Coming Home To Self - The Adopted Child Grows Up - Nancy Verrier

p8 I found some of the references here quite interesting, because I'd initially read the book with the attempt to understanding what was going on with my son and why he was behaving the way he was in reunion. However, it soon became clear to me that I was not only reading about him but myself. In time, it became even clearer that I would have to work through some of my own issues that happened before he was even conceived and that meant charting through my own history. I found it hard to read the book and see myself and the reasons why for at least 46 of my 51 years I was finding relationships with others very difficult indeed. At times, my responses were over the top in relation to the 'actual crime' committed as I saw it in others. One friend said to me, its as if one thing that most would shrug off, trips off some dominoes in you emotionally Janny and takes you way back to pain and hurt that has nothing to do with the event. Some of the following from Verrier made me sit up and take notice: * please see section in book for full references and details not entirely covered here. My father last year said to me "what happened to the intelligent, loving, happy child I once knew". He was actually asking this now I'm 51 and our relationship has been one of attraction and repulsion. I'm frightened to let myself relax with him since he and mother divorced when I was 11yrs old, as he would come back, disappear again. This cycle was repeated many times over in the 40 odd years since the family life disintegrated and my coping strategies have obviously been in place since. Since we have addressed this head on and I've told him all the trauma that happened since that one big trauma - losing him entirely, he figured so little in my life, appearing more like 'guest star appearances' once every six years or even more, it became clear to me that I was not only dealing with my son's pain in losing me at such a young age, but I had my own traumas to address. The loss of my son to a system that addressed only married couples in those days, made me close down or go numb. I could not cope with reliving the memories of both losses, so I would try to find friends that could give me back that sense of loss. I would try to find a father figure or I would invest heavily into other peoples childrens, only to feel pain when as adolescents, they had no need of me anymore. Whenever I felt they were backing off from me or about to dump me, the emotionally haemorrhaging began and I would react violently in that I would dump them before they could dump me or be aggressive in the way I dealt with them. This caused many people to back off. This heightened sense of awareness of loss was so great that I found it virtually impossible to hang on to friendships for many years because i would push them away and it was only when I found others that were as emotionally damaged as I was, that I felt I could hold them. I became the nurse to all others ills, I could not relate to people that had 'normal' lives and I resented the fact they could interact 'normally' and had no idea how excruciating it was for me to just achieve a semblance of this 'normality' that would frequently escape from me. Aggression ruled ok. Now that I am changing emotionally, my friends and my perception of them is changing constantly. My son is finding the same. Now that he is growing in confidence in this reunion, he has (up until now) realised that he doesn't need a disparaging bully of a friend that would encourage the drugs scene and is changing direction. The anchor is the need for family, to reflect his true Self. This has been the same for me. I have settled so much better in this reunion since my father and I have battled it out, faced the ugliness of what emotional baggage we have both been carrying, discharged it, let it go and moved on to a happier connection of interchanges. It has made a BIG difference to my life to have both my father and my son responding so well to my being in their lives and vice versa. An anchoring of sorts has happened, but it has been extremely painful for all concerned. I'm just glad that insight is really such a wonderful thing and I've been able to respond appropriately to both my father's, my son's emotions and even myself. I credit this wonderful book in that journey, which is why I want to review it over time (as and when emotionally possible for me). My son recalled over a week ago the feelings he had as a baby. It was an amazing journey (and deeply upsetting too for us both, but it had to come out) and I'm glad he can see that he needs to face those feelings, as excruciating and fearful as they are, because as he says, he has to do that before he can return to me. I am doing my level best to support him emotionally through this, and with remarks from both myself and