Month: February 2007

Its a Pull Not Push

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"The courage to speak your own truth always frees someone else" -  Oprah

I have a number of family members that are alcoholics and addicts. I have some that are both – dual diagnosis.

I found it interesting at one time that the individuals that were both addicts and alcoholics could easily admit to the drug addiction but not the alcohol problem.

It should have made sense to me at the time.

It didn’t.

Not having suffered the diseases, of course I wouldn’t understand. It just stumped me. Isn’t being an addict worse than an alcoholic? Better yet, does it really matter? (Clearly, I was pretty ignorant at that time).

The Dual Diagnosis (DD) family member later told me it was harder to admit they were an alcoholic because they had told themselves for years “that would never happen to me”. They had looked with disgust at our other alcohol family members. DD would NEVER be a drunk, wino, an alkie. The drug addiction took them by surprise, was “new” in our family, it was easier to accept. It wasn’t expected.

Interestingly, during DDs  early recovery DD avoided the alcoholics in the family. DD talked freely about addiction but avoided the alcohol component. They didn’t have a problem.

We talked about this in later years and DD informed me that being around the family known alcoholic was too painful. It was like looking in the mirror. As long as they did not see that family member, they did not see the alcoholic in themselves.

Duh.

Of course I get that now.

What the heck does this story have to do with adoption?

Someone suggested a similar concept to me today.

In discussing my daughters resistance to reunion with a friend, the friend asked if I had considered that one of the reasons my daughter avoids me, it, is well, me and my involvement in adoption.

(Yes, I have considered it and believe there is probably some truth).

Meaning, if she wants to avoid dealing with adoption, and she comes from an adoptive family that denies it, does she REALLY want to deal with me? The poster child for all that is wrong in adoption? Me? That writes publicly, shares on taped radio shows, runs support groups, websites, etc. Its quite probable, I am, the physical manifestation of what she wants to avoid. Maybe her worst nightmare.

Yes, yes. I get that. I really do.

This friend went further to suggest that perhaps I should NOT do what I do and that would make my daughter more comfortable. Friend suggested I should stop expressing myself…to make her more comfortable. To well, join her in her possible denial.

Um.
Err.
No.

My daughter and I have lightly discussed this. When she expressed discomfort at this very blog, I told her I understood, but that I worked hard to leave her out of it, I don’t publish her name, location, school, pictures, etc. I respect her privacy.

“Yeah, but its about me” she said
“Um, yeah, but its also about me”.

I told her I would think about it. I told her I felt uncomfortable changing myself into someone/something I wasn’t to make her comfortable. (Enabling comes to mind). I told her that triggered memories of why she was surrendered in the first place. (To make my parents, her adopters, the agency…all more comfortable and fat and happy).  I really couldn’t do that.

Equally important (but what I did not say to her), is that this stuff is Me. Not All of me, but part of me. And I want her to know ME..not some fairy tale, comfortable version of me.

I can respect boundaries. I don’t expect her to support my cause, my thoughts. She doesn’t want to talk this stuff, I understand. So I don’t talk this stuff with her. However, should she ever change her mind, I am happy to do so. Consider it a pull and not a push.

She asks questions now and then. I answer them. Simply. Directly. Only what was asked. Kinda like what you do with all children. Sure, she is an adult but our relationship is an immature one.  Technical, in contact years, she is a 2.5 year old. I take the approach I take with my other children. I answer only what is asked and don’t push more. I leave it up to her to decide when, what, if she wants more.

Does this possibility make me sad?

Sure. But what options do I have?

An adoptive mom friend of mine says I have patience of a saint. No. Not really. I just treat her the way I would want to be treated.  Hopefully, since she is my child, she appreciates that.

Only time will tell.

I Think, I Feel

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"To the soul, there is hardly anything more healing than friendship." – Thomas Moore

So I stuttered a few times, giggled at a few spots, even said one site name wrong. It was nerves, anxiety and oh yeah, that thing called triggering emotional memories.

Overall the show taping went well and I like the way I sounded. Michelle sent me the unedited version just so I can hear. And she might be able to fix my error.

It was rather odd to hear myself talk about the experience. Its one thing to write it, yet another to tell it and still something different to say and then hear it back. Very odd.

