Moving Forward
“Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can’t prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you’re presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power. ” – Blaine
A dear friend (adoptee around the age of my daughter) has been randomly checking on me since my daughter requested no contact. I smile every time I get a note from this friend as it makes me feel loved and understood and cared for. I told her I am fine. I really am.
For me, in my case, being denied access to my daughter by my daughter isn’t all that life changing. Let me explain.
Sure it makes me sad. Sure I had hoped for something different but the reality is that her telling me to go away is not that different from my parents, the agency, society. I don’t say that for dramatic effect or in the case of boo-hoo poor me, but rather that this is a place I have been before. This is a place I have survived. I am okay. I will be okay.
The difference this time (and it is a huge ginormous difference) is that it was my daughter that “sent me away”. That is oddly enlightening and even a bit empowering. It wasn’t Easter House that said NO. It wasn’t my parents, or her adoptive parents, or some religious institution. It wasn’t some governing body that told me she was better off without me and I without her.
She did.
I am not going to debate the merits of her statements or what might be behind them. I am not going to challenge them or try to say I understand them. I dont. I cannot. I dont know what it is like to be adopted. Only she knows that. I am suggesting that it feels good that SHE is the one in the place of power and not someone else.
Does that make sense?
I offered my daughter her medical history. She doesn’t want it. Nor does she want her OBC, her story, her first family. Sad? Perhaps to me, maybe to you, maybe not to her. But look at the power here. The power that she has that other adoptees don’t. I offered my daughter everything I could and she chose to decline it. She did. Not anyone else. For once in my life since my daughters birth we are defining our relationship. It is not being done by others.
Perhaps I am losing you. It is rather hard for me to explain. I am simply happy that I found her, offered her everything and she had the choice to decline. And she still has the choice to accept in the future. She knows my name, where I live, where I work, the names of her brothers, her father, and more.
Her choice.
We have the chance to define our relationship on our terms not those dictated by others. (Yes, someone may suggest that my daughters decisions are being dictated and influenced by external forces but we don’t know that for sure so we should not assume).
Additionally, quite candidly, I find my situation easy compared to others I know. In my opinion, accepting reunion, working through it, sharing the anger, the feelings, working at the relationship, integrating your dual selves (the mother/notmother and the two sides of the adopted adult), admitting the ugliness that can come with adoption THAT is the hard stuff. What I am dealing with is not hard compared to what many of my friends are working through.
I have unfollowed my daughter on twitter. I took her blog off my feed reader. I took her name off of my google alerts. I took her off my family and friend contacts on Flickr. I concluded I am not sending her any notification at all for her birthday. I will continue my practice of donating in her honor and proceed with the formation of a scholarship fund. But I wont tell her about it. I admit I still randomly visit her blog and her lookbook but I dont comment. I realize she can see her stats and likely CT coming there. Hopefully she sees those going down as I am doing it less and less. Hopefully very soon she will notice I abided by her wishes completely. As I have said before, motherhood does not come with an off switch. However, I am finding for me, it does come with a dimmer switch. I am slowly turning the knob.
And I am okay.
As I have said many times, my daughters refusal to acknowledge me or my love does not cease either from being. I am finding peace in knowing that I have done all I could to date and for now, I am, moving onward, upward and very much forward.
Thanks again to my friend for checking on me.
Top 101
I realize it is Adoption Free Friday. Have you noticed I did not post last Friday? That was by design. I simply could not come up with something to post here that was not adoption related. Add to it I was percolating the thoughts expressed in the previous This No Contact Thing (which happened to generate some very helpful commentary).
You will have to forgive me but this post will not be adoption free.
I noticed I was listed in Grown in My Hearts Top 101 Adoption, Loss and Fertility blogs. Thank you to whomever it was that made that decision. I feel oddly uncomfortable as I rarely visit GIMH. This is my own issue and has nothing to do with the quality of the content, the writers, etc. on GIMH. There are times when I read material there and find it WAY.TOO.TRIGGERING. So, I practice the fine art of avoidance.
But yeah, thanks, GIMH. I am flattered.
On Feeding Trolls
An Internet “troll” is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. He tries to start arguments and upset people.