his grandfather, email him every few days to give him that support, with no expectation of return (correspondence or phone call). This is to give him the space he needs. I have actually needed that space myself, after putting him first for the best part of 18 months and for 5 weeks over December/January, I had to return to base camp - i.e. me and work through some of my own emotions that being in touch with my father and coming to terms with my loss as a child and then returning to my son with a new strength so that he could feel that strength and reassurance that I was not about to leave him (even though I felt I would over and over, something stronger has taken over and I'm glad I faced it rather than run away from it, as the bond my son and I are forging is nothing short of amazing). I now know that I will never go. Its taken quite something, to process my emotions to release me to that realisation. My long term friends (of up to 20 years or more, yeh, suprises me to even think of it, I have thought of myself as such a dead loss for many many years) have said that they are not surprised I was so 'needy' over the years. It turns out that its the hole in my heart with having no father and no son. Big losses indeed. One of my friends said she could now understand why I had this 'neediness' with my friendship with her, as she only learned about my son when I was into reunion. She was so enthusiastic about it, that warmed my heart, but thats another story.... I'm realising myself that my inability to react the right way to people, a high level of anger, and all that I have already explained, were due to my own trauma as a child. Clearly, this was going to make me needy in reunion if I was not careful and put unbearable pressure on my son who could only go at his pace and respond to a mother in adult mode rather than child mode. I think this is important, as if I'd have carried on remaining in child mode, I think reunion could well have failed. My son now sees that I am stronger (although I have intermittently gone to child/adult as he has, but we have gone with the flow on it) and it gives him a feeling of well being. Despite the assault on my senses that he has put me through and the agonising emotional discharges, I can now see why he needed to do this. Things have certainly improved since I worked on my own angst and childhood losses and things seem to be falling nicely into place. The roller coaster seems to be losing its steam (and thank goodness for that!) - well for the time being anyway. All my life since 11yrs old and even now at 51, I still suffer the fight or flight syndrome. For me it is FIGHT. I am perpetually on red alert which again, for me, means aggression. I am not exactly a shrinking violet and I still struggle with this. Although to be fair, since my son has come back into my life, BOTH our anger levels have dropped considerably. Its as if we were always fighting with life and everyone in it. Now that we are attempting to forge a bond and relationship, everything is now making sense and I feel fulfilled, very fulfilled having my son back in my life and so does he. This has kept me going when the going has indeed gotten so tough, that I have indulged in the thought of jumping ship. I have found that I'm made of different stuff than I envisaged myself to be and its been intensely satisfying. I guess I'm proving myself. Hard, but I've arrived. Its a good feeling. So I am still in there and things are now getting past the 'being tested' stage (for the time being anyway ... or my favourite line... its great for now.. until the next time...) So most of my life people have known me to be confrontational and aggressive. I could win hands down in most situations.. but it also left me losing job after job, as I would not put up with 'rubbish' or situations that didn't meet my criteria for what was good and fair. For the past two years I haven't worked at all because of health problems, but to be honest, I am happier being here than facing people when I have for the best part of 50 years been a handful and a forceful personality. This belies the 'shutting down' and going 'numb' that I experienced with relinquishment. It seems a paradox that the numbing had the effect of making me aggressive. When that adoption order went through, a knife went through my heart, I shut down and for the next 28 years it had been incredibly hard to talk about it. Even in reunion I went into meltdown at the thought of letting people know and I felt my son was feeling I was ashamed to talk about him. Nothing could be further from the truth, but 28 years of pain, silence, stigma, burned worse than a fire brand on a horses rump. I have found this to be the case in my entire life after father left home. It became worse when I lived and continue to live on a welfare state estate for the past 14 years, where the types of