It was 1986, I was 18, poor, jobless, engaged to a lovely, but ultimately rather silly boy my own age, and was roughly eight weeks pregnant. I knew there was no way I could support a baby. I had no support network. Zero. My family? Pfft. No way. I’d left home at 16 because of physical and sexual abuse. They had no money to help out, anyways, even if they’d wanted to. My mother didn’t believe in abortion, though, and I wouldn’t have told her, even if you’d made me. Without a job and only welfare to rely on, I was on the one way track to the kind of poverty I grew up in. That I was already living in, to be honest.
There were other factors in my decision, as well: mental illness runs in my family like a bad road. Like proven back at least three generations. Bi-polar, addictions and schizophrenia, particularly. Years later, I found out that heart disease, arthritis and diabetes also ran in my family, so looking back, my decision was a good one.
I had decided when I was 16 that I wouldn’t have kids. Hard stop. I never told my mother because she would never understand my reasoning beyond that I was somehow depriving her of grandchildren. No, Mum, the world doesn’t need more me, thanks. One of me is enough.
One of me is pretty messed up:
- I’m continually depressed—treatment-resistant Bi-polar II
- I have arthritis in my spine and knees bad enough that I may need surgery one day—in my right knee, at least
- I have mild Grave’s Disease (a thyroid condition)
- what’s termed Intractable Migraine where I can get migraines nearly every day if I’m not on a preventative regimen
- I have Prosopagnosia—Face Blindness; a neural condition where I just don’t recognize faces very well. I have it bad enough where I’ve not recognized my own brothers and my own mother a few times! As you can imagine, it made making friends as a child rather difficult
- Asperger’s. That didn’t help in the making friends department, either, actually
- I’m developing a heart condition where my heart randomly pounds and speeds up for no apparent reason. Turns out, heart problems run in my family. I didn’t know about this until recently.
- I developed asthma in early adulthood as a result of years of severe lung infections as a child and several bouts of pneumonia. It didn’t help that both parents smoked two packs a day, at least throughout most of my childhood.
But, my biggest reasons, back then were, I was poor, I’d been abused and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be a good parent. I didn’t want to raise a child in poverty, or in an environment of abuse, like I’d been. I knew my health wasn’t great, even then (the mental stuff and the lungs), but the poverty and PTSD was the biggie.
The big difference between my story and many of the others on DK is that I’m originally from Canada, where abortion was legal, without all the nonsense currently going on. I was able to get what I need, no invasive questions, no need to have permissions from males that controlled me. None of that. Just conversations between me and my doctor at the clinic. I explained my situation, set the appointment, and we were off. Done deal. It was also covered by my medical care and I didn’t have to pay a cent.
I’m also trans-male. That last isn’t maybe a huge difference, really, as I didn’t know that I was back then. ;-p But I certainly wasn’t binary—though that term wasn’t in use then—I lived and acted very male. I was often called “butch”. LOL
Anyways, what eventually fell out of all of this was that I realized that never really wanted children. No, I felt that I shouldn’t have children. I just wasn’t a good candidate, neither financially, genetically, emotionally, or mentally. I live with Chronic PTSD from the childhood abuse (though, honestly, things have gotten a lot better—stuff doesn’t trigger me, as much anymore since my Step-Monster died), my health problems suggested to me that I shouldn’t pass those genes down, and I just never managed to get out of the poverty trap.
I don’t regret not breeding, either.
One last thing, the SCOTUS doesn’t know what fury it has unleashed in this country. Better buckle up, you religious yahoos, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.