h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I read your entry about your termination, and I felt that I had to write something.

How horrible. I am horrified that they did that without any kind of painkillers. And it is really tough to always have to be tough.

It might be worth saying to your b/f how good it is to be with him, and his strength really helps you pull through. It may not be good right now, but it obviously has been in the past, so there is no lie there. There is little more scary to a man than a strong woman who won't let him help her. Acknowledging your own vulnerabilty goes a long way to helping them feel strong. I am a tough woman, and one of the toughest things I have ever done is be vulnerable around the man I am with now.

On a practical level, you will obviously need to check out contraception options again, especially if your b/f is nervous of you falling pregnant again. Also on a practical level, it might be worth re-contacting the clinic and ask for counselling. All the most sane people I know have had counselling at some time for something. Funny, that.

Don't let them give you anti-depressants, though.

Your body has just been through a major hormonal upheaval, and the weepiness is because of that, far more than because of anything else. And for what it's worth, you took the same decision I would have taken.

You are a wise and graceful young woman, and I have no doubt that you will shine again. Be kind to yourself. Know you did the right things. And remember that we can learn and grow through every single experience life throws at us.

Take care.

Be well.

Ben

Thank you

What you have said has made me feel quiet alot better already. And I will take your advice.

I need to update the article as over the last week new parts of the story happened, such as my depression has got alot worse. I was already sverely depressed before the termination... and also it has partly forced me to show a weakness to my b/f. In 9 months he had never seen me cry and then in the space of 3 weeks hes seen me cry atleast times... that scares me. Im not used to it...

As for the part about painkillers... basically they numb the area to start of with and give you painkillers afterwards... its standard practise, so i supose i can't complain really...

Thank you for saying you'd have done the same. Only two people have said that - my best friend and my b/f everyone else is very vague about that, not knowing what to say.

Thank you
Gene

I am glad you are feeling better, and sorry you are feeling worse, and I do understand that it is perfectly possible to feel both at once. And regardless of what you say about "standard practice" I am still absolutely outraged about the approach to painkilling.

Vulnerability - now there's a thing. I was staying with a friend of mine recently and she had a copy of "Mars and Venus on a Date" in her spare room, so of course I had to thumb through it. I found it a strange mix of wisdom and sacharinne. I am not actually recommending it to you, but your comments about showing weakness reminded me of it.

As I said - I am a tough woman. I am naturally pretty independant, but on top of that I have had to be super-tough recently for a whole bunch of reasons.

But there are ways and ways of being strong. There is the old cliche about being strong like the oak, or strong like the willow, or strong like water, or strong like iron. I guess the trick is to try out different ways of being strong, and to find the ones that suit you best at the moment.

And then there is the old paradox, that it takes a strong person to experience their weakness. You have just been through a major physical, hormonal and emotional trauma. It is no surprise that you are experiencing great big emotions; but don't forget that the body has a limited number of ways of showing great big emotions. We weep with sadness, and we also weep with joy. Our stomachs jump with excitement and jump with fear. I suspect that what you have actually been showing your boyfriend is not necesarily weakness, but some other emotional reaction which you have not experienced before. It may look and feel like weakness, but be something different.

(This may be complete bull s**t, btw - I am just sitting on the other end of a modem and trying to make sense of things, I could easily be adding two and two and making five).

One of the strongest women I know, (and she is also a user of this site), appears to be one of the weakest and most vulnerable. Many men find vulnerability very feminine - it can make them feel very strong, (especially if we tell them clearly 'Being with you helps me so much, just you holding me makes me feel better' (or whatever)). I am slowly learning to let myself feel vulnerable and to say and mean that kind of thing. I know I can do strong and can get back to strong when I really need to. So I am trying out vulnerable every now and again - and I have been lucky, because the guy I am with holds me and hugs me and tells me he loves me. And yes, it is scary as hell, but I am learning to make it a part of who I am, alongside the strong-independent-tough parts of me.

I hope this isn't too much of a rant or a lecture. I am amazed by your strength and your grace. Depression is a kind of emotional anaesthetic, it is helping to numb you as you as you go through some of the things that you have experienced recently, (confusion, physical shock, big difficult emotional decisions, grief for your lost girl-hood maybe, anger maybe, who knows what else). Depression may well be part of the process and every single thing in this world changes, so it *will* change and lift. However, your recent hormonal stresses will definitely be increasing it. It is real, in the way that a pounding headache is real, but it is also not real, in the same way that there isn't really a 2lb hammer banging on your head. Does that make sense?