individuals (even now) manage to raise my arousal levels so that at the slightest noise, I'm up and ready to take on anybody or anything. When my son went abroad away from the UK last year, I was in such a state. Compounded by a famous rally driver and his six year old son dying in a helicopter crash - I was in such a state that my counsellor phoned me to gently ask, is it possible that you are feeling that you've lost your little boy all over again, are you are feeling the same loss as you did when you 'handed him over'. I went to pieces and sobbed for hours, in fact I went to pieces for the next few weeks. It took some time to adjust to, but at least I knew what was going on. It was indeed exactly how it felt. My son will never know that all he did was visit a friend in Europe and I was revisiting the time when I handed him over and the incumbent feelings and emotions that that brought and it wreaked havoc in me, with my feeling clingy and wanting reassurance from him. He did not respond to it, he had his own stuff to deal with. Even now, I carry my cell phone with me at all times, and sometimes, inexplicably, I will leave it on all night just in case.... the one time he phoned me to say that he'd been in hospital with a reaction to ecstasy and how well he'd coped with it... well I went into meltdown. I cannot explain to this day the utter fear and how my body felt as if it melted inside me with fear, abject fear. He had no idea that his taking drugs was to me like telling me that this time he would go, he would die, and I would never see him again. That episode (twice now) is the cruellest thing that has ever happened in our reunion. The first time I went quiet, the second time I exploded with rage. I just can't remember whether it was alone, with him, email him or on the phone. The first time I was acquiesent and I didn't give him the reaction he wanted.. the second time, I think I did... My son talks about this constant feeling of dread, it has accompanied him his whole life. He has spoken to me many times of the feelings that have led him to fail at school, college, university. He was distracted and more akin to trying to please others than being able to focus on the job at hand. Even now his parents are attempting to encourage him to focus on a degree, but the sadness of it is, that they don't see the mechanisms in play that he must first work through. Jobs, careers etc must take second place until he can find his 'Self' and work through the awful feelings he's described which include some of the above. He feels that he is a 'loser'. I'm not having any of it, he is a braveheart and that is my nickname for him, amongst others. I too feel as if I've failed in life, as my trauma and loss of father has left me rudderless. I know I am supposed to be bright, ability etc, but it was lost whilst the trauma engulfed me, one after another first father, (and my mother introduced plenty more, she was trauma on legs, sorry to say it, but she brought so much into my life, life was one big effort at survival - she too had trauma, and oh my, round and round we go.....) then son, then the rest, then whatever I created. One long life of trauma... laid to rest in reunion.. for a new one to start... my, we have to be brave and gutsy to keep going you know.... My university assigned tutor (back in 1978 when T was born) said that I was so used to trauma that I was not comfortable with anything else, so if there wasn't any in my life, I would create it to feel I was where I felt I belonged. His observation was astute. He was the one that visited me in hospital after I gave birth and he was one of the kindest episodes in this sad and tragic voyage, brought to an end when son was brave enough to go search for me. Me. This wretch of a birth mother that felt she'd done the worst thing possible - given up her child. Red alert? yeh, and mental permafrost. A peculiar combination. Don't be surprised when mothers can't retrace their steps or forget 'important' information. I was so traumatised by losing my son to adoption that I went into emotional permafrost. The irony was, that even when I was aggressive, responding to past hurts through present stimuli, I could not see it. I just could not see it. About six months before my son traced and made contact with me, I was watching Bleak House, a BBC adaptation to a Charles Dickens novel and when the child, now a young lady, found by circumstances who her real mother was, she then lost her, she died in her arms after their first and last meeting together, due to the shame back then of an illegitimate child and the high ranking situation she had risen to and kept. I wept buckets for days and days and yet EVEN THEN I could not piece together the link that later became obvious to me. I was grieving for my son. I had ALWAYS been grieving for my son. It took for him to find me to realise this.