Trolls see Internet communications services as convenient venues for their bizarre game. For some reason, they don’t “get” that they are hurting real people. To them, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction. As a result, they feel no sorrow whatsoever for the pain they inflict. Indeed, the greater the suffering they cause, the greater their ‘achievement’ (as they see it). At the moment, the relative anonymity of the net allows trolls to flourish.
Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility.
Perhaps this sounds inconceivable. You may think, “Surely there is something I can write that will change them.” But a true troll can not be changed by mere words. – Internet Trolls
Love this recent open forum ReadWriteWeb on dealing with negativity online as well as trolls. Particularly amused by the line of “don’t feed the trolls unless you are feeding them tranquilizers”. Teehee.
I agree. I work hard not to feed trolls. Historically (as in years ago) I deleted them. These days I tend to leave their comments on my blog. I consider it a bit of a public service. Good for everyone to know the trolls. Trolls behavior is a reflection of them – not me. The only comments I do delete are those that attack other commentors. I will not allow my blog to be used as a platform for blog wars.
Anywho, check out the article.
Please vote for adoptee rights
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~William James
Please vote for this and share the link accordingly.
Return Adult Adoptees the right to their Original Birth Certificates
And The Reading Continues
“Research has found that the forgotten natural mothers of adopted children are suffering serious psychological problems up to forty years after being parted from their children”. – Danielle Robinson
Today I finished the second in a series of teen lit books I am reading related to the topic of unplanned pregnancy, parenting, adoption and abortion.
The latest selection is Annie’s Baby, The Diary of Anonymous, A Pregnant Teenager by Beatrice Sparks, Ph.D. From what I can gather, Sparks is the therapist who counseled “Annie” after she had her baby. Keep that in mind.
AT first the book annoyed me. It is written as a diary, Annie’s diary. She is fourteen and well, writes like a fourteen year old. It was hard for me, as a 42 year old, to follow it at first. I got a few pages into it, had to put it down and only came back to it today. I read it completely today.
Hmph. Once again, I struggle with a review and commentary. Like the last book, this is likely due to being able to relate a bit too much to some (not all) of the book. Annie is an honor student, child of divorce, living with her mother. She is a “good girl”, much like I was. She becomes involved in an abusive relationship with the rich, popular boy in school who not only physically abuses her but rapes her more than once. She is so enamoured with him she stays in this relationship until she eventually becomes pregnant. She goes against all her family values and violates her Methodist Youth Group’s vow of chastity and stays in the relationship.
The book is allegedly based on a true story. It was published in 1995 and frankly, I find some of the words in the diary to be a bit off base (for 1995 and probably for at least the 20 years prior to 1995). Like many of the reader reviews on Amazon some parts of the story seem incredibly out of whack. Perhaps that was done to protect the real “Annie”.
Annie eventually tells her mother she is pregnant and her mother is amazingly, if not unbelievably, supporting. Annie goes through her pregnancy, transfers to a school for “unwed” mothers, and eventually gives birth to her daughter Mary Ann. The book details the challenges associated with being a young mother, even one with plenty of support from her own mother. After some period of time and a number of disturbing situations Annie finds Dr. B (the editor of the book) and is helped through the healing process. She discussed her rape, her pregnancy, her boyfriends physical abuse of her. Annie returns home to her mother (after spending a weekend with Dr. B and presumably being cured or helped or served some koolaid or something) and within very short order puts Mary Ann up for adoption to loving couple that has all that Annie and her mother do not, blah, blah blah, barf.
At this point, literally the last 10 pages of the book the standard adoption mythology takes over. I am saddened to see that with all her support from her mother, her father, the teachers at school, other unwed Moms, Annie still believes her daughter deserves better than she can provide. She feels she has no value (but then again that lack of self-esteem probably kept her in that abusive relationship). I was however happy to see about three sentences dedicated to the grief Annie would feel for the rest of her life. Page 227 contains the following statement (this hit me pretty danged hard)
“Mom and I talked to another couple for hours, and I’m soooo confused. I want L’il Annie to have all the love and security and normalcy that Steve and Jo-Jo can give her, but still I’m sure I’ll just wither away and die, and I’ll forever feel guilty and like I have committed two major sins instead of one…”
Wow. That hit me right were it hurts. It caused me to put the book down and stare out my family room window for a signficant amount of time pondering which sin was bigger? Having sex out of wedlock with my daughter’s father or surrendering her to strangers? I suppose the answer to that would depend on whom you were asking.
