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I'm still struggling with my emotions and I've been reunited for over 8 years.
Bmum married Bdad a few years after I was born and had another 3 children so I have 3 full siblings.
I still struggle with the fact that they were "kept" and I wasn't.
At the start of the reunion, I was very accommodating of the "facts" (bmum was 15, her parents made her give me up, bdad was 18 and his parents wanted to raise me, there was no welfare for young unwed mothers....blah blah blah) I just nodded every time my birth mother would break down in tears wailing "Oh why did I let them take you away?!!" and I would be a "good girl" and give her the "right" answer, "Because you were only 15 and they didn't give you a choice. They treated you unfairly and didn't give you any options." I have done this for most of my reunion; until recently; I realised that I actually had feelings about my adoption too but it just wasn't "right or fair" for me to speak about mine. My birth mother could cry and throw tanties about her feelings of injustice and my role was to just hug her and allow her to feel those feelings. That's what I was "supposed" to do right??
Well one day, something in me snapped and I didn't do "the right thing". I told her how I really felt....30 years of feelings came flooding to the surface and reared their ugly head. (I didn't even know I felt like this so it was as much a shock to me too.) But I didn't receive a hug. Nor was I allowed to express my feelings. Instead I got anger, "how dare you?!", you were never abandoned so stop saying that, stop living in the past, if you say that you will break me forever! All these emotional blackmail lines that I'd heard before. It felt like a competition. Who was was hurt the most? Birth mother or baby? It isn't a competition. Each person has their own feelings and neither is right or wrong. Why couldn't she see that? Why wasn't she able to respect my feelings? She "couldn't speak to me" after this and blames her high blood pressure on me. It was my fault. It was because of what I said. If I had just kept quiet, we could have continued on our merry way. But why should I keep quiet about my feelings? I'm the baby that was taken away. She has never been able to listen when I speak of my hurt and pain because she can't bear it. Isn't that an injustice for me? To not be heard? To not have my feelings acknowledged? Why can't she see this?
Fast forward 4 weeks and she has been to a counsellor who has told her she is happy and content with her life. "I" have actually disrupted her happiness with "my problems" so I need to go and get some help and come back to her when I'm all better. Hmmm....I'm seeing a theme here. It feels like the day I was born all over again. Someone telling her what to do and say, me going away to "get better" and then coming back to her when all is rosey and dandy. :grr:
I know all the FACTS of why a baby is given away but I'm feeling very angry that I WAS that baby. Yes I was raised in a loving home with 2 parents and given opportunities. Yes I'm grateful for that. So why do I feel so darn angry and rejected all of a sudden? I'm a 31 year old intelligent, loving woman, mother of 2 and a wife. But this whole adoption issue has me tettering on the edge of a cliff because I don't know who the heck I am any more. I don't respect my bparents as people any more when I see the way they raise their own children. Half of me is glad that I wasn't raised by them and the other half is stamping her feet like a toddler :hissy: always screaming WHY WHY WHY! I don't like feeling like this because I'm proud of the person I am and the things I've had to overcome. I'm a strong woman...except for this rotten part of me. I want to cut it off like a piece of gangrene but that would mean cutting off the fact that I was adopted and I can't do that. I'm SO angry that a bunch of adults made a decision about a babies life and now I'm having to pay the consequences and so are my husband and children. I have been depressed for a while now and feel unable to lift this fog that has settled over my life.
I choose not to "get over it", I choose to just be and feel these feelings so that I may move on with my life. I was abandoned by my first mother. I was denied a simple human right to be loved by the person who made me and loved me first. It is an injustice that I find hard to live with. And that is my story......until the day I die.
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“She is on Stopped time.”
A.M. Homes wrote that about her birthmom in the book called.. ‘The Mistresses Daughter'.
I am thinking your birthmom may be on stopped time.. Has not changed since she relinquished you.
The victim to the end..
A.M. Homes birthmom haunts me.. I started a thread about that line..“She is on Stopped time.” in another place..
I am so sorry she does not see you.. What a waste.. she is lost in her pain and not sorting..
I think your anger is very real and justified..
Jackie
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Jackiejdajda
She is on Stopped time.Ӕ
A.M. Homes wrote that about her birthmom in the book called.. The Mistresses Daughter'.
I am thinking your birthmom may be on stopped time.. Has not changed since she relinquished you.
The victim to the end..
Special K,
I also feel your pain and acknowledge your right to have and express your feelings. Adoption can be really emotional - ups and downs - just like a roller coaster. And it is too bad that your bmom can't support you just as you sound like you have supported her. Strong emotions are so overwhelming.
That being said, my concern is what you said at the end of your posting.