Janny I have not been on line because of winter storms over here in Canada.. We got a lot of snow last nite and more is coming.. I am going to catch up on the messages if my connection does not freeze up and then read your words in this thread slowly..and reply.. Good for you that you are opening up.. and telling what it was like.. good for you.. Jackie

[url]http://forums.adoption.com/birthparent-support/324688-history-project-relinquishment-why-happened.html[/url] Janny.. I just posted on my thread.. on the history of this.. and I sit and am reading your words of how you needed help and did not get it.. And I know now.. why.. what I want from these other women.. these womens right activists.. I think of a womanҒs right to be held empowered in her society.. what did not happen to you.. I am still reading but am going to post this.. Jackie

Coming home to self.. Powerful powerful words.. Janny wrote.. I believe this is key in our journey to recovery.. After reading some of your posts I have to say that I also went after a man I could not have.. a man that was emotionally distant.. I finally walked away from him and into the life with my husband.. it was very hard to do.. to break from that emotional neediness.. or that wanting the one that will always get away.. and that in turn was my birthson.. We need to sort ourselves.. I know this with all my heart.. then we can help or be with the other person.. The trauma of childhood.. and the neediness of a child.. has to be looked at and grieved and moved on from.. The horrible things said to us.. needs to be remembered IMO.. and seen for the trauma it is and caused.. I do not think some people understand the pain they are causing when they say things like How could you do this?Ӕ And a father leaving the family and the consequences of this.. and the mother maybe not handling it correctly.. or in an emotionally healthy manner.. A primal wound.. yours.. What happened to you when the world helped but not enough.. I have heard of the estates that are impossible to live in.. People being sent from the inner city to the outer parts and no amenities.. what a difficult difficult way to live.. and a crying baby.. Oh Janny I am so sorry.. and now you must deal with him going out beyond the pale.. I do not think we just shut down emotionally and say.. well so be it.. I think we attempt to give it up and have a life.. sort our wounds.. sort what happened to you that could not be changed.. Again.. you can not control anything around the bson.. and he can not be the good son.. the prodigal son.. Its not going to happen.. I believe we can walk away from that trauma.. it is not a sentence.. a life sentence.. we can change.. we can grow.. we can learn how to life a life that is calm and good and happy.. All is not lost.. Grief has a place of acceptance.. and I think that this needs to be the goal.. a goal.. Jackie

