cycle of depression every year

Thanks to everyone who replied to my post. I have beaten myself up for so long, that I didn't realize that there are other people out there that "beat" themselves up too. I slept with my son's baby blanket that I took from the hospital for years. My husband knows about the baby, but he doesn't think it would ever be a good idea for him to find me or me to find him. I would love to search for my son, unfortunately, he is only 14 years old and in Louisiana, the adoptee has to be 18 years old to be able to connect. I have my name in the registry, is there anything else that I can do to maybe find out if he is safe and sound? Believe me, I do not want to intrude on his life, the most important thing I have ever wanted for him was happiness. Also, is there anyway of finding out what happened to the agency and their files - maybe if someone took them over. I would love for him to know that he is always in my thoughts and I did love him and still do. I do have a picture that the birthfather took of me and the baby and I keep it in my wallet and look at it often. Again, thanks for the replies.

wkirby - Sorry, I don't have any advice for you on finding out about your son's well-being or the adoption agency you went through. I have had some difficulty myself maintaining contact in an "open" adoption, and don't know of any options. However, I can share with you a method that I have used over the years that makes me feel better about the situation. I've kept all the pictures I took during those 3 days in the hospital, all the letters from the adoptive parents (pre-adoption) and pictures they sent (they sent pics/letters 3 or 4 times during the first 2 years), all the poetry I wrote, etc and compiled them into an albumn that I will hopefully share with my son someday. Every time I am feeling a strong need for connection I sit down and write him a letter, which also goes into the albumn. I usually start off by telling him how old he was at the time I am writing the letter, but I write to him as one adult to another...because I know he will be an adult when he reads them. I tell him what triggered me to write and I share my feelings or experiences with him. Someday, I think it may be meaningful to him to know that I have thought about him, and it helps me to feel an emotional connection to him even though the physical one is not possible at this time. Sometimes it brings up feelings that are difficult to deal with, but I think it's healthier than just suppressing them and pretending they don't exsist. Best wishes, and good luck on your quest for information.

wkirby wrote..I think back and see that was probably the wrong thing to do or was it? Not seeing my son was very difficult as well.. I have always felt that I never went into deep serious grief because of this.. I just pushed it all way and 'got on with it'. Ya right.. Forgiving myself was the main issue for me.. I had to find a way to forgive myself.. I could not live with all that self hatred.. I do not think you are alone with the grief and worry.. Heck I know you aren't.. But it does get easier..I believe this.. What I do is keep telling myself.. Or reminding myself that I can not go back and change it.. What is.. is.. The question may be.. How do we deal with it on a day to day basis. I met my son.. I met my amazing grandbabies.. I know he is where he is supposed to be.. I know it with every bone in my body. God smiled when he was born.. I didn't tho.. I had to sort the why of it.. Jackie

I just went back & read this thread from the start. For some reason, tonight it all makes me really emotional. Wkirby, the mental image of you sleeping with that baby blanket tore my heart. How good that you had that one item to focus your sadness on. Cmathias, I think that writing those letters is a great idea, good for the mental health for sure. I hope he gets to read them some day. The feelings are really difficult to deal with. I find that even after a positive reunion & relationship , I'll still find issues that really get me. Jackie, you said that God smiled when your son was born. That's true for my son as well. Loved & doted on, he had great parents. Not that there wern't problems along the way, there were, but they gave him a solid foundation. Good night all.

