Wondering how Halloween candy connects to grief and healing after abortion?
A gentle October reflection for anyone carrying something heavy after abortion.
There’s a bowl of candy on your counter right now, isn’t there? Or there will be soon. October and candy just go together. Ever play that icebreaker “If you were a candy, which one would you be?” Let’s turn that idea a little and ask: what might candy have to say about healing after abortion?
October has a way of dragging a lot of feelings to the surface, and as the holidays come into view, that can build. If you’ve been struggling after abortion, this can be a tender stretch of time on the calendar. So pour yourself something warm, grab a piece of candy out of the bowl if you want one, and let’s just talk for a few minutes. No lecture. No fixing. Just a friend pulling up a chair.
It turns out the candy bowl has more to say than you might think.
M&M’s: When You Look Fine on the Outside After Abortion
Here’s the thing about an M&M. That hard candy coating exists for one reason — so the chocolate inside doesn’t melt all over everything.
A lot of us walk around in a shell like that after abortion. From the outside you look completely fine. You answer, “I’m good, you?” at the grocery store. You show up, you laugh at the right moments, you keep the shell intact. But underneath, there’s something soft you’ve been protecting, maybe for a long time, maybe from everyone.
One woman told us she’d gotten so good at “fine” that her own sister had no idea anything was wrong—for eleven years. The first time she said the truth out loud to someone safe, she described it as setting down a bag she’d forgotten she was even carrying.
You don’t owe anyone the inside of that shell on demand. But it’s worth knowing this: a shell that never opens, even a little, even with one safe person, can get exhausting to hold. You weren’t built to carry it alone forever.
Pop Rocks: When Grief After Abortion Hits Out of Nowhere
Remember Pop Rocks? Quiet little candy, sitting there harmless on your tongue, and then—snap, crackle—going off all at once when you least expect it.
Grief does this. You can be totally okay, pushing the cart down the cereal aisle, and a song comes on or you pass something in the seasonal section and it just goes off inside you out of nowhere. Grief researchers will tell you these waves are normal and that reminders can arrive completely unexpectedly, sometimes years later. It doesn’t mean you’re going backward. The wave isn’t a setback. It’s just a wave. It crests, and then it goes back out, and you’re still standing.
If one catches you this month, you don’t have to explain or justify it to anyone, including yourself.
One man shared that memories of his abortion experience with an old girlfriend hit him in a hardware store when a certain song came over the speakers. He had to set down what he was holding and go sit in his truck for a bit before he could go back in and finish his list.
Almond Joy and Mounds: Some Days Are Harder Than Others After Abortion
You know the old jingle. The whole idea was that some days you want the one with the nuts, and some days you want the plain one. Two moods. Both are completely fine.
Healing after abortion is a lot like that, day to day. Some mornings you wake up steady, capable, ready to tackle your to-do list. Other mornings the same list feels like climbing a wall. That swing is common. As we share in our Grief After Abortion: 10 Things Everyone Should Know blog, there’s no right or wrong way to move through grief after abortion. And the kindest thing you can do is grieve at your own pace. Some days you can carry it more easily. Some days you can’t. Let both kinds of days be allowed.
Tootsie Pop: There’s No Timeline for Healing After Abortion
There’s an old commercial that asks how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, and the famous answer is that nobody really knows—because sooner or later everyone gets impatient and bites. Biting still gets you to the center. You just arrive with a mouthful of cracked candy mixed into the chocolate, when waiting would have let it come to you smooth and whole.
If there’s one thing to offer you this October, it’s permission to not hurry. Healing after abortion is the same: rush it and you may still get there, just rougher than it might have been. There’s no timeline for your grief after abortion. You’re not behind. Nobody gets to tell you that you should be “over it” by now, including the voice in your own head. Slow is allowed. Slow is often the only way through.
Candy Corn: When Halloween and the Holidays Feel Hard After Abortion
Candy corn might be the most argued-over candy in the bowl. Some people reach for it first, some won’t touch it, and plenty of us might feel either way depending on the year.
That’s honest, and it’s a fair thing to feel about this whole season. The holidays can stir up a confusing mix—warmth and dread, longing and relief, gratitude and grief, sometimes all in the same afternoon. It’s okay to hold more than one feeling at once in your grief after abortion. You don’t have to sort them into the “right” pile before you’re permitted to feel them.
If you’re already quietly bracing for Halloween night—for the doorbell, for the little ones in costume on the porch, for the families on the sidewalk doing the thing your heart might ache for—that makes sense. It’s one of the genuinely hard nights for people struggling after abortion, and almost nobody talks about it.