This is my attempt to reply to the post, I have not read the book but I think I can follow the thread. As for coming home to myself, I am not completly ready to. I am in reunion but I'm still searching and trying to figure things out. As for truama and overcoming it, I think that my trauma is a mixture of being adopted and being abused in foster care. Unlike your son Janny, I cannot remember being a baby, its just a feeling. As I explain, I cannot remember the first 5 years of my life, I remember living in Germany and thats about it. When I see pictures of myself when I was a toddler I have trouble accepting that as me because I don't think I existed. My adoptive mom kind of confirmed my feeling when she told me stories of when I was home, I was scared of my adad because of my foster dad, and I did not like people touching me or comming near me. That lasted for about a year and a half so I was about 2 and 1/2. Then I started to warm up but not much. I still don't like people touching me, hugs make me cringe. I look at babies and just get a weird feeling, I am very uncomfortable around babies, but I love kids! Its not an uncomfortable I don't know what to do with them its almost a quiet resentment. (I dunno) On my birthdays I would act out and ruin it for everybody. Now, I was talking to my amom the other day and and she actually yelled at me, she was like, you acted like this when you were a little kid I thought we got you out of this behavior. She's talking about my attitude, my opinions, and the way I think. She was like you were always the different on of the family. At that moment (this was 2 days ago) I figured out that it's just the real me, all the other time I was complying to who they wanted me to be and not who I needed to be and am. I am starting to find my self and learn from all the things I have gone though by going through my reunion, if that makes any since. Like I said in one of my journal entries, "The pain was preparation for my destiny" it has only made me stronger and a better person. Now if I could just learn Patience... ~Staci

Hi Staci, thanks for posting your feelings. Being abused in foster care is heart rendering. No wonder you have had to battle with your self and your feelings about being touched. I'm amazed that your amom can't understand that. With regards to my son - he said that he remembers my voice and being held, but also describes being a baby more as feeling 'weightless' - is that anything like you felt? I wonder if others out there feel the feelings he and you describe? I think the description of feeling a non existence was described in 'The Primal Wound'. Is it possible that the abuse just exacerbated that feeling? Did your amom know about the abuse? If she did, I find it hard to comprehend why she could not understand that any reactions that came from then on would have put you in survival mode and that you would not be able to act normally around people. May I ask, is your bmom a huggy touchy person? I only ask to gauge how much the abuse affected you (its so sad to even type this, I feel so helpless, I feel your sense of detachment that would come about because of it) and in fact destroyed any trust you had of .. anyone. I've seen this described on these forums actually with those attempting to raise adopted children now. I wonder .. and I think I've seen something to the effect... that adopted children act out on birthdays, because its the date that reminds them that they aren't with the mother that gave birth to them.... how a baby or child would know that, even subconciously I find amazing. It was the one big thing reading 'The Primal Wound' that knocked me senseless as a birth mother - that my son would have known that the woman picking him up as a baby.. wasn't me.... I broke down in counselling and sobbed for the best part of the session.... I think this to me, shows the enormous strides you have made due to your reunion Staci. Again, I am surprised that your amom shows no insight into you after raising you all these years, but then it must be hard for her or any adoptive mom to cope with the fact that she can't be intuitive or use instinct, because the child is not her own biological child. I have to admit in reunion, the actions I have taken or the strokes I've made to heal my son, have been very much based on what we affectionately call DNA. There is so much that no-one can tell me what to do, I just DO it and I get the results I want and my son responds to me, as he would have if I had have raised him myself. Wow, now thats a concept I have to avoid going back to before it starts me off.... If this is the start of the real you starting to appear in the past 2 days Staci, then that is just great, that is a big step forward!! To start to leave the false self behind and start finding who you really are rather than the person who acquiesed to everything to avoid a second abandonment... well, that is a healing, that is a great step to be able to look back and see that you have made Staci!! WELL DONE!!! I find it very encouraging as a birthmom who is trying to help her son to be brave and face his pain and find his true Self - to reassure him that its not so dark and dangerous a place or person as he once said described himself as......

what a wonderful idea, thank you I will look into getting the book asap.