My stuttering was do to overthinking or getting ahead of myself. I started to share some parts of my story, as it related to my parents, and I caught myself. I felt badly. I did not want to speak bad of them or how they failed me or what they did or did not do.

Even still, today, after all I have gone through, I am protecting them, thinking of their feelings.  I am keenly aware of it now and I falter between loyalty to myself and loyalty to them and the family I shamed. It’s difficult at best.

One of the questions she asked me during the interview was if I “FELT” something was wrong during my stay in maternity home. Did I feel that I was committing a crime against nature, against my daughter, against my own soul. Did I feel something was being withheld from me.

Hell yeah. I did feel that. I felt it  when I was treated differently by the other girls in the maternity home, I felt it in my interactions with the Director of the home, I felt it in the conversations I had with my caseworker. It was always there. Some underlying, blackness, some deep dark evil, anger, rage. Something was WRONG.  It was like those little ghostly figures that come up and take the evil doers in the movie “Ghost”. It was a feeling of sickness, of wrongness.

I could not put words to that feeling back then  I did not question the feeling, I did not look at it, I did not give it rise. I just went along for the ride. I did what I was “supposed” to do. I was a good girl. I did not question my elders. They were right. I was wrong. My bulging belly was proof of that.

Honestly, I internalized the feeling and just assumed it was about ME. That I was the evil bad, wrong one and NOT that something outside me was wrong.

Thomas Moore might say it was my soul speaking.  Others might say it was my True Self. Regardless of what it was, I denied it. Ignored it.

I believe, now, that behaving in such a manner caused some sort of split in me. That I worked hard at controlling and denying my feelings and I forced myself to stay in the higher, thinking, ego realm.

Over the years of in therapy and with friends, I have often been chastised for over thinking and not enough feeling. Guh. How many times I have heard “That’s a THOUGHT, Suz, not a feeling”

Of frig you, I wanted to scream, when you hear me say “I think” just substitute, “I feel” okay, and oh yeah, get off my case.

What was the big deal anyway? My Jungian Type is a Thinker. ITSJ.  Beating me up for my feelings (or lack thereof) was just further proof to me that I was once again wrong, not good, not right. It made me cautious to express myself AT ALL to anyone.

But alas, lo and behold…things have been changing.

Over the past two years with my most recent therapist, there is a marked awareness and expression of my feelings. I am aware of them now. I say them “I feel sad, mad or scared”. I feel uncomfortable.   Sounds trite perhaps, but I FEEL the change.

I believe in part this change was affected by not only my therapist and my own work, but by my friends, support network of moms and adoptees and even fellow bloggers.  For the first time, EVER, I was in the company of people who not only FELT like I did but expressed it.  They met me. They stood in the fire with me and did not shrink back.  And even those that did not feel it, respected it, allowed it to be. Did not move to fix it, fade it, change it or deny it.

And it was okay to express. They wanted to hear it. They wanted to share theirs. Being so transparent and sharing, gave others the comfort to do the same. It was one massive support group meeting. Group hugs across cyberspace.

In surrendering my daughter, I denied my own feelings. I abdicated my needs and desires to the agency, my parents and the “greater good”. They were more important. She was more important. I was worthless. Nothing.Nada. Nunca. Niema. Zilch.

To survive that loss, I suppressed my feelings. I lived in LaLa Land (for a few years anyway) and told myself I did the right thing, it was okay, she’s okay. NOW GO AWAY LITTLE DEMON NEGATIVE FEELING. Alternatively, get away from me Truth. Go away Soul. Screw you my True Self.

I was afraid of dealing with my feelings. I was afraid I could not handle them. I was afraid they would overcome me. I was afraid I would have an abreaction (not unlike what I did at the Fessler presentation).

Over time, I have dipped my toes in the waters of feeling and heeeyyyyyyy, would you look at that, I have survived. I am growing, learning, feeling and you know what? It aint so bad.

If my thinking self needs proof of this, it can be found in the fact that these days, when I take an MBTI test, I have different results. Shocked, I take the tests over and over and take different ones.

Same, differing result.

I now rank as an INFJ.  Maybe not a huge deal but it kinda is to me. Well, at least to my thinking self it is.