Writing My Wrongs

None of them talk about the unending grief and symptoms of PTSD that most mothers will experience from losing their children. Many women bury these emotions for years (after all, we were told to "get over it!"), usually until at least a year into reunion with their child, at which point the repressed memories re-surface and devastating flashbacks begin. A natural parent’s PTSD can introduce an added complication into the reunion, especially if the adoptee is not aware that this is a common occurance.

I woke up crying this morning.

An adoption induced nightmare caused me to greet the morning sun with a river of tears.

I hate this. Gosh, how I hate this. It never goes away.

Last nights nightmare was about my casewrecker. My guess is that my recent posting here and also the adoption triggering incident in the first grade class room yesterday combined to create a perfect emotional storm. Lovely.

I did manage to fall back asleep but the weird feelings lead me into another odd dream with a male friend of mine, his ex-wife, his son, my ex husband and our sons. It was very strange. 

Anxiety at its best.

It is mornings like this that make me wonder if my therapists insistence on different therapies doesn’t warrant further consideration. He is not pushing…he just randomly mentions this approach or that approach. I have, to date, been avoidant. I figure when I am ready to dig deeper I will. I am fairly consistent in that manner. I do things in my time, sometimes rather impulsively. I will ruminate over something for weeks, days, even years and then BAM I will just decide I am tired of it and will attack it full force. It can be a bit disconcerting to those that know and love me. I tend to keep these things to myself, my loved ones wont even have a hint that I am struggling with something and then I will announce some new fangled thing in my life to deal with something they never knew existed.

I am trying my best to shake the residue from last nights dream.

I wish I could shake off that casewrecker.

"The present and the past coexist, but the past shouldn’t be in flashback. – Alain Resnais

Been a tough week.

The good news is that I believe I found an apartment. It has all I wanted: a family nieghborhood, character in the unit, first floor, great location, hardwood floors throughout, updated kitchen, nice paint colors, working fireplace, porches front and back, off street parking, close to a playground, five minutes from my office and my childrens school…and an owner that is a divorced female with a ten year old son. I liked her.

Finding that unit was certainly something I needed. The stress of my housing situation was causing incredible flashbacks to years ago.

My situation of not having a place to live, of having children to care for, of having everyone wanting something from me, of having people look at at me like I had done something wrong, triggered a panic attack of epic proportions.

One part of my mind realized I was being ridiculous that my situation is NOT the same as it was when I lost my daughter but something in the situation felt EXACTLY the same and sent me into a hyperventilating ball of carbon waste earlier in the week. When the buyers of my house demanded more concessions and threatened to walk, I lost it. Completely irrationally lost it. My mother and sister (my real estate agent) were left in my wake wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

I was over reacting, under reacting, freakishly reacting. They did not understand that I was in the midst of a typical PTSD related flashback.  There were parallells. Somehow, something, sent me spiralling into the black abyss.   It is happening again. I have children to care for and no where to live. I was unable to grasp that this time I have friends and family and a good job. It did not seem to matter. The overwhelming feeling of terror and doom was crippling.  Someone might call me unfit. Someone might take my children.

I saw my therapist yesterday and while I felt fine upon entering his office I was not exactly fine when I left. I could not stop crying. My chest was tight. I could not breath. I was dizzy.

We decided to try EMDR. According to Wikipedia:

"Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an information processing psychotherapy that was developed to resolve symptoms resulting from disturbing and unresolved life experiences. EMDR is rated in the highest category of effectiveness and research support in international guidelines for PTSD treatment. It uses a structured approach to address past, present, and future aspects of disturbing memories. The approach was developed by Francine Shapiro[1] to resolve symptoms resulting from exposure to a traumatic or distressing event, such as rape. Clinical trials have demonstrated EMDR’s efficacy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In some studies it has been shown to be equivalent to cognitive behavioral and exposure therapies, and more effective than some alternative treatments (see effectiveness sections below). Although some clinicians may use EMDR for various problems, its research support is primarily for disorders stemming from distressing life experiences"

There are certain individuals who believe EMDR is "bunk" and still others who believe it works and finally people like me who will try anything to get these anxiety and panic crying jags and flashbacks to stop. Placebo? Bring it on.