This explains to me the 'domino' effect when someone upsets me. Often my reaction is well over the top and someone astutely observed that my response to a perceived slight from someone today, would trip me back to the memory that it brought back from years past. How true. Once I understood what was going on, I was able to explode less to friends/ruin relationships on a regular basis once I grasped this truth. Hurt would be like a double edged sword for me. What most would be able to shrug off as no big deal, would make me react vehemently and want to dump that person toute de suite, as if they had violated my person. Exit door this way... --> With recall of past events, my son has some vague 'feeling' of weighlessness that takes him back to his being a baby. He has told me that he remembers my holding him and the sound of my voice. This had a profound effect on me when he told me this, and it also confirmed what Verrier was talking about as above. He feels he has been wearing an invisible 'rucksack' that has weighed down heavily on him over the years. Despite my being back in his life, he is still afraid I will leave him. Neurologically, I guess its imprinted in his brain, I left him and I could well do it again. I have to come to terms with the fact this damage to his self esteem, confidence and ability with relationships could take some years to repair, if ever. The sort of 'floating' relationship we seem to currently have (after 22 months) is either the doldrums or plateau phase, making me feel as if we are going nowhere. Is it testimony to the fact he has no reference point to take him back to the baby that was petrified, knowing that I'd left and hadn't come back. No memory, just a 'feeling' of how it felt back then? This freaks me out, and also leaves me helpless. I cannot help my son face his own pain, the pain of my relinquishing him, abandoning him. As painful as it is for any birth mother to realise that she 'abandoned' her child, to her child that is exactly how it feels and it bodes well to the relationship I have found if you admit it and allow them an apology - that such a decision caused such terrible pain, no matter how solid the reasons. If someone has hurt me one way or another, I'm more interested in a sorry than a deep explanation of why, how it happened. I already know that, but a sorry coupled with a 'it will never happen again' and it then it doesn't, in my books, is bound to bode more favourably for a good relationship than what could come across as their being more interested in putting their case across than recognising my pain. I get that. I get what my son has been trying to tell me. I get what Verrier is about. For me, what she is saying 'fits'. No reasons need to be given over and over, just maybe the once and later, an acknowledgement of the pain that adoption has brought my son was all that he needed I feel, looking back, to trigger off the start of his healing. He was already defending my decision to give him up more rigorously than I was, but I had to say 'no' its not enough, I never realised how much pain this was going to cause you son, never knew, so from my heart, I am truly sorry. Deeply sorry. That was it. I was not going to grovel and he wouldn't have liked it any way. Just the once or twice, then leave it. I left it. That sorrow and recognition of his pain hangs around to haunt me from time to time because we are not going forwards. I have to be careful not to let it overtake me, there is only so long you can linger in the past, before I feel it gets unhealthy. For my son to heal. How long that will take? I have no idea. At least with understanding the above, I can understand why a 'normal' relationship is not likely to kick into place for some time. My son is the type that does not hide how he feels. I am only glad that in his case, his pain is easy to see and i was left in no doubt that I had to research and find out more, as I was clueless. FauxGina put me in touch with this book. Wow, what a change in understanding that brought to my reunion. I often wonder how we would fare if he was an adoptee that 'hid' his pain and would not venture forth any opinion or expression of what he has been through. I don't feel I would have been able to recognise or acknowledge him without the overtness of his expressions of anger, pain and agony. The actual attempt to get a relationship of sorts with me has proved overwhelming for him, even now, nearly 2 years on. The 'tripping' backwards to a memory that can't be raised or fathomed, seems to be occuring in myself, a birthmom. Several times this week I have been out 'enjoying' myself or should have been, have been in beautiful countryside or shopping with a friend I've been close to for 24 years and yet a sadness comes from out of nowhere that hangs around me like a mist. My emotions deep within try to match the emotions to a memory as to what is causing this and yet I struggle, really struggle, because no memory comes to me that I can align with my emotions of sadness and loss. Sometimes when I see babies, when I hear a newborn cry - it used to pierce me, but no more. I can't understand why I could relate such memories to such feelings and yet now, they seem to have evaporated, leaving me perplexed, saddened in a way I can't describe. Someone took a photo of me in the countryside and yet my face is incredibly sad, my eyes vacant as if they have journeyed somewhere else. Whoever I was 'with' I just wasn't there. I was in a sadness (to coin a famous film...) far far away.... Sometimes the anger is just as strong. I felt it had dissolved since reunion, but out of the blue it rears its head and I can take on anyone, or anything. Such anger, and frustration, because all the things described by Verrier above are the very things that are stopping my son and I from getting a relationship off the ground and yet there is no pivotal point from which to work, to point back to and say that is what happened, that is what affected you, other than the loss as a baby that has no specific memory, just vague 'feelings'. He can remember being petrified, now knowing that he must have been calling for me and I didn't come back. That screws me to the wall worse than any mugger or attack on my person, because the person attacking me is myself. My son's inability to move on causes me to self destruct in this way, whilst in another post, i write how I feel is almost pushing the self abort button. Could reunion actually make the situation worse? Is it possible that it was best not to reunite? Is facing this kind of pain ... is it achievable? There is talk of altered perceptions that lead to an adoptee not recognising the effect their behaviour has on others. This has got to be the most frustrating part of reunion for me. My son casually mentioning that he is back on drugs, then ending up in hospital and describing each experience as one would if they'd had a brief trip to the local Starbucks for breakfast. Yeh, right. I'm in meltdown, it cripples me emotionally. He's dealt with it and moved on. He doesn't seem to have any perception as to just how much we are all hurting by his behaviour, he only seems to recognise the hurt in himself. He feels his amom is like a bulletproof vest. If she has hidden her feelings and not let him see that he 'got to her' then she has done him no favours, at it adds to his perception that he is not worthy, so therefore has no impact on others. What he does or say 'doesn't count'. That could not be further from the truth, but its how he sees his situation. How on earth does one get an adoptee to move on from this? If there is distorted perceptions, how does one 'un distort' them? I sincerely hope that moving through this book bit by bit, that I will be able to fathom it out (but my brain is telling me for the minute, it has to come from him, HE has to make the decision to face what he is doing, to face the pain.. ouch, I feel it so much, its as if we are connected neurologically. I woke up the other night actually feeling his pain and emailed him to ask if he was ok..). Thats as much as I can cope with for now. not feeling any forward momentum in reunion at the moment. Perhaps an outsider would consider it going very well, but I am losing .. hope and ... need some encouragement. Perhaps when I next post I will have received some....because for now, it feels like stalemate.

