“My experience of abortion is so long ago… But the effects of it have been with my all my life.  I’ve told very few people about this experience – partly because I don’t want to become one of those people who ends up trying to justify abortion and partly because I can’t face having my friends and family, even after all this time, looking at me and just knowing.

It’s like an invisible neon sign. I can spot the same experience in other people a mile off and I am terrified that they will recognise it in me.

but there remains a part of me that just doesn’t believe I really am who I say I am.

I once heard someone describe alcoholism like a circling shark and I’d describe carrying the knowledge of abortion in the same way.

It really is like a shark that circles around then goes away again. You know it will be back, each time a bit closer and because I am ‘trailing blood’, it always knows where to find me. My hope is that, over time, something will work and I will finally get beyond it.

Realistically, I know that for me, this particular shark is always going to be in my life and even if I stopped trailing blood, I know that sooner or later it would find me again. What I hope for now, is that when it does, it will no longer be hungry – it will just swim away.”