I left the session completely raw and drained. I was supposed to meet my sister to drop off some house closing paperwork. Her office was exactly 3 miles from my therapist. It took me over an hour to get there as I got lost. Dont ask me how. I knew where I was, I knew where I was going and how to get there, I just couldn’t find my way.  At one point I was literally driving in circles. At another I pulled over and laughed like a crazy woman.

I retired early last night and this morning I drove my ex-husband and my sons to the airport for their spring vacation in Orlando.  After they left, I collapsed in the car in a puddle of tears.

I am still weepy. I should be packing, cleaning, organizing the house.  Instead I am distracted, lacking focus and on the verge of tears.

But hey, I have a place to live now. 

"Healing is an emotional detox, in which disease can’t be indefinitely stuffed down, its symptoms merely managed." – Marianne Williamson

Detox, short for detoxification,  is the removal of toxic substances from the body. The liver, lower gastrointestinal tract and kidneys are the primary organs responsible for assisting with detox.

When I ponder detox, I don’t think of cleansing your body of food waste or bad junk from the stuff you eat. Rather, I think of detox as  the period of withdrawal during which a person’s body returns to normal after long-term use of an addictive substance.  I view this as the primary purpose of detox because I have members of my family that have had problems with substance abuse. Most notable drugs of choice are alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs. 

I consider myself quite lucky that I did not inherit the family gene that would predispose me to substance abuse. Putting aside the fact that I was never even a casual drug user (I was way too much of a loser. My crowd did books not drugs), my body simply cannot handle alcohol. Sure, I had my share of fun in my 20’s, but as my thirties approached, alcohol was sure to make me vomit.

I simply cannot drink.

Oh, I do but I do so with the knowledge that too much will make me sick for days. Too much will make me lose time at work, with my children. Too much drinking makes me worship the porcelain god.  Too much is usually defined as three drinks. I therefore severely limit my consumption.

However, my exemption from the addiction gene did not exempt me from having to go through detox. I went through adoption detox. I had to withdraw from the adoption kool-aid that had been served up to me in 1985.

When you are withdrawing from alcohol, your body can often experience delirium tremens, more commonly known as the "DT’s". The DTs involve sudden and severe mental or neurological changes. Your body will shake. You will vomit. You will sweat. You will experience loss of appetite. You will experience mood changes that include restlessness, excitement, increased activity, decreased attention span, excitement,fear,confusion, disorientation, agitation, and more.

I have watched family members experience DTs. I have also experienced them myself during the last twenty-two years. They have been more persistent and prevalent since reunion.  The more aware I become of what was done to me, of what adoption does to our children, the more likely I am to go deeper into adoption kool-aid withdrawal.

Adoption detox.

As with drugs or alcohol, ridding your body and mind of the toxic effects of adoption kool-aid is a life long process.  Those who have the strength to recover, to admit to their addiction, are continually faced with adoption kool-aid in the mainstream media.

As recently as this past weekend I was confronted with an adoption drug pusher who pushed their kool-aid my way. This pusher was insistent that a mutual friend, a former adoption kool-aid user and first mother in reunion, had done the right thing in giving her daughter away and that loss of her daughter to adoption was a good thing.  This pusher offered up this insanity while the first mom sat across from her in deep pain. First mom friend was crying, shaking (frpm Adoption DTs) and clearly awakening to the horrors of her adoption kool-aid addiction. Pusher friend?  Pusher friend had to keep on drinking and had to keep on sharing their poison.

I openly disagreed with Pusher. To suggest that first mom did a good thing in drinking the kool-aid is to suggest that her agony was either also a good thing or well deserved. Because you get a short lived high from some street drug, followed by horrible addictive and damaging effects, does that mean the drug is good?  Would you tell someone with cancer that it was a good thing? Would you tell them they are better off because they are afflicted?