I am flinging a whole load of different ideas at you - some of them are irrelevent, some of them may be just plain wrong - but I am hoping that one or two will be helpful and will stick.

Take care of yourself. You are a lovely young woman, and you deserve to be treated well, by yourself as well as by other people.

Ben

I've always put up this facade to people to make them thnk im this strong girl who can handle everything. I didnt intend to no... i thought i was strong. But all of this has bropken me alot and no its like it back fires. When i've told my friends i can't cope they have all come back with the fact im a strong girl and i'll get through. Its supposed to be a form of comfort i think, but it just seems like no one is listening. Maybe they are and im just blind to it.

What makes you super - tough? You don't have to answer that btw. I've always wanted to be independant. I've had a number of problems over the years - nothing serious. But im pretty independant from my family and my friends. Not in a bad way, just that i do my thing alot and tend not to be a

What sort of strong would you say you are? The idea of a willow - i like that. Becasue it looks so vulnerable and softer from the outside. Is that what you mean about letting your side down to your b/f?

To be honest, over the last few weeks, even i don't know what ive been feeling. Some of it is like a huge OoBE and its floating along in this whirl of odd emotion.

There is one person in my life who i can be vulnerable around. He's my best friend, called Matt. He's likea totally seperate part of my life and that helps. I dont wildly want to be too vulnerable around dan because i seem to spend so much time protecting him. It seems so odd, but i felt the need to protect him from it all. I didnt want him to be there for the termination and i regret that now, because he doesn't realise the what happened...

There's momments when i enjoy being depressed. Im pretty sure every one has that. I never looked at it as an anesthetic, but i like that thought. It's comforting. I know its only mental and it hurts other people alot. I'm scared to go out as much. Like tonight i've been guilt tripped into going out with dan and his mates, but im terrified of it. I haven't a clue what his mates think of me anymore and how they'll react to me terifies me.

I didn't know what it was that scared me about tongiht until then. wow. thanks.

Thank you for being so lovely to me...

love
Gene x

What made me super-tough? Being badly let down by someone - I had to make a lot of difficult decisions myself, and I am having to learn to trust all over again. But at least, this time, I know that I can recover from a broken heart. I didn't know that for sure last time. So I am just getting on with it, and trusting me, and us and him, and hoping for the best.

You friends probably find it very scary that the strong girl finds it hard to cope. One thing I have learned to do is work out what I want from someone, and then tell them what it is. So: "I just need to talk to someone right now" or "I know I'll cope with it in the long run, but just now I need to try to work out what is happening".

I am seeing my private life on Monday, and it is going to be great - but complicated too. One of the things I need him to do is read the poetry I have written while he was away, and tell me what his reaction to it is. He tends not to react much when I show him stuff, so I am going to have to arrange it well, so that he feels really comfortable with the situation and will be open with his responses. It is a pain having to stage-manage the thing like that, but he isn't a mind reader, and if I don't put the effort into being very clear about what I want from him, he may try really hard but I won't actually get the answers I need.

Anyway - I am offsite till Thursday or so. Good luck with the weekend.

And be lovely to yourself!

Ben

Yeah - trust is easily lost and hard to regain.

I've never been able to work out what i want. Or atleast not until i put it on paper. Its too general to say i want to be happy, though for once in my life id like to know what it is to be incredibly happy coz i never have been.

Do i assume you mean b/f or g/f in terms of private life? I find dan isnt good at responding to something ive put alot of effort into writing and i have to sit on him to get his responses. Good luck, i hope it goes well with that...

Have a lovely time until thursday... *curious*

Have a on me
and a coz its pink
x

Hi

I got back late Wednesday, and it has all been a bit busy since then. Yes, my Private Life is the guy that I am seeing. I am not quite sure how I started calling him that, I think someone asked me where I had been one weekend I was away and I said "having a private life" and the term just grew from there. It is a complicated relationship, mainly consisting of stolen weekends, surrounded by a lot of baggage. So the name suits, really.

He read my emails in bed, with his arms around me, but didn't comment much on the emails, and didn't comment at all on the poetry. I think my poetry un-nerves him. He told me once he wasn't used to being with someone who thought about their feelings as much as I do, and who was so open about it.

But the reason I dropped by was to ask how you are. I am never sure whether to keep on asking, because I am concerned and I care, or to stop asking, because it is intrusive and a pain to have to respond.

Anyway - it's late here, and I must get some kip tonight.

Take care, my dear.

