Hi Amanda,

I just wanted to say that I am thinking of you and wanted to send you love and positivity. I am not the best at writing responses and hopefully one of the “veteran” members will respond.

Hon, you need to forgive yourself. You did what you did at a very emotional, difficult time. What happened doesn’t make you any less human. Take something from your experience that you can learn and then let it go. Let your past, your ex boyfriend, your guilt all wash away from you. There are so many beautiful things in this world, and you are one of them.

I agree that seeing a counselor would help. Is there someone close to you such as a minister, a relative, or good friend that you can talk to? Perhaps a therapy group? Does the clinic you went to have post counseling? Sometimes just telling someone what you went through and feel is therapeutic in itself, even if they don’t know how to “help” you.

And please be good to you. Take a warm bath, read a sweet book, watch How to Train a Dragon or a fun pixel children’s film…anything that calms and relaxes you.

Matt always recommends the Metta Meditation, which is also a good thing to settle your mind and become still with your thoughts.

I am not sure if this helps, but I still wanted to reach out to you, Amanda. Know that you are loved from others in this Universe. Big hugs to you.

I’m really sorry for what that guy did to you, that is really bad. I can’t say as a guy I am innocent, because I am in a situation myself. This isn’t about me though. It is hard anytime someone causes us to act in a way that is hypocritical to what have devoted our selves to, a life philosophy. Some people never really develop philosophies of life, so they don’t understand, but just realize now looking at it in hindsight that it was irreconcilable. If you would have kept the baby, you would have been alone going through a long pregnancy. The child may not have known their father. A man who has you do such a thing then leaves anyway had his mind set all along, he just didn’t want anything tying him to you once he was gone. Therefore you have misplaced guilt. We never know how situations will end, so second guessing what you did won’t help you. Starting your life over is possible, but only if you allow yourself to start over and let go of what you did. In order to let go of the fact that you did something that went against your philosophy on life maybe you should look at your philosophy and determine whether you should stop living by it until further notice. It may sound crazy, but stop being a vegan for a little bit you are doing it for a reason that does not go with your actions, thus making it even harder for you to cope with it. You feel double guilt. Let go, stop making yourself be a saint, no one is. If you like meat then eat it and if at another point in your life you decide to be vegan for reasons that don’t make you feel hypocritical then you can and you won’t have to feel that way. A lot of people have to do this, because they see that they are being untrue so they say they are doing it for health reasons.

A man will never understand the bond that develops between a woman and the baby, a woman may not know, but almost as soon as being conceived the woman’s body has changed and has created a bond with the being that is developing with in her. Women who have miscarriages may often feel guilt as well because they feel that they did something that caused the miscarriage.

There are a lot of what if’s in life, you can never get caught up on them. When you get caught up on them is when you never start fresh, that’s a lot of baggage to carry and it weighs you down! Not all men act so immaturely and when you meet a man who wants to have a family with you, you must have come to terms with your own baggage, because surely they will have theirs! Making mistakes, having regrets is part of growing, as long as you learn from them you are doing it right! If you don’t want to ever cause pain or hurt anything, you might as well live in seclusion somewhere giving up all ties to everyone because part of living is that you will die and when you die all those who cared about you or depended on you will be hurt, but you can not think in that way because you again get bound down. Instead think of what you can do for those here and now. So my advice is that you honor the child that you aborted because in a way it wasn’t only up to you and it doesn’t sound like he gave you many options. If can include prayer or honoring that child by devoting yourself to helping others. Serve others and you will find that you don’t have time to worry about your own past mistakes, there are people who have it a lot worse. And it won’t create that contradiction of philosophy that is creating internal guilt about not causing harm to sentient beings.

Ok, I will try not to sound like your mom. LOL I have had an abortion, well actually two of them. I still to this day think about those children and wonder what my life would be if I had carried through with it. Try not to beat yourself up over your decision. It is done. There is no do over on this one. You deal with the grief and it gets better over time. You need to build your confidence and self worth. I still struggle with this daily. You need to learn to accept being alone before you can deal with a relationship. You have to learn to make yourself happy before you can begin a relationship with someone else. This is the HARDEST think we women will EVER have to do. We are taught by birth that we are meant to be with a man, that there is something wrong with us if we don’t have a relationship, that we are supposed to get married at a specific time, have babies by a specific time, yada yada, I call B.S.!! Live your life, you are young, look at all the good things in your life, family, friends, good job, I can draw/photography/sculpt, I volunteer, etc. what ever is the good in your life, write it down. Believe me, I have no job, no home (I live with friends and family wherever I can),no money, no college education, etc. I could lay down and wallow in self pitty (and I have) but I won’t and neither should you. Be proud, your a beautiful human being who believes in love and wants love, there is nothing wrong with that. You make mistakes in life. Don’t be ashamed of them, just learn from them and move on. Give yourself a hug for surviving this hurtful world and give yourself time to heal. Hugs from another human still on her own journey.