"I want to cut it off like a piece of gangrene but that would mean cutting off the fact that I was adopted and I can't do that. I'm SO angry that a bunch of adults made a decision about a babies life and now I'm having to pay the consequences and so are my husband and children. I have been depressed for a while now and feel unable to lift this fog that has settled over my life"
It sounds like your bmom is not going to help you thru this - and really is making it worse. But you do need some help to kick this depression - so that something that happened 30 years ago will not affect your own family. You have to get past your anger, your feelings of abandonment, and move on no matter what happens with your bmom. For your children and yourself, please get some help.
This is only my opinion and I hope that I haven't offended anyone. I have been in your position and I am grateful that, with help, I was able to get beyond it and be the mom and wife I wanted to be.
jrainbow
You have to get past your anger, your feelings of abandonment, and move on no matter what happens with your bmom. For your children and yourself, please get some help.
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The Mistress’s Daughter by AM Holms..
Page 32
The birthmom and the relinquished daughter have connected.. they talk on the phone..
She interrupts herself. “Do you think, one day, we might have a portrait painted of the two of us?” Her request seems to come from another world, another life. What would she do with a portrait? Hang it over the fire place in Atlantic City? Send it to my father for Christmas? She is in stopped time, filled with fantasies of what might have been. After thirty-one years, she has retuned to reclaim the life she never had.
“I have to go, I’m late for dinner,” I say.
“Okay,” she says. “but before you go out, put on your cashmere sweater so you don’t get chilly.”
I don’t have a cashmere sweater.
That above is from the book..
The birthmom died within a year or so after they reunited so there was no chance for the woman to change.
What AM Holms wrote was almost in fantasy.. but I think it was true.. her birthmom was in another world.. Yours is in this world and IMO needs a wake up call..
I think some people use their life trauma as a lever to control those around he or she..
Some will say giving a child up for adoption is the worst trauma ever..
The triggers are something else when someone challenges it.. Says there is a way out of this..
I have done a lot of work with codependency (my codependency) and I have learned that if we cater to the acting out person.. that acting out person will just continue with the bad behavior..
Its like giving the alcoholic the ability to drink with no consequences..
IMO your birthmom is looking inwards. .is concentrating on her pain on her injustices.. resentments..
She is missing you.. not seeing what she is putting you through..
Like AM Holms birthmom.. and the cashmere sweater remark..
Jackie
"She has never been able to listen ..."
Wow. Thank you so much for posting.
Although it's only been months for me and not years as it has been for you, my birth mother also has difficulty listening. Sometimes it feels as if I'm not even part of the conversation. Like she's talking at me instead of to me.
I listen. I validate. I empathize. And I wait for my opportunity to speak.
Sometimes for hours I wait.
And then, almost as soon as I've found my way into the conversation, she's taken back the proverbial 'talking stick' ...
there's a Native American tradition involving an actual talking stick. When people gather, the stick denotes the person who has the right to speak. The stick gets passed around the circle. Everyone gets their turn and everyone gets listened to.
... with my birth mother it often feels like she's 'ripping the talking stick out of my hands' as I've barely begun to speak.
For now, I'm chalking it up to the fact that she has waited 34 years to be able to speak to me. She's over excited and over-zealous.
But were I in your shoes, 8 years into this, I would be as frustrated as you are. And I'm not at all surprised that you blew like a volcano when you finally did express yourself.
Be brave. It sounds like you are. Whether she responds well or not, you do have a right to your place in the conversation.
:disco:
Jackie,
Thankyou for that part from the book. I think that maybe I too am on stopped time. I keep wondering "what if" even though I know that my life is exactly the way it is supposed to be. Intellectually I get that concept, yet on another deeper emotional level, there's a part of myself that doesn't get it and keeps wishing for things to be different. My birth mother and I are romantics. The glass is always half full and love will overcome everything. Now I realise that life isn't that simple all the time but we share that philosophy and maybe we both get caught up in the stopped time thing.
The last conversation I had with her was on the phone, I was hurt that my bdad and her weren't able to help me out as I've injured my back and have a 3 yr old and an 11 mth old to look after and I can't physically lift my baby so I need help at home. Bmum works from home sewing and had us there for 3 days which was a great blessing but I've been like this for 3 weeks now and needed more help. Bdad refused when I asked and said she was too busy with her work so I felt hurt and rejected when I needed their help the most! When she rang me to see if I was able to get any home help, I was rude to her and she said "If you're going to be like that, fine, goodbye" and hung up. I was rude because I'm in pain, can't look after my kids, have Post Natal Depression so forgive me if I'm a little rude because you refuse to help me when I know that you could have. That was 2 weeks ago and I haven't heard from her, nor have I made any effort to call her. I can't. I'm too scared I'll have another verbal meltdown and tell her how convenient it is to be able to put me aside whenever she feels like it. This may not be the truth, but that's how I feel. I'm struggling to be a Mum to my kids and it's awful to not be able to pick up my baby when she climbs up my leg. :(
Nebula Rain,
When you said this:
Sometimes it feels as if I'm not even part of the conversation. Like she's talking at me instead of to me.