Page 229 says
“I’ve been weeping from loneliness, guilt and pain for three months…at least..but I know in my heart..at least sometimes I think I know in my heart, that it was right to allow L’il Annie the opportunity to grow up in a normal adult home…”
I wonder how Annie and L’il Annie are doing today?
I have more to say here but I am feeling choked up and ready to cry.
Next up on the reading list: Conception: A Novel.
This No Contact Thing
“Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.” – Rosa Parks
This no contact thing with my daughter. I am assuming, perhaps erroneously so, that it applies to her birthday. No contact is no contact and that means not sending a birthday wish in May, right?
Or wrong?
This feels very precarious to me. I feel as if I wish her happy birthday (and say nothing more than those two words) that I risk angering her again. I would be violating her wishes. Yet I also feel that if I don’t wish her a happy birthday I am pissing her off too (or falling into a trap that was set for me). Maybe I am dreaming there. Maybe I am hoping she would care.
Thoughts?
It violates every cell of my being to not wish my child a happy birthday. I wont send her a gift. I haven’t in several years (as she requested) but I will continue my practice of making a charitable donation in honor of her. (I am actually in the early stages of forming a scholarship fund. Cool thing is that the name of the fund is a combination of her original first and middle name and her amended names And the word that is formed is “nourishing” in Latin. And that is what I want the scholarship to be – nourishment to a single mom attending school. But, I digress).
But what with this birthday thing?
Important to note that in her last correspondence to me she stated that she rarely thinks of adoption and by extension, me, and my commenting on her sites or emailing her reminds her of that which she would rather not be reminded.
Should I assume that applies to birthdays or should I just do what I want and wish her a simple happy birthday?
AFF
While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. ~Dorothea Lange
A few blogs I follow regularly post under a tag of Adoption Free Friday. I think I am gonna try that approach for a while. Mama2Roo used to tease me about sharing non-adoption related material on my blog. For me, my blog, this blog is pretty hardcore to its topic – adoption and its effect on me, my life, my subsequent children and extended family. As a result, it is easy for one to assume I am a raving nutter grasping for walls and waving a snot rag all the time.
I am not. I have a full life with wonderful boys, wonderful fiance, hobbies that include jewelry making, writing, reading, home decor, entertaining, hair color, fashion, and more. But I dont share that here for a number of reasons. Does anyone really CARE what my latest hair color is? What I made for dinner? No offense to those types of mommy blogs but I can’t imagine anyone being interested in that part of my life. Perhaps I dont know how to write about anything but adoption (hope not). Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I am too hardcore about keeping this blog true to topic. Perhaps I am once again overthinking.
: )
Regardless, I want to jump on the Adoption Free Friday wagon and will do so by sharing photos of my darling Rich.
Yum.
Taken at top of Sears Tower Chicago - Spring 2009
June 2009 - Rich Sons Graduation from HS
The First Part Last
I never had any cake though ’cause my girlfriend Nia was waiting on our stoop for me with a red balloon. Just sittin’ there with a balloon, looking all lost. I’ll never forget that look and how her voice shook when she said, “Bobby, I’ve got something to tell you.” – Bobby, The First Part Last, by Angela Johnson
I am conducting some research for a writing project. The research involves reading a few young adult fiction novels that deal with unplanned pregnancy, teen parenting and more.
Wow. Can we get a bigger trigger pointed at me? It is one thing to read Fessler or Robinson or Solinger. It is another thing entirely to read books written for teens like I was, books that describe my experience, books that talk about having to tell your boyfriend that your period has disappeared. Ay yi yi.
Last night I read a book titled The First Part Last by Angela Johnson. Gulp. The novel (as described by Amazon) tells the story of a young father struggling to raise an infant. Bobby, 16, is a sensitive and intelligent narrator. His parents are supportive but refuse to take over the child-care duties, so he struggles to balance parenting, school, and friends who don’t comprehend his new role. Alternate chapters go back to the story of Bobby’s relationship with his girlfriend Nia and how parents and friends reacted to the news of her pregnancy. Bobby’s parents are well-developed characters, Nia’s upper-class family somewhat less so. Flashbacks lead to the revelation in the final chapters that Nia is in an irreversible coma caused by eclampsia.
