Since the election I’ve had a myriad of emotions. After the numbness wore off, I was terrified, yet strangely calm and resolute. The tears finally came a week later.
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The first time I heard a version of this saying was in the movie Stepmom. It comes near the end when the mother is dying and having special moments with each of her kids. It put words to the void I’d been looking across my whole life.
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There is a lot of talk about attachment and bonding in the world of adoption. After going through my healing journey, I know as a newborn baby, I was bonded to my biological mother before birth. When I was born, I was expecting to meet this person I already knew. When she wasn’t there, I was terrified and plunged into grief. The bond was broken and I was catapulted into a void.
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It is exhausting to heal. It takes so much emotional energy. You outgrow the people around you who aren’t doing their own work.
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I’ll never forget the first time I read the word narcissism and its definition. I was in therapy for the first time, reading as many books as possible, trying to make sense of what it meant to be adopted and the relationship with my adoptive family. I was lying in bed reading and I sat straight up.
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I believe I was listening to the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast when they were talking about boundaries. When we set boundaries with other people, it is not about what we expect the other person to do – boundaries are about what we will do and how we will conduct ourselves if they are crossed.
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My healing journey has allowed me to regulate my system and become a better person. And the impacts reach far beyond adoption. Two areas of my life have been particularly impacted by my internal work.
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The body keeps the score. A newborn baby taken from their biological mother is plunged into grief and terror. Their very survival depends on this one person, and she is gone. And anyone who replaces her is a stranger.
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Gaslighting has become a very popular term recently. People can be gaslit in romantic relationships, friendships or by family members. I’ve never heard a group of people talk about experiencing gaslighting more than adopted people.
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October 30th is Adoptee Remembrance Day. You might ask why we need such an observance. The narrative you hear from society is that “adoption is beautiful”, “adoptees are lucky” and “adoptees should be grateful”. But the adoptees who gather in support groups and cling to each other for mirroring know that we are anything but lucky.
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In the beginning of Covid I was discussing a worry with my therapist. I said I could relax in 2 weeks when the window for something bad to happen closed. As I told my therapist about my anxiety and concern, she said that’s not how worry works.
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There’s an Oscar Wilde quote on my kitchen wall “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” I look at it every day and think about living my life to the fullest
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