Month: August 2007

“Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.” – Anthony D’Angelo

I wish ULB was here. I would give her a huge hug. Her posting of archive.org reminded me to look up a few things. I found them and then saved them.

I found this and this.

Of course I knew of these things but at the time I found them I was so shocked at the human trafficking that I failed to print or screen shot. I now have a PDF file and I have saved them.

I must also admit that I looked up my daughters old home page and yeah, found pictures of her I never saw. She would hate this. She would yell at me. But curiosity got the better of me. And when you are separated from your child for twenty odd years, you take whatever crumbs you can get.

So thanks, ULB.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” – Oscar Wilde

So, I do think it is working.

My avoidance of certain blogs and forums is helping me to feel better.

It’s amazing to me in a way how badly they made me feel.  I struggled intensely with boundaries and not making their problems and their reunions a reflection of mine. I also took on too much of their pain. As if I am the collective natural mother – the one who should bear all the pain and horror and blame for the alleged crimes of us all. I just got in too deep.

It reminded me of my teenage years when my mother required my siblings and I to attend Alateen. I hated those meetings. For me personally, sitting in a room with people who told us all these horrible stories about their alcoholic parents just brought me down. What was the point? I had my own alchoholic parent and horror stories. Did I really need to hear more? I understood the need to vent but what were we going to DO about it? I personally was not helped by sitting around kvetching. I needed action, hope, and a light at the end of my tunnel. Not having that made me want to slit my throat.

With my recent obsession of reading painful adoption stuffs, I also felt I was adopting the herd mentality.  You know how a fight with a few people can turn into an enormous riot? I felt like that. I could go visit a board, or a blog and see rants and rave and anger and suddenly I felt the rage myself and had no idea why. The topics would not even apply to me, the threads would have nothing to do with me but the anger was contagious.  (“Let’s go kill that guy! Yeah! Yeah!”…. “Wait, who is that guy?”) Frightening. Very frightening.  This effect is not unlike what put many of us into the belly of the adoption beast to begin with.

Over 20 years ago, my parents and I fell prey to societal constructs that said unwed teen mothers should not raise their children.  I could have been doing the same by engaging in rage I wasn’t even part of.

The LAST thing I want to do is lose my own voice and opinion after working so many years to reclaim it.

I found a few new natural mom blogs and have been reading them and also corresponding with them via email. I find that is just the ticket for me right now. To feel validated and understood and not like the demon seed. I need to be around people who give me hope and inspiration. I need to communicate with people healthier than me. I need to be around those that feel like me not those that want to castigate me and my fellow sisters.

I once thought that since my daughter was so challenging, I could benefit from reading challenging adoption blogs. I don’t think that will help me. I need to trust her, time and myself and allow us to be the unique individuals we are. As I have said so many times, adoption trauma may bind us but how each of us handles that trauma varies greatly. And that’s okay.

It is our humanness.