I’ve only told a few people about this. I think I can count the number of people who knows on my fingers, until now that is. I denied it ever happened at that time, but I feel that writing about the experience can be a catharsis of sorts, and it has helped me grow and improve myself in a lot of ways.
I’ve had an abortion before.
Well, not me per se, but it was a result of my actions that led to the D&C.
That’s a nice, clean, and neat clinical term which stands for Dilation & Curettage – a medical procedure that is commonly used here for first trimester abortions by widening the cervix and surgically removing the contents of the uterus i.e. the fetus by scraping or scooping it out.
I won’t name any names, this is a highly private matter and although a lot of people go through abortions everyday and think nothing of it, I felt that this had an impact on me as I went on a bit of a self destructive rampage after that.
I was brought up as a Christian and even though I’ve moved away from the church at that time, something deep inside me still tells me it’s wrong to take a life. I’m actually pro-choice, people must have the individual rights to choose.
This is just my personal experience and opinion.
Well, the video above is about me talking about the abortion, which has shaped me into who I am now. I’ve quit drugs and for a few years was extremely promiscuous which thankfully didn’t cause any problems health wise.
I was looking through the photos from that period and honestly am horrified at what I’ve done and the sheer amount of sexual partners I’ve had. I’ve deleted incriminating photos but I remember faces from benign photos but not their names.
I don’t regret the experience, only the people I’ve hurt.
The reason I say that I don’t regret the experience is that it has slowly made me into who I am today. I don’t have sex unless I’m in a proper relationship nowadays. It’s a conscious decision I made last year and although the first relationship after that was a disaster (the girl dumped me), I still feel that honesty and transparency is the basis of a healthy relationship.
I know people will judge and gleefully try and make me into some kind of monster but I don’t care coz that isn’t true now. I won’t be defensive about it and start saying stuff like “Judge not lest ye be judged yourself” coz I understand that some people need schadenfreude – to derive pleasure from other people’s suffering.
I understand that all too well, and I guess that’s why I don’t bother defending myself against the various (and sometimes utterly ridiculous) rumors about me. I’m a better person now and although that doesn’t change what I did in the past, I’m trying my best to make amends.
I’ve been doing that since last year and I’m much better off for it. I’m more sensitive and attuned to the needs of others and I’m not a player anymore.
I am still learning to be a better person. It’s kaizen – continuous improvement – and something I’m striving for every single day.
It takes a lot of courage to admit that you’re wrong and be willing to change. Know you’re not alone. You’re doing great from what I can see. xoxo
Thanks Wen Yan!
Your support is much appreciated. Thank you for your kind comments. 🙂
I’m trying to be a better person, it’s a task you have to remember all the time, and a neverending one, but I’m glad I’m going on this path.
Cheers!
continuous improvement to self is indeed the best philosophy in life. here’s to a better future!
Yeah, here’s to kaizen – continuous improvement!
It’s the only way to live life after so many wasted years.
Cheers to a better future! 🙂
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone… We all have our dirty little secrets, who doesn’t? But we try to put our past behind us and strive to be better persons the best we can. Still, we are only human – just pick ourselves up everytime we fall…and move on. That’s life.
Indeed buddy!
Thanks for the words of encouragement and advice! It’s much appreciated. Yeah, we live and we learn and we try to be better people the best we can.
That is indeed life, thanks for the support.
Cheers buddy! 🙂
if not ready to have a kid, better to terminate asap than to let the kid grow up to become a scum to society.
think of it this way, by aborting one, you may have saved a few lives in the future. you’re obviously not ready to bring up a kid. if your kid turned out half as fucked up as you, you’d be having an aneurism every couple weeks. odds are the kid would grow up to be some thug rempit snatch thief chowkit drug addict barua… or maybe even an UMNO running dog.
there was one article i came across where by the crime rates in the states actually dropped dramatically 18-24 years after they legalized abortions.
“Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and John Donohue of Yale University revived discussion of this claim with their 2001 paper “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime”. Donohue and Levitt point to the fact that males aged 18 to 24 are most likely to commit crimes. Data indicates that crime in the United States started to decline in 1992. Donohue and Levitt suggest that the absence of unwanted aborted children, following legalization in 1973, led to a reduction in crime 18 years later, starting in 1992 and dropping sharply in 1995. These would have been the peak crime-committing years of the unborn children.”
so dont be so hard on yourself. you did the right thing.
Hey, interesting statistics mate.
That’s quite a revelation – a lot of countries have legalized it e.g. Singapore being the nearest and you have a point there.
I wasn’t ready to be a father then, and I won’t be a good one, it’ll probably end up in disaster.
However, it still made me (and all of us) feel bad and that’s what I’m saying.
We learn from our mistakes and life live the best we can.
Cheers!
Kudos to you mate. I have actually read through the past entries in your blog and sharing. It takes a lot of courage to share this. Who haven’t done anything wrong before? i’m sure everything does. What important is we pick up from the place we fall, repent on it, and continue with our journey, and of course kaizen 🙂
All the best to you!
Thanks Andrew!
