This is not a tragic nor really sad story. It is part of my life. My boyfriend Zachary was on the road to self-destruction and was trying to take me down with him.
I was an adult. Zachary and I were living together. I worked; I supported us, but Zachary was the man of the house. He was emotionally abusive to me, once was physically abusive and I didn’t throw him out as it was just once and I was bitchy and maybe, I deserved it. It was just a punch.
I would have needed witnesses to report it. My next door neighbor had once screamed for somebody to call the police. I did. Her lover was a scion of two household name families. The police rang my bell and lectured me about the dangers of making a false report.
I lived in zip code 10021, the richest in America, and domestic abuse just didn’t happen.
I was adopted, and had always believed that I was blessed in my choice of family.
Deciding to have an abortion wasn’t an easy decision. But I knew from the beginning, it was the only decision.
I had my own problems, and can’t deny that they played a part. But my “verbal abuse” consisted of “Zachary, clean up,” “Get a job.” “How can you stay in bed all day smoking pot and drinking Dixie Beer?”
Happened to be fairly well known in the New York club scene, and was going to become fairly well known in the New York alkie bar scene, because people would call to ask me to pick Zachary up as he was so drunk. I had to get up at 5:30 to go to work so I would tell them to keep him.
Didn’t happen that often. I had been married and been with other men; this had never happened once with any of them. It felt wrong.
Just as it felt wrong that Zachary wanted to be with me every minute. When weren’t together he would call constantly. It felt wrong. Everybody thought that he was so in love with me. Every woman was jealous. There was nobody that I could talk about this to.
I saw a dark sick side that scared me. There’s much more. This is all that’s important.
There was no way in hell that I was going to have this man’s baby; and adoption wasn’t an answer. Love’s not rational, and I loved Zachary very much.
I had a legal abortion.
Yes I was adopted, but the anti-adoption movement was in full frontal mode then.
I thought about adoption for a hot second. I didn’t really know about obsession then but I knew that Zachary felt something for me that wasn’t pure love; something strange. Something not good.
When I got him a job at the company I was a supervisor in, he immediately became a union organizer. Zachary could have easily become involved in the birth father. movement.
He had no desire to become a father, but had I gone through with the pregnancy, he would have quickly become a member of that movement. Only to fuel an obsession.
I couldn’t verbalize this then, but I intuitively knew it. An abortion was only the sane answer. It was my choice; I did it, and have never regretted it.
Everybody who knows me well knows how guilty I can feel. Never, ever have I felt guilt over my abortion.
It’s a woman’s body and a woman’s choice. I chose abortion because it was the right choice for me. I was 29 years old with a responsible job, and a boyfriend who spent most of his time bemoaning his fate in life. He blamed his failure to make it as a singer/songwriter on me.
A part of me bought into that; a part of me truly believed that if I could only be a better partner, if I could only keep our apartment clean, if….
I worked ten hour days to support us, but to Zachary that wasn’t enough. He was the important one; he was the brilliant singer/songwriter who had two albums out by the time he was 25. I was supposed to work, keep house, cook, and nurture his genius. Damn it, I tried.
But I have a great survival instinct, and a bigger part of me knew that Zachary was living in a fantasy world that was becoming more warped every day. In order to save myself, I chose abortion.
I chose survival.
Everybody adored Zachary. He was a charmer.
I, and I alone knew that I lived with a truly deranged man who I loved.
I chose to make my future safer and more secure. It took awhile.
Sometime later when I finally threw Zachary out for good, he stalked me. Let him in one day while I was studying, and not thinking. He broke a window, with his bare hand, and a table filled with huge plants. I had to leave New York for awhile. When I came back, he continued to stalk me. Not sure why he stopped. I chopped off my hair and no longer was “Princess Perfect.” My father paid him to leave, we think.
When I met my birth mother, eight years later, it was to specifically thank her for having had me.