I listen. I validate. I empathize. And I wait for my opportunity to speak.
that is exactly how I feel! She's never been interested in listening to me but in telling me what she's been through and how much of a victim she is. Maybe after all these years of listening to her I wanna scream at her to LISTEN TO ME! Maybe that's why I'm rude when I don't want to be because the urge is overwhelming. I'm struggling right now and I need your help!! There are times when we give and receive. I am MORE than happy to give because I love to and it fills me with joy. But when I'm struggling, it's hard enough even ASKING for help so to have it knocked back feels monumental.
I know that I'm responsible for my actions so when I'm rude to her, it really upsets me because I choose not the be like that but it really is overwhelming. I know that after my first post, I felt alot better just getting these thoughts out. I'm not ready to communicate with her yet because I KNOW that I'm not ready to be civil....does that make sense?.. I feel terrible even saying that but it's the truth.
Nebula Rain, Thank you for sharing with me about the talking stick tradition and for allowing me to hold it here and speak my mind. I hope that one day soon, your birth mum will reach a place where she is able to pass it to you and she is able to listen to you with her heart. :)
:thanks: for being the "voices of reason" and validating me because it really does mean alot. :flowergift:
grrrr!!!!! My Bmum text me just now "Would you like me to have the kids for the weekend?" This is after not speaking for 2 weeks. I have just got a stomach bug and am afraid that the kids will get it so I text back "No, just in case they pass my bug on." She says "What bug?" and I say "I've got a stomach bug that's going around. Am hoping the kids don't get it." to which she says "I haven't heard of the bug. But ok then." And I JUST KNOW that the tone is "well i haven't heard of any bug so you must be making it up!"
and there's no, oh hope you get better or is there anything else I can do to help?.. no none of that!!!! it's all about her!!! :grr: She didn't even ask how I was or how the kids were......nothing!!!! And I'm too scared to ask how she is because I KNOW she'll tell me how busy and flat out she's been and how she's really tired but that's ok. *sigh* Well, I'm tired of listening, validating and being respectful to her (and not being respected in return). It's taking what little energy I have and my husband and kids need it so she'll have to go elsewhere for it now.
This relationship is so frustrating!!!!!
ok, I feel a little better having got that off my chest!!
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Hi SpecialK,
I know you're feeling really angry right now, but I'd guess your bmom meant to be helpful when she offered to take your kids for the weekend. Your reaction was probably kind of unexpected for her.
Anyhow, you said at some point that she was being really immature and acting like a 15-year-old. She was 15 when she had you, wasn't she? I really believe that trauma can "freeze" a person at the age of the trauma, so if she's acting like a 15-year-old, it's because that injured 15-year-old that gave you up for adoption is STILL THERE. It's not an excuse to behave badly, I know. It's just something to think about.
My a-mom still acts like a teenager sometimes (even though I don't think she had anything that traumatic, or if she did, she's never mentioned it) and it's aggravating to deal with. I must have been like 17 when she and I were having an argument and I yelled, "You're being so immature!!" at her. Oh well. ;)
Are your amom and adad available to you? Can they help you with your kids while your back heals?
Hi Gwen,
Sorry I haven't replied. Am feeling 100% better now and I can be a Mum again! Yay!
Yes I was aware that she is still the eternal 15 year old because that's how old she was when she had me. I've even shared this with her and she agrees but nothing changes.
I'm alot more accepting of this now and I have made a decision to not actively pursue the relationship to see where it takes me. We know each other well enough now that we share the role of contacting each other but she still thinks that she has to "back off" and let me contact her. I'm so tired of this line so I'm just getting on with my life and if she calls and I'm available then great, and if not, then that's just life. The same way I am in any other relationship. No malice or bad thought, just a normal, happy get on with things and I'm happy to share what time I have, when I can. It feels so good to not have my stomach constantly churning and worrying about every little thing. :coffee:
Special...I just read your posts and I am glad that YOU are doing better despite what your bmom might be doing. I think reunions are very "interesting" in the fact that you have two adults, who both can go back and forth between the adults they are now and the baby or teenager/young adult that they were at the time of the birth. I know that I have done that at times, thinking I am an adult, so why am I having these childish feelings?!?!? There comes a point in time though, that a person has to realize that they are no longer that child/teen, and at that realization, they need to decide WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE!?!?! We, as adoptees and bparents, can NEVER get back that lost time, but we don't have to lose any more time TRYING to go back to that time, or going back there emotionally...does that make sense!??!!? Your post just brought a lot of this up in me, making me think if I too react according to my "baby self"....thanks for the thinking material!!!