The arguments the pusher was using were circular. They made no sense. First mom? First mom sat there suffering from the effects of the kool-aid in her system. She would vacillate between agreeing with the pusher and agreeing with me.  She would sob. She would shake.

I watched her experience the adoption DTs. She was trying (and still is) to rid herself of the toxin.  She has come a long way since her first drink. I am confident given the proper support group, she will overcome.

As I left her, I reminded her of a television commercial that was popular when we were kids. The commercial involved cracking an egg in a frying pan. The accompanying audio track stated "This is your brain" (the egg) and "This is your brain on drugs" (and the egg would be fried in the pan).  I told her that her heart and mind had been fried by adoption pushers.  I told her she could indeed unscramble it.  The next time she was confronted with those adoption kool -aid pushers? I told her to "just say no".

"..a normal reaction to abnormal events" – Beverly Donovan, on PTSD

I bolted up in bed and turned my head to the left to view the small clock. The amber glowing letters indicated it was 5 a.m. Mentally, I quickly deduct one hour from the displayed time to determine it is actually 4 a.m. My son never changed his alarm clock to adjust for daylight savings time. He likes it that way.  “It makes me feel I am sleeping later, Mom”.

Sleeping in my sons twin bed for the night (the boys had commandeered mine and I did not feel like squeezing in), caused me to sleep fitfully. Adding to the small bed discomfort, thunder roared overhead and rain began to fall much like the tears from my eyes as I gasped for breath.

I was awakened by the sound of someone crying. Concerned it was one of my children, I woke and listened for another cry. It was not heard. It took me a few moments to realize the moans that woke me were my own.

A bad dream. A recurrent dream. A reunion dream. Well, hello again, adoption nightmares. Its been a while. What? At least a few months, no?

A quick scan of my blog indicates that my last adoption related nightmare was on September 11, 2007. 

Last nights dream was indeed reunion based and appeared to take place at daughters  home. Granted, I have never been to her adoptive family home but I have seen pictures and even Google mapped it (satellite view included).  Of course, this “home” was just in my dreams. It was not their real home.

In the dream, I was there with her. I don’t recall how or why I was there or how I had gotten there. She was having a party and was not entirely pleased that I was there. She was trying to hide me from everyone but most importantly her adoptive mother. At some point in the dream, I am sitting on a futon on a screened in porch. It is dark. Adoptive mom comes into the room and daughter tries to push me away so adoptive mom doesn’t see me. (There is a strong resemblance between my daughter and I and one could likely see that.). 

(Adoptive mom in my dreams bears no physical resemblance to real adoptive mom. I have seen pictures of her.)

Daughter pushes me behind some people. I am conflicted and angry and confused. Her hiding me triggers all my old trauma of people being embarrassed and ashamed of me and having to lock me away. I want to lash out and stand up and resist her forcing me into hiding but I do not.  I worry if I object to her actions I may ruin any chance I have of getting to know her.

I am alone in a dark corner and adoptive mom appears in front of me, above me, looking down at me in the dark.  She grabs my head forcibly and pulls me up, making me stand.

She has an odd look on her face. She begins to scream – LOUD. All party goers turn their head towards us.

“I know who you are!”  she screams. “Why are you hiding your face?”

She is happy, anxious, wanting to show me off to the party goers.  Her demeanor is forceful. Too forceful, abrupt, even vengeful.

Daughter is NOT happy that I have been discovered and that adoptive mom is now parading me around. I have been bad. Daughter is mad at me. I did not behave as she wanted me to.

Adoptive mom forces us to stand together and she is taking pictures.  I am staring at daughter. She is distant, angry. Avoiding me.  I am screaming inside. I want to hold her. Pull her to me. Make her talk to me.

She doesn’t. I am crying inside. So much I want to say to her but she wont look at me.

At this point, the silent scream of my dream becomes audible to those in my real world, myself included.

I wipe the tears from my eyes, fluff my pillow, lay back and listen to the rain fall.