My family’s filled with eccentric people who love me. I’m a writer and the family I was adopted into gave me both the tools and the material to write with/on.
Adoption is a wonderful choice. So is survival. I chose to survive.
There’s going to be a new Supreme Court. Alito is known for his stances on abortion. He’s not going to soften them. It’s time for every person in this country who believes in the sanctity of the already alive to stand in solidarity against people who will allow women to die in illegal abortions, and in extreme cases kill abortion workers.
Zygotes aren’t fertilized; they have nothing to do with this subject. Fetuses aren’t people.
The already alive come first.
If a woman doesn’t want to have an abortion, she doesn’t have to have one.
If her partner tries to force her to have one, and she doesn’t want to she should seek help. Abortion being banned won’t stop men from making their partners have abortions; it will make the abortions less safe.
Please lets not go back to the days women tried to abort with coat hangers, by falling down stairs, or any of a hundred other things. I don’t believe that abortion is ethically wrong. What’s ethically wrong is denying women access to safe legal abortions with counseling.
Zachary killed himself on January 4, 1989, in Nashville.
I chose survival. My life went on to be a full and rich one. In this crazy world, I must say one more thing. My life is one hundred percent Freyable. I don’t tell stories like these that can’t be fact checked. Trust me I didn’t begin life asking “will Oprah believe me?” But I have always made sure that when I write these type of stories they could be verified. It’s part of the guilt gene thing.
Crossposted at BIO where you can get out your moral outrage if you want. This isn’t the place to.
I am more interested in your recollections of the classic melodramatic serio-comic and serio-tragic romantic life with Zachary than all the other reveries of your colourful memories.
If you had the child, you would have saved Zachary in the end.
Your true life story with Zachary will make a better musical film than “Chicago”.
You were psychologically insecure to save Zachary.
The nightmares still haunt you?
I couldn’t have saved him. He was sick. Very sick.
I have never once had a nightmare or second thought about this
I have felt sad about Zachary, very sad. But I have never regretted my decision
Zachary was an undiagnosed bipolar who wouldn’t get treatment.
Nobody can save somebody hell bent on self destruction. Nobody
You save yourself in a situation like that
Thank you. Anyone who thinks life is simple should try having one.
Pia that was moving. No moral outrage here.
Having a child does not take away your problems. Having a child because you have problems is the wrong reason to have one to begin with. A child would not have saved Zachary. Zachary would have f-ed up the child. Pia made the right choice and answered brilliantly! No regrets because there are none to be had!
Having a child would NOT have saved him. What it more likely would have done was dragged Pia and the child with him.
No one should have a child to “save” someone, or for any other purpose but for wanting wholeheartedly to be a parent. And they will need to subjugate their needs for their child’s for many, many years.
And I am not saying that as a theory, I am saying that as a mother of 2 children, the hardest job I will ever take on in my life!
Never expected this much this soon. Anytime you give a glimpse of you and Zachary, it leaves me wanting more. What I’m trying to say is, when will the book be out?
To: MICHAEL CHIMA – provided he returns and sees this
When exactly did Pia become responsible for Zachary’s life? (And let’s not even touch on the truckload of BS behind your belief that it’s okay to put the burden of “saving” a parent on their child – speaking from experience as a daughter forced into such a role by her father).
The “My life is a mess becaus of Person X” excuse only works for so long. Pia was not only considering the effects on her life, but those of the child that would have been born into a dangerous and dysfunctional situation.
Deciding whether or not to have an abortion is not (and never will be) an easy decision, but as Pia said: the least we can do for the women of this country – the women of the world, is provide them with the safest means possible.
Thank you all. Too tired to answer rationally. The state of Missisipi wants to be next–here is a round up of news
Awesome story pia.
No one is responsible for saving someone else. You can only save yourself and by doing that save others. If it doesn’t work they can’t be saved.