Yeah, it’s something from my past that has been bothering me, it’s not healthy to dwell upon it – sometimes the best thing you can do is to express it. I found out that a lot of my problems comes from regrets, guilty feelings and such in the past and we can’t live life in the past.
We have to live life in the future.
Thanks for the support and encouragement buddy! 🙂
Kaizen indeed, we try to be better off for our mistakes.
Good to share. Brave to share…that’s what I like about you…your frankness. Experiences are precious and it helps when we learn and move on…
Thanks for that!
Yeah, it’s more about not dwelling on the past, which I found I have been doing – going through regrets and such. It’s an impediment to forward progress and as such should be addressed and then discarded, which is what I’m doing now.
Thanks for the support, yup, we learn from our experiences and move on to be better people. 🙂
As a starting point, none of us as a bundle of cells in a womb have chosen life. It was something thrusted upon us whether we like it or not. In that sense, this makes life and creation of life a completely meaningless and random event. So while I respect life, I do question the relevance of the question of sanctity of life to an insentient bundle of cells. It’s a bit like saying chemotherapy is anti-life.
Ask yourself: At that point in time, could you and your partner have provided a good home, a good upbringing to the baby? If the answer is no, you have done the right thing.
As for what you feel inside, only time can fix that. Nothing anyone say or do can help. We all become better or worse people only by drawing from our own personal experiences from our own choices we make to give the random event called life some meaning. 😀
Indeed!
You have a very good point there Mela! I love what you have to say, it’s very insightful. I wish I could Like it.
Yup, I have exactly the same views as you with regards to the issue – I’m pro-choice so at that time I couldn’t have been a good father and provided a good home.
I’ve seen a lot of people try and fail and end up getting divorced and the kids go into a custody battle (or none of their parents wants it – which is even worse).
It’s really sad to see that.
Thanks for the words of wisdom Mela! Yup, that’s exactly what I’m doing, learning from my experiences and applying it to the next similar circumstance.
Cheers and thanks for writing! 🙂
pro-choice means that you have a choice whether to have sex or not, you loser. You’re disgusting filth and shouldn’t ever have the happiness of your own family in the future. I hope your current girlfriend dumps you like the others because that’s the kind of trash you are. So what if you don’t do those things anymore? You did them in the past and that’s all that matters. You’re stigma in the society and should be discarded. You can relapse, you can be a typical man, and you can then give your partner STDs and maybe a baby that you’d want to abort in the future. Think about it yourself and do the right thing. Kill yourself.
I don’t know where you got your definition of pro-choice from mate. 🙂
Pro-choice means giving people a choice to have an abortion, while the opposite camp, who call themselves pro-life, wants to take that choice away from individuals.
That’s fundamentally wrong to me, there are too many factors at play e.g. rape, unwanted pregnancies like this etc.
You’re not being very constructive or cohesive so I’m just going to clear up the terms for you so you don’t get confused.
Cheers mate! 🙂
Your honesty is always very refreshing and I know it must be hard to share about your past when it’s easier to brush it aside and pretend it never happen. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – you’re a good person, HB, and your courage is amazing.
Change is not easy, but only by changing can you improve yourself and become happier. I also believe that you don’t have to look very far for true happiness, it’s right there within you.
All the best 🙂
Thanks Jyannis!
Yeah, that was what I have been doing the past 4 years, just not thinking about it when I should be. It hampers development to become a better person and it’s always best to face your past and admit you have made a mistake and move on.
Thank you for your support and kind comments, it heartens me to hear that. 🙂
Yeah, it’s not easy to change but we have to, in order to become better people. Cheers for that bit about true happiness being within me, that’s something I never thought about.
Thanks Jyannis! 🙂
I believe that everything happens for a reason.
Regretting is no use, changing would be more practical.
Good job! 😀
True that! 🙂
Yeah, that’s what I finally figured out too, changing to become a better person will be better than holding on to regrets.
There’s a lot of things that we could have done differently, but we made the choice so we have to live with it. Life goes on and hopefully, we become better people from the experience.
Cheers for the support Charmaine! 😀
admitting your shit doesn’t make you a saint.
I never said it did bro. 🙂
We’re all flawed and sinners. The only thing is I’m trying to become a better person.
Anyway, you have the same IP address as x and attention_seeker, if you really want to talk, use a real name, don’t hide behind an anonymous account and post multiple times.
Just a suggestion for more constructive discourse, but it seems that’s not what you want.
All the best bro. 🙂
Only you can turn a personal and honest confession into a sponsored post. Making money out of your dirty little secret is dirtier than the damn secret itself.
Well, like I mentioned in the previous post, I have always been very supportive of Project Listen – it’s a good way for people to voice out and help others avoid the same pitfalls and mistakes that I made.
…and I just tagged the previous post as a “sponsored post” coz it’s linked to Project Listen. I didn’t get paid for that. I’ll rather be transparent and err on the side of caution.
I won’t have written about it otherwise and even if I did, it wouldn’t have the sheer reach of Project Listen, which will help more people, which is my ultimate objective…
…or I could have simply written about *ANYTHING* and not something as personal as this. I did this coz I hope it can help people in the same situation.
