Overload & Medical History

Major mental fatigue has set in. Exploring the impact of adoption on my life has turned out to be an exhausting exercise. Thinking. Reflecting. Connecting the dots. More reflection. Reading adoptee and birth mother blogs. Trying to educate myself. Joined a really great adoptee group called Chosen Babies hosted on Google and started by Wraith. Whew. All the rage, anger, confusion, ambivalence and guilt expressed by adoptees. And the empathy. For other adoptees. And the support. Reading posts makes me realize no one can understand the plight of an adoptee - no matter how well adjusted - like another adoptee. All this processing - after so much adaptation and denial - takes so much energy.

On the bright side, I'm enjoying talking with my birth mother. She's quite elderly, but still a pistol. She actually used the word "freakin" today on the phone. As in, "you wouldn't freakin' believe it." I like staying in the moment. We spent our first conversation talking about the details of my birth, "the relinquishment." She's a talkative, open person so she didn't seem to hold back. At our respective ages, I don't feel the need to be "reparented." I parented myself and didn't do a bad job. And while I wanted to find my birthmother and find out about my heritage and not the ever-changing fairy tale told by my adoptive father, I also learned CRITICAL MEDICAL INFORMATION. While my birthmother does not have dementia nor has she had cancer or diabetes, she did have a brain aneurysm. Her mother died of one. Given that I'm a hypochondriac, I took the information in stride. Usually, any little ache or pain sends me into a panic. Is it cancer? But this time, I made a note to ask my doctor about aneurysms at my next appointment. The difference? Dealing with FACT is much less scary than not knowing. And if I ever get a nasty whopping headache that won't go away, I won't just pop a Tylenol.