Pia… life is only what you make it. The decisions you make in life are yours and yours alone. I am a firm believer in choices… taking ones freedom away to make a decision such as abortion is flat out unconstitutional.
None of us are responsible for “saving” someone else from themselves. AND… None of us should have to take any sort of abuse.
You have come along way… love ya!
-Shayna
Now I understand today’s post–and why you were attracted to Zachary. You are right, you can’t save Zachary or anyone else. I don’t like the idea of abortion, but I don’t condemn you either.
One of the things I admire about you, Pia, is your ability to prioritize yourself. And that’s just what this is all about, a woman’s inherent right to prioritize her body, her emotions, her life.
Sorry I didn’t get to comment sooner challenging day out today. I’ll get over to lend my support and comment at BIO, but wanted to say good and necessary post.
As an adoptive parent, I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with you that you can be pro-adoption AND pro-choice. The woman from whose womb my daughter came forth made a choice to give birth. I am thankful she did, and thankful that it was her choice to make.
I have known what I believe to be 4 definite bipolar personalities in my lifetime. Some were diagnosed, others weren’t. All were largely untreated. It’s a very hard situation to deal with.
You did the right thing. The only person we can ever truly take care of is ourselves and nothing can save someone who is hell bent on self-destruction. And it really sucks when you are in love with that person. Best to you.
How on earth can anyone have such bad manners as to second-guess a woman on her own choices for her own body? You’re very brave to share your life with us. And we need your voice just about now.
Do we truly fall in love?
Or for the fancy of the experience of the romance?
If we can only save ourselves, I wonder how the needy people you all know are alive today would have survived if the brave heroes and “sheroes” in their lives gave up on them.
A significant event such as the birth of ones’s own flesh and blood, would have changed this statement:
“Zachary killed himself on January 4, 1989, in Nashville.”
The circumstances would have changed.
Your resolution that “Zachary was an undiagnosed bipolar who wouldn’t get treatment” even made me wonder how you allowed the state of mind of someone you loved to degenerate?
If Zachary was capable of having the state of mind to have a relationship with you, then he was not a lost cause.
I don’t mind to re-open the case and find out the details of the circumstances surrounding his death. So, that the lessons learnt would be useful to others going through the same ordeals you went through with Zachary.
I don’t believe in running out of a house on fire, leaving a disabled “Zachary” in lurch and knowing that if nobody helped him, he would be burnt to death. I would have called 911.
If you couldn’t save him, 911 would have tried to stop him from suicide if they were alerted. Even, if it meant taking him away bound in a straight jacket to the nearest psychiatric hospital.
To all the cheerleaders. Yes, Pia has the right to her life. But, I have the right to express how I felt reading her story. Because, if she could choose to fall in love with a sick man, she would have done better if she even sacrificed her freedom for the possibility of his redemption.
I had a relationship with someone regarded as a sick person and she was stable for the two years she stayed within my reach. But, when she returned to Munich she had problems with her family. Her condition became critical. She left home and later stopped working and finally, she was never seen again. Why? Her family and office failed to do the right thing to save her from her predicament.
I don’t see problems.
I see challenges and in challenges, I see possibilities.
A sick man has altered the history of America since 9/11 and his wife has not given up on him and the US Congress has not impeached him? Why?
What is love if you cannot pay the price and if you cannot make the sacrifice?
Love is not a soap opera and life is not a fairy tale.
God bless.
MICHAEL CHIMA- If you read Pia’s comments about her relationship with Zachary, it wasn’t much of one to begin with. They were going through the motions, her praying it would get better, him possibly hoping she would be his savior (or his martyr).
Bringing a child into the world, no matter how beautiful, is never the solution to anyone’s problems. If anything, it can open the doors to new ones.
Sure there is an element of sacrifice in any healthy relationship, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of losing yourself.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life it’s not to prejudge. You don’t know what you would do until it happens to you. Every circumstance is different. Speculation as to otherwise is just that, speculation.