Hi Janny, This is one reason I do not post much because school gets busy and I do not have time to respond. "With regards to my son - he said that he remembers my voice and being held, but also describes being a baby more as feeling 'weightless' - is that anything like you felt? I wonder if others out there feel the feelings he and you describe?" No, I haven't felt anything like that, I really don't remember anything. I just know I have feelings that come out of no where and I don't understand them. think the description of feeling a non existence was described in 'The Primal Wound'. Is it possible that the abuse just exacerbated that feeling? Did your amom know about the abuse? If she did, I find it hard to comprehend why she could not understand that any reactions that came from then on would have put you in survival mode and that you would not be able to act normally around people. I am sure the abouse just increased the severity of the feeling and yes my amom knew about it, she was the one who told me it happened when I was a teenager because we were having a talk trying to figure out why I avoided touch. My amom does understand that parenting an adopted child is different from parenting a biological child and doesn't think that it should be. She does not believe adoption has really effected me at all. May I ask, is your bmom a huggy touchy person? I have no idea she may be, she may not be. My amom is which drives me insane, she yells at me when I just get to a point where I refuse to make contact (it happens on occasion) but she doesn't understand I try my best though. With my bmom funny thing is the one thing I really want to do is give her a hug (mostly out of character for me) I told her I am not a touch person just incase when I meet her it doesn't last, but I have come a lot further with my touch issue since I have been a little kid, I don't run, scream, and cry anymore. lol If this is the start of the real you starting to appear in the past 2 days Staci, then that is just great, that is a big step forward!! It just didn't just happen in to days, that comment just confimed my strides in allowing myself to be the true me. If my parents don't like it, well as they have come to see they have to get over it because I can't be compliant and unreal anymore, its frustrating and there is no reason for it. From 2-13-08 No reasons need to be given over and over, just maybe the once and later, an acknowledgement of the pain that adoption has brought my son was all that he needed I feel, looking back, to trigger off the start of his healing. Can you talk to my bmom about this, I seriously think that she thinks I am just crazy. It hurt me too, I was involved in the adoption process. I just have to give her time I know. For my son to heal. How long that will take? I have no idea. Janny from my persective and thinking about myself I don't know if it will ever happen completly. I know I will never be completly healed from this, it still happened I will still have the psychological effects and have to deal with them and manage them its about actually facing them and dealing with them first and establishing what I can do when these things come up. KWIM? I often wonder how we would fare if he was an adoptee that 'hid' his pain and would not venture forth any opinion or expression of what he has been through. Bmom does that its a bit frustrating, I don't think she knows that having feelings and sharing them is ok, she has had to keep them bottled up for so long and she does not want to deal with them. Is facing this kind of pain ... is it achievable? Yes, but its extremely hard. For me I don't remember anything I just have the "feelings" and I know it comes out in my actions and emotions but how can I face something that is not concrete? Its hard to explain, just know that it is achievable or at least I think so. Despite my being back in his life, he is still afraid I will leave him. Neurologically, I guess its imprinted in his brain, I left him and I could well do it again. I have to come to terms with the fact this damage to his self esteem, confidence and ability with relationships could take some years to repair, if ever. I still have that thought everytime I talk to my bmom, everytime I don't hear from her for longer than a week (we talk once a week) everytime she sends me a one word answer text message, everytime she makes another excuse not to come see me, everytime there is a break in the conversation, random times during the day. I think I covered all the arenas. I can't shake the feeling, I don't understand the perpetual feeling that she is going to leave me though she repeatedly tells me she's not, that she loves me. Don't believe her, in my heart of hearts I don't, she gave me up and she still loved me then why is now different. She even has her own llife now, and I was never there before, she managed without me, can she manage with me? There are so many thoughts that go along with that. Now for my encouragement, yeah I know it took me awhile. Reunion is a roller coaster, rollercosters do not only go foward, they go up and down, backwards and through loops. This is just on of the loops, it will get better, whether he comes back or not because I do not want to give you any false hope, you will either work through it with him or without him. I am sure you would not perfer the latter but you'll get through it thats what the wonderful people on this site are for and why you are reading books and care about this so much. Keep your head up! ~Staci

