small fraction of those ways need be or can be scientifically proven or studied. How does one research the soul of a person?
 
ForGood said:
Well you can call it whatever you like or don’t label it at all. But, I know for a fact that abortion changes a woman in a million ways and probably a small fraction of those ways need be or can be scientifically proven or studied. How does one research the soul of a person?
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Science is the measurement of observable phenomenon, if the soul of a person causes changes in behavior, the change in behavior is observable and therefore measurable by the scientific method. One of the studies I listed described how women did indeed have wildly differing experiences when it came to abortion. On average, while they felt the experience was painful, the majority didn’t experience particularly strong regret; they would have still made the same decision.
 
promethius said:
Source 4)
Says exactly what the OP has said, that women have negative responses to abortion. Totally contradicts source 2.
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The studies are in no way contradictory. Feeling that an experience was painful does not mean they didn’t feel better about themselves later because of it.
 
It is because of this flawed thinking that I fear abortion will never be illegal because people don’t recognize what it truly does. You could find study after study to prove this point or that but unless you have had an abortion - you really have no idea or authority to state what the repercussions are. The studies you look for and the proof you seek does not take into account the millions and millions of women who have had an abortion and never told anyone. Or maybe they did tell someone but no one studied their lives long term to record what happened after.

I offer this to give an idea of what the postabortive woman goes through and that’s every single one of us whether we admit it or not. If a woman claims to have had an abortion and be just fine, they are lying to themselves and whoever else is listening.

usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/97rlpang.shtml

usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/97rlpang.shtmlhttp://www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/97rlpang.shtml
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
On average, while they felt the experience was painful, the majority didn’t experience particularly strong regret; they would have still made the same decision.
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That is not what the study you pointed to said. It only stated that they couldn’t see the possibility of making another decision, not that they experienced low levels of regret.

Therein lies another problem with abortion: it’s become the quick fix that ignores the plight of the poverty. Pro-choice? There is no real “choice” for the poor woman who doesn’t want to put her child up for adoption. I’m sure such a woman would say that no matter how painful the decision was that she couldn’t see any other option… because society has abandoned the poor and tossed them the “consolation” of abortion (infant murder) as a (totally ineffective) means of dealing with their social situation.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
Science is the measurement of observable phenomenon, if the soul of a person causes changes in behavior, the change in behavior is observable and therefore measurable by the scientific method. One of the studies I listed described how women did indeed have wildly differing experiences when it came to abortion. On average, while they felt the experience was painful, the majority didn’t experience particularly strong regret; they would have still made the same decision.
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How very, very kind of you to tell her her pain is not justified and she needs to get over it.
 
ForGood said:
It is because of this flawed thinking that I fear abortion will never be illegal because people don’t recognize what it truly does. You could find study after study to prove this point or that but unless you have had an abortion - you really have no idea or authority to state what the repercussions are. The studies you look for and the proof you seek does not take into account the millions and millions of women who have had an abortion and never told anyone. Or maybe they did tell someone but no one studied their lives long term to record what happened after.

I offer this to give an idea of what the postabortive woman goes through and that’s every single one of us whether we admit it or not. If a woman claims to have had an abortion and be just fine, they are lying to themselves and whoever else is listening.

usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/97rlpang.shtml

usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/97rlpang.shtmlhttp://www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/97rlpang.shtml
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During my years as a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center. I talked to many, many women and men in the position you are in. . I know how very difficult it is to deal with this but just keep in mind that God has forgiven you. there is absolutely nothing we can do that can diminish God’s love for us. . You are in my prayers and thank you for sharing your story.
 
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