So give yourself an exit ramp if you need one. Leave the porch light off and the bowl outside with a “help yourself” note. Let someone else hand out the candy while you stay in the back of the house. Go to a movie and skip the whole evening. Make a plan with a friend who knows what you’re carrying. Whatever protects your heart that night is a perfectly good choice, and you don’t have to justify it to a single soul.
One woman told us she dreaded the Trick-or-Treat doorbell for years, until one October she turned off the porch light, made a big bowl of popcorn, and watched movies on the couch with her husband instead. She said it was the first Halloween in a long time that felt peaceful.
Life Savers: You Don’t Have to Heal Alone
Then there are Life Savers. They’re named after the ring you throw to someone in the water to help keep them afloat.
So much of healing comes down to one person reaching toward another. Mental health professionals say that connection is one of the strongest things we have going for us, and that knowing you’re not the only one who’s felt this way can mean a lot. There’s even a name for the particular isolation you may have felt — disenfranchised grief, a term from grief expert Dr. Kenneth Doka. It’s a kind of grief the world may not acknowledge, which can leave you carrying it in silence. If that feels familiar, let it also be a reason you reach out, because having your grief witnessed by even one kind person can make it lighter to hold.
And while we’re talking about kindness, psychologist Kristin Neff, who has spent two decades studying self-compassion, boils her findings down to something beautifully simple: talk to yourself the way you’d talk to a good friend going through the same thing. Think back over anything you’ve said to yourself this week. Would you ever say it to a friend who was hurting? If not, it’s okay to soften it. Start there.
Beyond the Candy Bowl: Healing on Your Own Time
If you take one thing from this whole candy-bowl conversation, let it be this: healing after abortion can begin any way you like, and at any time—that’s yours to choose. You are welcome here, exactly as you are, shell and soft center and all. You don’t have to have it figured out.
Whether it’s today, next week, or some quiet evening once the whole season has finally wound down, there are people who would be honored to support you in your healing after abortion journey. You get to choose how: a phone call, a text, a screen from your own couch, a group, or a chair pulled up across a real table.
Because here’s the truth about that doorbell: it goes quiet on the first of November, but the season it opens doesn’t end there. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s—they’re all boxed together into one long, tender stretch that can feel like it goes on and on. You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through any of it alone. No judgment. No timeline. Just a chair pulled up, a bowl on the table, and all the time in the world.
Finding Healing After Abortion
Support After Abortion has walked alongside thousands of women and men dealing with emotions that can follow abortion experiences. We understand the complexity of this journey, and we’re committed to helping you find the path to healing after abortion that feels right for you.
After Abortion Line
A safe, anonymous, and compassionate space to talk about your abortion experiences. Call or text us at 844-289-HOPE (4673) or visit supportafterabortion.com.
Healing Support Groups and Mentors
Connect in a group or one-on-one setting, depending on your comfort level. We offer choices like religious and secular, virtual and in-person, peer-led and counseling—for both women and men.
Self-Guided or Group Resources
We offer tools you can work through independently or with others:
- Keys to Hope and Healing — A secular, compassionate way to begin working through your emotions and grief after abortion. For women and men, in English or Spanish. Self-guided videos and journals are great go-along resources.
- Finding Solid Ground: A Man’s Guide to Healing After Abortion — A faith-based resource for men seeking healing after abortion, centered on God’s love and mercy. The real stories, straight talk, and practical tools help men work through abortion-related grief and emotions. The companion video series builds on each chapter with additional insights, reflections, and an integrated music playlist.
- Unraveled Roots — For when you want to dig a little deeper at what might be underneath the pain—like abandonment, addiction, abuse, or codependency—and find new ways forward. Available for women in English and Spanish, and for men in English. Self-guided videos and journals are also available.
Maybe, after all this, you’ll never look at a bowl of Halloween candy quite the same way again.
Every bowl holds a mix of favorites and leftovers, sweet memories and difficult ones. Life often does too. Yet even in the middle of a season that feels complicated, hope has a way of showing up—sometimes quietly, sometimes unexpectedly.
If one piece of candy—or one thought—stays with you after you close your screen, let it be this: whatever you’re carrying today, you don’t have to carry it alone. You matter, and we’re here for you.
© Support After Abortion
If you’d like to share what candy you feel like today — or something in the blog that stayed with you — you can leave us a note here or send us an email.