Content Warning: This piece discusses pregnancy loss, medical abandonment, abortion, miscarriage, and suicidal ideation. Please read with care, and pause or step away if you need to.
This is a story about survival, faith, and the strength that exists even when hope feels out of reach.
I’ve been open about the nightmare I went through in 2024. I spent two weeks in the hospital to make sure I would be safe with myself. I wanted to hurt myself because I didn’t know how else to stop the pain in my heart.
I’ve shared parts of this story before, but I need to recap it here because there’s something important I learned—something I didn’t understand until after the worst of it had passed.
At the beginning of 2024, I was convinced to have an abortion I did not actually want. I was deep in people-pleasing mode, and I didn’t believe I was allowed to say no.
Six months later, I was pregnant again. The same man was forcing the same decision. But before I ever made it to the clinic, I began to miscarry.
Because I already had an appointment scheduled, and because I chose honesty with the doctor when I went to the emergency room to confirm what was happening, I was medically abandoned.
The ER doctor ran a blood test to confirm that I was pregnant. Then he told me to take Advil and wait for my clinic appointment to deal with whatever was causing my pain. He looked me in the eye and told me not to come back unless I decided to keep the baby—or unless I was dying. He refused further testing and left me alone to manage it.
So I went home.
For two weeks, I lived in blinding pain. I’ve written about this before, about the way the pain became so intense that all I could do was cry, endlessly, terrified that my heart might simply give out. I genuinely believed I was going to die—not metaphorically, but physically—because the pain felt that severe.
When it was finally over, no one wanted to touch me. I still had to wait for the clinic appointment. Four more days passed before my body was cleaned out—four more days after delivering death.
All of it happened because I was forced into a choice I never truly had the power to make.
I’m not sharing this to shame doctors. I’m not sharing it for pity.
I’m sharing it because of what I learned.
I learned that I can survive anything.
I learned that the only thing capable of stopping me is me.
I was abandoned. I was terrified. I was carrying death inside my body and thought it might take me with it.
And I still survived.
I could wrap this up in a neat faith-based explanation about how God gave me strength—and looking back, I do believe that’s true. But I need to be honest about what it felt like in the moment.
I wasn’t praying. I didn’t feel supported. I didn’t feel held by God at all.
What I felt was the kind of isolation Jesus cried out from on the cross—asking why God had forsaken Him. God hadn’t left Him. But in that moment, Jesus experienced total separation.
That’s what it felt like for me.
I didn’t feel God. I didn’t believe He was there. I didn’t have the faith to lean on. I was simply trying to survive, minute by minute, breath by breath.
Now, with distance and healing, I can see that I wasn’t spiritually abandoned. I know God was there. I know He’s the reason I had the courage—and the childcare—to spend two weeks in the hospital when I was afraid I might hurt myself in the aftermath.
I know now that I wasn’t alone.
But I also know what it feels like to survive as if I were.
And that knowledge changed me.
In the midst of healing, and in the act of sharing that healing with anyone willing to listen, I’ve come to understand this truth:
I can survive anything that comes my way.
Not because I am fearless.
Not because I am unbreakable.
Not because I am some powerhouse.
But because God created a warrior when He made me, and now I know the depth of the strength He placed inside me.
Even when I feel separated from Him.
Even when I feel alone.
If I can make it through, I know I’ll find the other side.
If this pulled you somewhere dark while reading, come back slowly. Wiggle your fingers. Take a sip of water. Look around and remind yourself where you are now.
This story goes deep, but it ends here: in safety. In strength. In the quiet truth that survival can coexist with softness, and that you don’t have to keep reliving what you’ve already made it through.
I chose to share this as a way to offer light, even from the deepest, darkest trenches.
You’re not alone, even if it feels like you are.
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