Hindsight and guilt

 I started this blog shortly after being diagnosed as Autistic.

That was a very strange time for me. I felt as if I’d finally figured out why I was so different from most otheres.

It felt profound. I wanted to tell the world about it. Looking back , I would have done things differently. The way I feel right now is that diagnosis wasn’t something for me to shout to the world, “I knew it, I knew along I was different.” It was for me more than anyone else.

I had a grand idea that I would share with the world all my struggles and maybe someone could benefit from my experience. I still think that is a grand idea but I’ve come to understand the blog is more of a benefit to me than it ever could be to anyone else.

I come here and work things out that I struggle with. I write , I read and I rewrite ,until I feel I can understand or at the very least reconcile all these stories of my life that are hard for me to deal with. To that end I offer the following story. It will probably read more as a confessional but this is something I’ve carried around for decades and I need to find a place to put it.

When I was 17 I had a girlfriend. She was the same age. We had been dating for more than a year. She became pregnant. I was so scared. I talked her into having an abortion. I wasn’t the only one but it’s my conscious I have to reconcile this with , not any others. I let her no in no uncertain terms that I did not want to be a father then.

On the day of the procedure I drove her there. I went in with her but wasn’t allowed to go with her during the procedure. Afterwards she was changed, and I was the reason for that change. A horrible thing to inflict on someone looking back all these many years later.

It seemed the mental wound she carried healed as time went by. The next year we were married. The truth is we were just stupid kids that didn’t know any better. Both looking for a way out of our homes. At the time it felt like happiness. I’ve come to learn that being satisfied and happy are two very different things but again in hindsight , I don’t know if I was either then.

The next year she became pregnant again. This time was different for me. I was happy. I shared news of the pregnancy with family ,friends and even some coworkers. That time  was different for her too.

I came home from work one afternoon to find her sitting on the couch crying. She had an abortion that day without telling men of her plans before hand. I was devastated, probably much the same as she was after the 1st abortion. 

We told people that she had miscarried, the same lie we told the first time. The marriage didn’t survive long after that. Maybe just too much hurt. I cant help but wonder if the 2nd abortion was some sort of payback for me. Not necessarily from her but maybe karma.

I thought what a horrible person I must be for her not to want to have a child with me. The same thing she probably thought the first time.

I’m not a religious man but I am spiritual. I don’t believe I or anyone else can know what God , the universe , karma or whatever you call it , thinks.

 I worry about damnation.

I threw away the 1st life, am I also responsible for the 2nd?

I haven’t seen my ex wife in a long time but I use to bump into her occasionally. She had gone on to remarry and have two children, as have I.

I look at my children now and wonder what kind of monster was I then to do what I did.

This post , I think, has nothing to do with autism, unless it is from autism that my intense guilt comes from. I dont know what to do with this guilt now, so I will try to lay it here , in this place I lay all things.