It’s about helping myself become a better person as well, and hoping that my experience and mistakes can affect just one person out there – that’s all the difference it takes. 🙂
I agree with Mela above, but also want to point out one thing: abortion is not illegal in Malaysia.
It is somewhat restricted, and up to the doctor, but “Section 312 of the Penal Code states that a termination of pregnancy is permitted in circumstances where there is risk to the life of the pregnant woman or threat of injury to her physical or mental health.” (WAO website)
So, it depends a lot on the doctor, and what s/he decides is a threat to a woman’s physical or mental health. The wording of the law is essentially the same as in the UK, but the interpretation there is basically that if a women says it’s a threat to her mental health, then it is.
You can get legal abortions in Malaysia, just not with any doctor.
Hello Julian!
Thanks for weighing in. I didn’t know that abortion isn’t illegal in Malaysia. I know clinics that does it – under the table kinda arrangement but it’s not as open and clear as Singapore’s laws regarding termination of pregnancy.
That’s very useful information indeed…especially that escape clause which can be used as a legal loophole – the bit about “physical or mental health”.
I’m sure it’ll be of much help to people reading this and for that, I thank you bro.
Cheers for sharing, I’ve heard about it being done in Malaysia – so you just need the right doctor to do it.
I’m concerned about after procedure care too – it can be a bit stressful and some counselling for the person undergoing the procedure would alleviate a lot of problems that comes with doing it. I hope we do have similar good ones here.
Thanks mate! 🙂
LOL you must be a noob in the tech area, you are afraid to admit there are more than 1 people that hate what you did thats why you simply say we have the same IP…im not the same person as x or attention_seeker. whats the point of separating my message when i can shoot you in a same message. and i always like to shoot you with a short message because drug junkies and loser like you are not worth my time.
“and i always like to shoot you with a short message because drug junkies and loser like you are not worth my time.”
What are you still doing here then mate? 🙂
I’ll love to listen to constructive criticism but personal attacks I don’t bother responding to, especially not from someone duplicitous enough to comment under multiple pseudonyms.
Cheers and have a great day!
Salute your bravery and honesty in writing this post. It sure took one hell of courage to draft this up and you’ve done it well! Good luck and cheers to a better life! 😀
Hello Amelia!
Well, I think of it as being fully transparent, no bullshitting about my past so maybe someone who’s in the same situation can learn something, if only just how I handled it badly, from it.
That’s life indeed – we make a lot of mistakes, muddle through it the best we can and in the process try to become a better person.
It takes a lot of strength to keep on the straight and narrow and learn the really hard lessons (for me anyway) – I think I’m quite a bit flawed in this department, some might call it the A1 allele gene, some might call it just plain idiocy but I try to do the best I can and I’m glad that I’ve had a lot of success as I’ve grown older.
Thanks for the support and encouragement Amelia! 🙂
Hi Sweetie,
Wow, read your entire posts for those missing months. What can I say? You are great and I am enjoying reading your blog.
It’s good to come clean, yeah?? Honestly, you are not answerable to anyone at all.
I have a teenage son, and I can foresee he’s going to go crazy. I was crazy too when I was his age but I am a responsible mom to keep him insane. We will go through life in phases and what’s important is..we will always go back to where we came from. Our memories of childhood..and our upbringing…
Don’t you forget your grandma’s Chai Poh omelette, hor? Chai Pohs are from Radish, ya!
You are a gentleman, but you must know that whatever happened, it takes two hands to clap! Opps, am I being bias becuz I have a son??? Anyway, it takes two hands to clap.
Take care and really, someday I wish to see you around in my turf. At the meantime, have great fun, ya.
Yvonne
Thanks Yvonne! 🙂
I appreciate the support!
Yup, it’s good to talk about it – skeletons in the closet ain’t healthy and thanks for saying that.
I guess all adolescents have to go through the rebellious stage, it’s just a question of intensity and length.
Hope all is well with your teenage son!
Of course, I miss my grandma’s chai po already.
Thanks for reading and have an awesome week! 🙂
Sorry, I meant I am a responsible mom to keep my son sane. Honestly, my son is good. I am somewhere around your generation and your older sibbling but not old enough to be your Mom, lah!
In the first place, you can choose not to divulge, but since you did..YOU ARE NOT ANSWERABLE to petty questions, might as well use your time to perfect your popo’s chai poh omelette, lor.
Take great care of yourself and don’t use up your $$$ on the table, unless if you have great tip, please count me in! ;-)))
God bless you and He’s with you.
Yvonne
Heh! Yeah, I reckon you’re around my age.
Thanks for that, I will keep your advice in mind.
All the best with your teenage son too!
God bless you Yvonne! 🙂
Well, at least your dirty little secret is no longer a secret. I’m glad you’ve changed for the better and I could see that you’re a little different too compared to years ago. Keep that going!
Yeah, at least I’ve come clean about that part of my life.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Eiling! 🙂
It means a lot to me, coming from you.
Yeah, I guess we all change for the better as we get older, learning from your mistakes. I’ll keep doing that.
Cheers Eiling! 🙂