B

Stolen weekends? it sounds sort of romantic and mystical and secretive... Hope you had a good time...

I've been told i think too much about my feelings too. I think its a type of person really. My best friend told me i worry far more than anyone else he has ever met, but i think thats wrong. I dont worry... i just need to be sure of my own thoughts. Dont worry about him not having things to say.He's probably flattered you want to share things with him, but again he's not used to it so isnt sure how to react. You write it for yourself, and by letting himinto that, your letting him see right into your core. Thats hefty stuff for a guy who isnt used to it. How long have you been together?

As for me, my first proper period since IT has now been and gone, so i dont have so much of the stress that was causing - i was terrified it would never arrive. You dont need to fret about me, I dont mind being asked, but i dont want you to feel obliged to, but its nice to know that people dont expect me to be fine instantly... thanks... right now im ok, but thats coz ive just got up. In a few hours... who knows?

Meanwhile, I hope you are well!
xxx

It is an intensely romantic affaire, which is lovely. And it is interesting, you are the first person to use the word 'mystical' and though it isn't a word I would have chosen, I am surprised to find that its appropriate. But sometimes I long for bread and butter and a cup of tea. There is a thread of sadness through it.

Thanks for updating the entry about your termination. Have you considered showing your boy what you have written? It always terrifies me when I am that nakedly honest with someone I love, but so far, it has never caused me harm.

You used the words kill and child, though. It is important to know that you didn't do that. I dug out something by Carl Sagan on the subject a while ago, and - at the risk of boring you - I am going to cut and paste it here:

+++++++++++++++++

I dug out my copy of the Carl Sagan book and I select some exerpts from pages 176-180 of my paperback copy of "Billions and Billions":

"To date, murder uniquely applies to killing human beings. Therefore, the question of when personhood (or, if we like, ensoulment) arises is the key to the abortion debate. When does the fetus become human? ...

"... Our one great advantage, the secret of our success, is thought - characteristically human thought ...

"Thinking occurs, of course, in the brain - principally in the top layers of the convoluted 'gray matter' called the cerebral cortex... large scale linking up of neurons doesn't begin until the twenty-fourth to twenty-seventh week - the sixth month...

"... brain wives with regular patters typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the thirtieth week of pregnancy - near the beginnining of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this - however alive and active they may be - lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think.

"... If we wanted to make the criterion still more stringent, to allow for occasional precocious fetal brain development, we might draw the line at six months. This, it so happens, is where the Supreme Court drew it in 1973 - although for completely different reasons."

I follow Carl Sagan's view because I find his argument is rational, and it is based on first principals. He cuts through the crap.

Before six months what you are doing when you terminate a pregnancy is killing something which is *not yet a human being*. I accept that you are killing something which probably would *become* a human being. But up until that time it isn't.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Things do seem to be changing for you - both in how you feel, and between you and your boy. Change in your situation is good. Don't be harsh on yourself that it is taking time.

Take care, my dear. You deserve the very best, and I hope you get it, and get it soon, and that it lasts.

B

bread and butter and tea... yes, i can see the attraction when after a while you miss normality. But be glad what you have is special to you and no one else. And the thread of sadness, while i cant pretend to know what it is, it must make what you have closer and more real. Its cliche, but true happiness only exists for those who have suffered enough to recognise it....

Im scared to show my boy what i wrote. Hes not te best at responding, and im not sure he'd appreciate that ive broadcast it to the world on here... Maybe in time i will...

Yeah, i know that the words kill and child arent right, and alot of the time, i dont think of it like that, but theres pockets of time when i wonder... it would be due about 3 weeks after my birthday at the end of january... i wonder what it would be like to have a little boy or girl....

I suppose its like eating a chicken egg... on day it might have been a chicken, but for now its just an egg...

thank you

xxxxxxxx

r u ok sweet? I just read your screen name and it seems abit gloomy... and affection...

I am actually fine. I can never resist a pun, and there are two in the screen-name. Also I can manage gloomy screen-names best when I am cheerful, if that makes sense. However, I will be offline more days than I am on-line over the next 10 days or so, so don't be surprised if I am silent for a while.

Take care, my dear.

Love

B

Ok, well as long as your ok! *worries*

Hows things anyway at the mo? Im on a uni hunt for the next few weeks, so bare with me... (im going into yr 13)

Enjoy what ever your up to!

Speak soon
xxxxxxx

btw... back to what this was about originally... do you think i'll know when all this is over? I want to finish that story, but i havent a clue when i'll know its finished... *worries*