I can't believe I found this site. For so long, I've felt so totally alone out here. I go through this yucky cycle of depression every single year...I have my entire life. You see, I am adopted as well as being a birth mother. I have always hated my birthday. I use to think it was just because it was in the middle of summer and we were out of town so there were no fun slumber parties with my friends growing up. It took me probably 23 years to figure out why my birthdays are so horrible. 13 years ago this week, I placed my baby girl in the arms of another family, a family who could give her things that I couldn't. I understood what I was doing because of my own life as an adoptee, and I still fully believe in my heart that it was the right thing to do. I liked what was said about accepting it and dealing with it. I do accept what has happened and I think I have dealt with it. Every year I see myself pushing away my husband and children from mid-July (my birthdaughter's b-day) through end of September (my birthday is in August). It's like an out of body experience, watching myself lash out and then withdraw and give everyone the silent treatment. My husband does know and understands, but my kids have no idea what's wrong with me. A couple years ago, my birthfather's family found me and I have been able to reconnect with him. Through them, I got the name of my birthmother and we exchanged emails for about 6 months, before she just stopped responding. My birthfather was one who wanted a really tight relationship. I honestly thought I did, too, until I just felt so overwhelmed by it all. I always thought that if I found someone it would be my birthmother...but she didn't want to reopen any of her pain. Things have cooled off considerably with my birthfather, which I do regret to some extent. I was never able to verbalize to him what I was feeling. I was raised in a wonderful family. I have great parents, my mom and dad are some of my best friends and I have great siblings as well. This has gotten long, so I'll post it now, but thanks for listening.

Hi Mortszoo, I'm glad you found the forums, I find I've gotten quite an education here, just reading about the experiences & emotions of others who have gone through the same things I have. You have a remarkable story in that you can speak from 2 sides of the adoption triad & you have reunion experience as well! It's unfortunate that you wern't ready to have a closer relationship with your B'father. Maybe someday, you will be ready. Maybe you feel it's disloyal to your A'family, who were so good to you, to develop new relationships with people who could be also fill the role of parents. Some adoptees feel this way. The birthday issue is a complex one, isn't it? I understand how you feel exactly. I even had trouble this year when I was going to share my b'son's birthday for the first time. (Wrote about it earlier in this thread.) There are no easy solutions to our emotional upheavel, we just have to get through that yearly stretch & try not to do too much damage to our loved ones. Hope you keep posting, we could benefit from your experiences.

wow im so shocked after reading your post. its been about 5 1/2 years since i seen my 2 daughters one was born 12/31 and the other 10/30. i get what you have the moody depression and i call it my end of the year syndrom. with the holidays so close it makes it worse for me. :( doesnt sound like it will get much easer either i guess this is the one heart break that time does not heal! i thought i was the only person who ever went through this my friends try to understand but of course they dont have a clue to the pain. i can nothing to take that emptyness away! i dont know what to do i feel like im in hell just constant torment. i try to forget and some times i have to do math just to remember how old they are. i wonder if they will hate me. i wonder if they are safe. i wonder if they miss me and think about me or if they are just to busy with school and friends. i wonder what they look like and if i would know them if i seen them. i wonder if a part of me dies everyday they are away???? i wonder if i will ever see them again or if they still love me God i miss my girls! i gotta go

I believe there is a way out of this.. This constant sorrow.. Its a journey to acceptance.. A journey to self forgiveness. Jackie

Moody - I think that it does get better, and time does heal the intensity of the pain. It was almost one year ago when I wrote that first posting, and now I am once again approaching my son's birthday (Nov. 2). Last year the grief and guilt consummed me, this year I still feel the pangs of separation but they are manageable. And I think that Jackie is right, it is a journey through acceptance and forgiveness. I was in denial for years about my pain and my true feelings regarding my son, and the pain clung to me. Once I joined this forum and starting working through my issues, identifying them one by one and understanding them, forgiving myself, letting go...the pain subsided. Instead of the ocean wave crashing over my head and drowning me, now it hits my legs and rises up slowly then pulls back to sea. I think that another part of the acceptance is accepting some of the pain...accepting that it's okay to feel it and it's okay to let it go...because I used to fight it and that always made it worse. And it seems that everytime I allow myself to feel it and accept it, the next time it comes it is not as strong or overwhelming. It is a process, and I'm still learning, but I do believe that we can all heal from this experience...that our souls can heal and grow from it.

cmathias Powerful powerful words.. I can remember going into my basement and crying till I could not stop.. Crying till I could not breath.. And like you said.. the next time it was not so bad.. We are starting some healing threads in..The Healing Wall Message board.. [url]http://forums.adoption.com/f741.html[/url] Jackie