i have to admit that I've not been able to make any comments for the past week or so, but my reunion is falling into place now after an excruciating 22 months. My journal shows the agony, but after today, also the ecstasy. I can't put into words how reading this book that I'm attempting to review through its pages is helping me. There have been so many 'strokes' I've been able to apply to ease the reunion congestion that can bring it to a screaming halt and I'm actually winning. Today is a special day - Wednesday 20th February 2008 and I couldn't do better than what I wrote on my journal, so if anyone is interested, this is fireworks and champagne day! A second breakthrough in the 22 months of an excruciating reunion. Yee ha!! Breakthrough!! Am I ecstatic! YES![url=http://journals.adoption.com/?do=showjournal&j=771&page=24&pp=5#e6081]Jannyroo's Journal - a birthmothers thoughts - Adoption Journal, Story, Experience, Blog[/url] How well is it going? Well I sent a bouquet of flowers to my sons mother today. We are all doing well together and I can't emphasise enough, this book gave me so much insight (and still does) as to how to make the right moves to get the right results. Will try and bring up some discussion points soon. Hugs :grouphug: :cowboy: to all those in tough reunions and congratulations and thanks for the encouragement for all those that are in 'less tough' ones. I hope you know what I mean. We all hold out for them... Janny:grouphug:

Well its a month now since I was last on the forums and I guess that means things are falling into place and they are. I haven't picked up a book to read about adoption, I haven't felt obsessive, I haven't felt worried... everything has fallen into place. The roller coaster has finally drawn into bay and stopped. Thank goodness for that! My son phones and sounds comfortable. He is happy to contact his grandpa and I'm happy leaving them to it. The stress and worry has come to a more comfortable relaxed pace and I'm happy to get on with my life and I'll tell you the secret... someone special has found me and its been quite something for the past two months. Amazing I would call it. Its helped enormously for me to 'chill' out with my son and let him get on with finding himself, c'ause frankly, I'm finding MYSELF and its quite nice I can tell you. Soooo many years with empty heart and a gnawing loneliness. Now I have a healed heart with my son back and the gnawing something, je ne sais quoi, has arrived, its my soul mate. He is brilliant and within two months, the depth of our friendship is unbelievable... so special... I never thought I'd find myself talking like this, after all, I've been downing myself for so many years, but so many have told me how great I've been in dealing with my son, that some healthy response came of it, along with reading Coming Home to Self. I guess I've attracted the kind of guy I can see myself spending the rest of my life with. Hmm. I can't believe I just wrote that. Now, everything is a journey of exploration. I know it sounds as if I'm being ...??? hard??? but I'm really not that bothered like I used to be as to whether my son phones me or not, I have someone who is showing caring to me on a level I"ve never had. Its helped release me, and release me from the tight grip reunion had on me that made each day all pervasive in my thoughts. Now there is a freedom, and I'm happy to let my son find himself, because I'm busy finding me and the happiness that I thought would always elude me. S'nice. So, is romance a great help in reunion? Yeh! My guy is a great poet and musician and he is ... deep. I've been told that I am. I've been friends with ... x friend and she tells me that I'm deep. I've only known her for 15 years and she only just gets round to telling me I'm deep. So my guy and I are instant soul mates. I've even written my first piece of music for him. Yeh, he liked it, which is quite a compliment, because he cuts his first album next month. Yooooooooooooooooooooooo. Who's a lucky girl? I am!!! Sorry to splurge all this on the forums, but I'm like a giggly girl in the first flush of love. :love: and I'm getting to like that feeling. Rock on everyone, hope your reunions are lightening up a little. Mine has and its about time if you don't mind me saying!!! Love & Hugs y'all!!! Love Janny

Oh Janny.. what a wonderful post to read.. And I agree with your friend.. you are an amazing woman.. And I bet your sharing on this forum is going to help others through the difficult times of reunion.. We are all not alone any more.. I thank the moderators of this place.. for keeping it safe.. Jackie

thanks Jackie, yeh, its been a really tough nut to crack, my reunion, but son is settling down a treat. Things are good with his family, I've now spoken to his brother on the phone and he sounds cool and happy to talk to me. I get on well with son's mom we are both strong allies for each other and maybe, just maybe, I may get to have Sunday lunch with them!! but perhaps no time soon. It really boils down to what our son is ready for and he isn't emotionally ready for such a meeting, although (!) he is talking very enthusiastically about his Grandpa coming over from Canada and we ALL 3 of us meet up together. Now that sounds like three volcanic eruptions at once! LOL!! that would be quite something, three very strong personalities all with their own opinions of how things should be...... I chuckle in my heart, but at the same time am thrilled that my estranged father is now willing to come back to England (something he said he never would do) - to meet his daughter and his grandson. Life has a neat habit of putting things your way that you never ever thought would happen. Oh joy! .. and I agree with you, big thanks to the moderators of these forums- the best in the world! it truly has been a great and safe place for me during my 2 year reunion which comes up next month, April. Two whole years!!! yahoo!!!!:cowboy: More thoughts in my journal today, but in the meantime, thanks for your love and enthusiasm Jackie!!! love Janny x x:thanks:

Any time..:love: Jackie

About the secretive part; what about people who are adopted keeping it a secret because it's so terribly embarrassing and it automatically makes you 'not come from a good family'. Is that the same thing? I was just thinking that people keep it a secret because they are embarrassed. I know I was always embarrassed so I hid it until I could find my natural family and at least have pictures of them and a name, even though they don't bother with me, it's better than saying 'I was adopted'. I just couldn't get those words out of my mouth. I was so humiliated and tortured to say that. Maybe it's the same thing for the birth mothers, or maybe because the b-mother is ashamed that the child takes on that shame? I always thought that adoption was shameful all the way around. At least the birth mother can get away with that lie for a good long time, but the adoptee has to keep pushing that shame away from their face on a daily basis. I believe that a lot of honesty would have went a long way to make things better for adoptees, but alas, there is very little honesty when it comes to adoption. I guess if we can at least be honest about the way we feel here, and from reading the books, .. it would go at least part way to make us whole again.