avoidance and other adoption feces

Flashpoint

- Suz 24 Comments

Six or so years ago, my therapist attempted to get me to talk about my mother. He was implying, not so subtly I might add, that my mother was not a very good mother to me.  I was defensive and protective of her at every turn.  Any questioning or her, any judgement, any challenge, would result in me explaining her behavior, rationalizing it (see this post as proof), and in general trying to make it “okay”. He was unrelenting.  I became annoyed. Finally he pointed out to me that every time I explained away my mothers poor behavior I disregarded my own feelings. Essentially, I was saying “it is okay she hurt me, she was hurt first, she was never taught love so how could she love me, my feelings dont matter, etc. ”  Never in those statements or sessions did I admit, express, my pain, my very valid feelings. Every session was a game of attack and defend (or so I thought).  Therapist finally got me to realize that admitting my mother did something that hurt me did not mean she was a bad person or even that she did it intentionally. It was admitting my feelings, my own reactions to her behavior, it was getting me more in touch with my feelings and less in touch with my mothers.

I still struggle with this.

Ask my husband. I can, and regularly do, explain away the piss poor behavior of everyone. (Recall this guy?)  Just yesterday my husband made a remark about a male friend of mine husband feels is being disrepectful to me. Male friend was flippant, okay, crass about aspects of his own life. I shared the conversation with husband.  Husband later told me he found the conversation offensive and does not like that person speaking to me, his wife, that way.  I was befuddled. I defended friends state of mind, his personality, our friendship, told him it did not bother me, told him I could handle it. I even went so far as to tell hubby he was offending ME by questioning my handling of friends crass behavior.

Yet it bothered him, greatly, and that sort of juxtaposition always makes me think.  Should it have bothered me? Was I once again squashing my own feelings and self-respect to preserve someone elses?

Awareness
The past few weeks, maybe even months, I have noticed a general malaise taking root inside me.  I find it difficult to leave the house, struggle to get out of bed to go to work, find myself constantly fighting the need to cry, yet completely unaware of what I want to cry over. My energy level has been down, sleep has been restless and nightmares have been increasing. (Most recent ones starring a former boss and another reunion dream of my daughter, which always makes me wake up crying). I noticed this. I have been stewing on it for weeks, quietly, trying to conduct my own emotional root cause analysis. I have attributed it to illness, change of seasons, lack of vitamins, even peri-menopause.

Late last week, my husband gave me the usual kiss goodbye before I went to work and hugged me hard, a little harder than usual.  I walked away a bit curious about the hug and whilst getting in my car, I am reminded of my malaise. I wonder to myself if he senses it. He is quite intuitive. I decide not to talk to him about it. He is a worrier, far more than me. There are times when his worrying nature makes my life more challenging.  It is more “noise” for me to deal with so at times I keep things to myself, till I have sorted them out on my own. Only after I have come to some resting place inside me, do I find the strength to discuss with him. This had been my plan for this recent malaise.

What is that saying about the best laid plans?  No surprise, really, my intuitive husband finally approached me and said he was concerned with a noticeable change in my attitude. Nothing super serious, just a bit of a saddness. He wondered if he was correct in this assumption and asked to talk to me about it.

And so we talked.

Back to That Therapist
Yesterday I emailed my therapist (same guy I have been seeing for over six years, he is pretty much on a retainer for me. LOL). My feeling is I need to once again participate in some talk therapy.  This growing uneasiness that I cannot identify, cannot sort out, would surely benefit from one on one with my old friend who has served me so well through the years.  We made plans to get together in a week or so once he is back from a trip out West.  I have two topics to start with and they go back to that long ago conversation of admitting my feelings.

I have known since May that I am angry at my daughter. I am angry at two separate things but they relate to each other. The most recent incident being the acccusation of harassment. I am annoyed that I get no contact, no consideration, except when some asshat on the internet decides to harass her. I am annoyed that while she does not care about our feelings (“our” being me, my children, my family) we are expected to care about hers.  I am further annoyed again that she can contact me (after telling me not to ever contact her) and accuse me of this yet she cannot (and did not) respond to me when I told her my father, her grandfather had died. Strangers offered me condolences, strangers said “oh, so sad, sorry to hear. peace be with you” and other such things. My own daughter? Nothing.

Yes, I could go into my normal habit here. I could defend her, I can quote all that adoptee trauma (that she says she has none of), I can say it is okay, its understandable, I dont mind, no really, I am good.  I can quote Verrier, Lifton and any other number of experts.  Every time I defend her feelings, I flick mine to the curb and squash them as if snubbing out a lit cigarette.  I twist my toe back and forth on those feelings while I explain very calmly why she might be the way she is. The emotional cigarette smolders.

It has now gotten hot beneath my feet. I am done with this behavior of mine. I need to find a way to let out the anger, the sadness, the tears and stop explaining it away. These two most recent incidents, combined with many others, shall be my starting point, or perhaps better said, my flashpoint.