Everyone knows that I need to spend April 27 alone every year. I pray every day that I will find my baby boy and start spending that day in happiness instead of incapaciting grief. I know it takes time, but it's the waiting that hurts so badly. I hope the young man who contacts me is the one, but am so afraid to hope too much. Please pray for me, I'm a complete nervous wreck. Ann

Its just plain cruel to me.. This not knowing.. Why don't people understand this.. Why don't they open up all the records and say we are a progressive civilization.. Say that we do think of the woman who relinquishes because of duress or economical necessity.. I am reading a series of books by Anne Perry.. She delves into the eighteen fifties in England.. A time when women had no rights over their children.. The upper class woman.. The rich woman.. Her husband decides.. Her husband who was chosen by her father.. Some of them that is.. It has to be a woman's rights thing.. Women have a right to know about their children no matter what the circumstances.. I wish you did not have to go through this Martha.. I wish this with all my heart.. Jackie

Jackie, I feel like one of those women that Anne Perry writes about. All decisions were made for me by my parents and I was either too naive or too afraid to do anything else. The thing that hurts the most is that they told me Ronnie was dead. I don't know if someone told them that or they said it because they knew I would find him no matter what and keep my precious baby. And that's exactly what I would have done. I still love him as much as ever and it's been forty years! I'm sure I always will, and I will never know the truth since all of them are gone now. I hope with all my heart that I find my son before I'm gone too. It is cruel, very cruel. Most of us who relinquished our babies during the 60's were treated as less than nothing. I know I was. I see my therapist again on Monday and really need this session. Maybe it will help. God bless all of us, Ann

I did as I was told.. (I got pregnant in 1964) The threat of ruin was always there.. The "you will never make a proper marriage". Or "you will never find a husband if he knows about this!" My mom actually told me to pretend I was a virgin.. I had a baby and she wants me to pretend I was a virgin.. How naive.. How incredibly naive she was.. The thing that hurts the most is that they told me Ronnie was dead. Did they drug you for the delivery? They put me under.. I have spent the last ten years (at least) trying to sort my emotions around this.. I can totally understand why a woman refuses contact.. The woman who has somehow sorted how to handle this "Forget about the baby!" crap.. The woman who has shut down everything so darn tight she can not turn around and face the emotions we are dealing with.. Resentments.. That deep (non looked at) anger.. Or the "you can't get angry with your parents" anger.. I was so afraid of that anger.. I did not think I could deal with it.. I thought I would physically harm my mother.. I read Rickie Solingers books.. 'Wake Up Little Susie' and 'Beggars and Choosers'.. Solinger said she was doing a comparison between how the different races (pregnant unmarried women) were treated in the fifties and sixties (Wake Up Little Susie).. Then she said she got caught up in what happened to some of us.. and ended up writing Beggars and Choosers.. She did interviews with birthmoms (what some say we are not supposed to call ourselves) and writes about the horror some of us went through.. I traveled across the US to listen to the woman speak.. I got to talk with her after.. :) I used to wonder why I did not go to the doctors and get birth control pills.. I now know they were invented at the time I got pregnant and I was over twenty one.. but Solinger said (I asked her from the audience) that single women were not allowed birth control at that time.. Not allowed????? I loved the late sixties.. I embraced the counter culture.. I tuned in and dropped out of a society that I hated.. Jackie

Jackie, I also loved the 60's counter culture, but since I married the sh**head immediately after the birth of my baby boy, I subscribed to the ideas mostly in my head. Even when I was supposed to be my "own boss" I still wasn't. I must have been more of a coward than I realized to do what I was told and what I was expected to so docilely. I was in my late thirties before I learned to use my own mind, and found out that it is actually a pretty good one. Certainly by that time, had I known Ronnie was alive I would have found him no matter where he was! Then I would have had more help in locating our son. During my brief stay at the home for unwed mothers, we were also told that "people like us" could not get birth control pills. How stupid! Could it be because "people like them" were making so much money from us? I am still angry at all those idiots. I have realized that the only one being hurt by my anger and bitterness is me, and am trying hard to learn to forgive. Oh well, talk to you later. I pray every night for everyone on this list and hope that we will find peace, however the searches go. Ann