I did enjoy the book (read it in an hour). I want to give the book some sort of positive review yet I am I struggling. How can I do research if my research triggers me? How do I put on some sort of emotional glasses that will filter out the tears and allow me to see the story yet not?
The book had a few triggers. The page or two that highlights the expectant parents meeting with an adoption agency, what they say to the expectant parents was massively disturbing to me on so many levels.
Oh, and yeah, years ago, right after I found my daughter and reunited with her father we found we both still had intense feelings for each other. We had many conversations, exchanges, and at one point her natural father says to me “It feels like we are living life backwards. Like we are putting the first part last.” The trigger there should be obvious.
I am struggling to give the book a good review and again, that is likely because the subject matter is so close to my aortic valve. But yeah, read it. Read it if you have teenage sons or daughters. Have them read it. Discuss it. I plan to do so with my 12 year old son.
Next up on the reading list is Annie’s Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager.
Blog Surfing
“The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end” – Benjamin Disraeli
Was blog surfing this evening and stumbled over to Birth Mother, First Mother Forum.
Read this story shared by Lorraine. Wow. It made me cry. It could have been my story. Difference is that the man she speaks of, in my life, IS my daughters father. Wow. That brought back memories.
Some day I really want to blog more about my daughters father. For years I was choked up with it all. Respecting him, respecting her, respecting my ex husband. Respecting people who did not respect me. Living in my fantasy world of what ifs and could bes and should bes and dreaming of the intensity of a love long gone.
These days I am surrounded by the love of a man with whom I can discuss my daughters father freely. My fiancé is not threatened, he does not look away, he looks at me warmly, seeing the love and loss in my eyes and hearing it in my voice. He reaches out and hugs me. He allows me to talk. He allows me to reminisce, he allows me to be all nostalgic and tell him things about my daughters father I have never told another living soul.
And he still loves me.
And for that I love him more than he will ever know or understand.
But yeah, go read this:
But it is.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” – Rumi
Osolomama left an amusing link in response to my last post. In that post I shared the fact that my fiancé despises the phrase “It is what it is”.
For me, contrary to what the article suggests, “it is what it is” for me is total acceptance. It is not passive aggressive, it is not stifling anger. It is my version of the serenity prayer. I have the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
I cannot change my daughters position. I cannot force her to care, to want, to think about me, to feel that adoption is part of her life. She says it isn’t and therefore I am not. One could attempt to debate this with her, even throw suggestions of denial or adoptee fog into her face, but to what end? To hurt her? Argue with her? Show her I am right and she is wrong?
It is not about right and wrong for me. I know what I know and what I feel. I know what is obvious and true (I gave birth to her, I am her mother, I do love her). The fact that she doesn’t feel that doesn’t change it for me. It does not cease me from being. It does not change my feelings for her.
There is an author named Byron Katie that is known for her book Loving What Is and material known as The Work. The Work is a simple process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question thoughts that cause suffering in your world. It’s a way to understand what’s hurting you, and to address your problems with clarity. In its most basic form the work contains four basic questions and a turn around. Some might call this reframing and perhaps to some extent it is, just Byron Katies way of doing it.
The questions:
- Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without the thought?
The turn around:
Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning). Straight from Byron Katie’s site “After you’ve investigated your statement with the four questions, you’re ready to turn it around (the concept you are questioning). Each turnaround is an opportunity to experience the opposite of your original statement and see what you and the person you’ve judged have in common. A statement can be turned around to the opposite, to the other, and to the self (and sometimes to “my thinking,” wherever that applies).”
I have thought about this Work, reframing, even the serenity prayer a lot in helping myself to manage the feelings caused by the loss of my daughter, my resulting reunion yet not reunion. I have concluded it is not important what SHE thinks about me, our reunion, etc. It is more important what I think. I control my thoughts, my feelings, my actions. Not her.
As such, I am my daughters first mother. Always have been. Always will be. I will always love her. I will always miss her. I will always want her in my life. Any dispute, challenge, etc from her does not change any of that.
Hence, for me, it is what it is.
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