I used to roll my eyes whenever my therapist said that I had issues with being adopted. I'd always tell her, "Look. I've always known I was adopted. My parents didn't make a big deal out of it, there was no big dramatic scene about it. We were never teased, nobody in our extended families ever made comments or made us feel like we weren't really part of the family. It didn't really ever come up. Kiki and I would always laugh at our friends' reactions when they found out. I'm fine with it. Really."
What she was really saying -- and what literally took me years to be able to hear -- was that I (and obviously Kiki as well -- twins, duh) suffered a fundamental loss when I lost my biological mother after I was born. There was no bonding, no nurturing. My very first life experience was the loss of a loved one. It makes a lot more sense when M talks about it, obviously, and she recommended some books that I never bothered to look into, but I can look back at my life now and see the pattern.
Why my parents' unhappy marriage and constantly looming divorce was so absolutely terrifying for me to contemplate. Why losing my shitty group of friends the summer before high school was a trauma that I never really recovered from it -- they claimed to love me and yet abandoned me without a second thought. My dad's drinking himself to death, my single-minded determination to hash things out with my mom all those years we didn't get along, when really what I should have done was get some distance. I could never let go of anyone. It was my greatest fear.
So now here I am again, struggling to come to terms with someone I loved and trusted suddenly putting me out alone in the world and going on with their life without a backwards glance. Intellectually I know that my biological mother was barely more than a child herself when she got pregnant, that she made the best decision for all of us and loved me with all of her heart from the moment I was born. I know that, I do. But emotionally, deep inside of me I carry that child who wonders what was so wrong with her that her own mother gave her away.
I was just sitting here crying, and I said out loud, "So maybe life with me is different than what you had planned. That doesn't mean it would have been a bad life. Why didn't you think I was worth it?" I have no idea if I was talking to to my mother or someone else. I guess I just wish that someone in my life would have fought for me. Just once.
Anyway. That's about where I'm at emotionally. I believe they call it rock bottom. I've gotten a lot of wonderful encouragement from my internet peeps over the past month. Don't think I could have gotten by without stuff like this:
...Boy, I am so upset with [D] right now! I could kick him, I swear. I mean, yeah, we're all anxiety stricken and depressed but Christ, not everyone is grubbygirl....
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