Life BP&A

- Suz 11 Comments

Next Saturday will be the 25th anniversary of my life BP&A.  My fellow celebrants will party and reflect on the 25 years that have passed since we graduated high school.  I will too, at least in part. The other part of my day will likely be consumed with reflection on that time Before Pregnancy and Adoption.

I became pregnant with my daughter two months after I graduated high school in June of 1985. I cannot look at that time of my life without feeling the horrible pain that came so soon afterward.

Tonight I dug out my yearbook for a friend. She had lost hers and she asked me to scan a photo for her so she could use it as her facebook profile default.  I did, gladly. I later regretted it.

Flipping through those pages, looking at those photos of me, my interests (President Student Council, Vice President Student Council, Class council, Literary Magazine, …) I found myself looking deeper, thinking of me, that girl on those pages and who she was then, the pain she was in, the way she thought her life then was so awful.  Her intense teenage angst, her bad permed, big 80s hair, her odd way of dressing (some things don’t change), her first love who would later become the father of her first born child.

Oh, how naive she was!

Me, A Birth Mother To Be - 1985

Little did she know a mere few months later she would become pregnant with her first born child and leave not for the US Navy (yes, I had enlisted) or Franklin Pierce College (yes, I had been accepted and placed my deposit) but rather she would board a plane to Chicago. While her classmates checked into dorms, she checked into a former convent turned “home” for mothers that no one wanted who would later become mothers of babies that would grow up feeling they were unwanted.  In the spring, when her former classmates were partying on spring break, she would surrender her first born child to a baby broker and be told to get over it and be happy someone took her child.

Naive indeed.

At my last high school reunion, five years ago, I put a dedication of sorts into the bulletin that was produced and passed out to all who entered. In the booklet it said “To Sandy, and to all who understand, I FOUND HER!”.

This was a reference to a high school friend who knew of my surrender of my daughter to adoption.  When I entered the restaurant five years ago, two of my friends made a B-line straight for me. One was Sandy and the other, Gigi (who also later learned of my daughter). They hugged me and cried and were so happy I had found her. Others approached me during the night and asked about that line “What did that mean Suz? Who did you find? Yourself?”  I would chuckle and freely, openly, tell them the story of unplanned pregnancy, maternity homes, adoption surrender and loss.  I did not care what they thought. Back in those days I was still basking in some sort of reunion hopeful glow.

Funny how things change, huh?

What will I say this coming weekend? Will they ask me how things are going?  (Sandy wont. She reads here and knows).  How will I feel?  Will I take a moment in the ladies room, alone, to reflect on how different things are today? How much my hope, feelings and outlook on reunion have changed? (Perhaps that is what I am doing now).

What will I say if I am asked by someone who might remember our conversation of 2005?

I continue to flip the pages of this 25 year old book and I read the autographs, the wishes of luck, the expressions of friendship, the dreams of marriage and motherhood.

I laugh a sarcastic laugh and close the book. My heart hurts too much.

And I reflect back on the friend that asked me to scan her photo.  The friend who told me less than a year ago that she too had surrendered a child to adoption.  The friend that is today, less than a year from her sharing her news with me, now in reunion with her son and his adoptive family.  She is in a good reunion.  She has much to say, happy things to say, pictures to show.

Maybe I will let her speak instead.

What does it FEEL like?

- Suz 19 Comments

“Self-acceptance comes from meeting life’s challenges vigorously. Don’t numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.” – J. Donald Walters

I want to know what adoption denial and avoidance feels like.

Is it something one has to work at or does it come naturally? As in, you are so much in denial you dont know you are in denial? Or do you know you are denying something and choose to recite some sort of chant to yourself over and over? Something perhaps like “she is not my child. she is not my child. she is not my child. ” or “i only have one mother. i only have one mother.”

I am fabulously irritated this week at mothers and children that deny each other. Dear friends of mine have been having VERY hard times with their mothers in reunion or their children that fail to respond to them. I am particularly close to one of the adoptees in question and I want to scream at and backhand her mother that is ignoring her.

Of course, I know this feeling too and I can cite any number of textbook reasons for this denial and avoidance (all good and valid, btw) but what does it feel like? Does it take work? Is it like a addict trying to stay sober? Do you take your denial one day at a time?

If you are an adoptee refusing to answer your mothers emails, not accepting presents, etc. does this drain you or is it something that comes easily?

If you are a mother denying contact with your child (something I will NEVER understand), does that bother you? At all? Is it something that you carry around and have to work on? Is there like a kumbaya denial song you sing to yourself?

I dont get it.

And I kinda want to. For I am thinking (perhaps foolishly) that if I understand what it felt like, it might irritate me less.

I might be able to explain it to my friends that are hurting so much.

I might be able to make myself feel better too.