Acceptance...or Avoidance?
Have reached an interesting phase in dealing with my adoption:
Calm, yet detached.
Grateful for the life I've built for myself, despite odious adoptive parents.
No longer feeling guilty about not calling my first mother. I just don't want to. It's simply not safe.
Spent 1.4 years dredging up the past, dealing with it, writing about it, met my mother, dealt with what that meant...and then lots of grief and anger.
No longer have anxiety attacks.
No longer people please. As much.
Insecurity and abandonment issues are much improved.
Actually go days without thinking about adoption. A sort of numbness has set in. Am not feeling much about it at all.
Was it all just getting too much to handle so I'm pushing it down? A new coping mechanism?
Or is it - finally - acceptance?
1.4 years After Adoption Fog Lift is a rather short time.
If you've been dealing with it longer and recognize these "symptoms," please comment!
Calm, yet detached.
Grateful for the life I've built for myself, despite odious adoptive parents.
No longer feeling guilty about not calling my first mother. I just don't want to. It's simply not safe.
Spent 1.4 years dredging up the past, dealing with it, writing about it, met my mother, dealt with what that meant...and then lots of grief and anger.
No longer have anxiety attacks.
No longer people please. As much.
Insecurity and abandonment issues are much improved.
Actually go days without thinking about adoption. A sort of numbness has set in. Am not feeling much about it at all.
Was it all just getting too much to handle so I'm pushing it down? A new coping mechanism?
Or is it - finally - acceptance?
1.4 years After Adoption Fog Lift is a rather short time.
If you've been dealing with it longer and recognize these "symptoms," please comment!
posted by Nina at
1:01 PM
8 Comments:
Geez, you feel good. Don't make that into a problem :). There is no right way to deal with this stuff. There are, perhaps, some wrong ways -- or maybe some less healthy ways -- but there is no "correct" amount of grieving.
It may be that your mind is taking a break from working on all this -- a vacation from having feelings about it. This can be perfectly healthy, like sleeping. And it's likely that at some point the feelings will recur, for a time. Also, perfectly healthy. You feel the way you feel. Don't fret over it :). That's my advice anyway, for what it's worth.
Hi Celera, I cracked up when I read your comment because you picked up on something that I've only recently come to understand...that I feel a bit guilty and a little nervous about feeling good. Don't know if it comes from not feeling "worthy" and/or it's leftover Catholic guilt...a sort of superstitious feeling that if things are good, the other shoe is surely going to drop. And what you said is very true. There is no correct way to feel about this stuff. Do you have your own blog? I can only reach your profile page?
I hate to say this, but I've been where you are, many times in fact. Specifically, when I've been in a new love relationship, or when I'm in Paris or about to go to Paris, or when I'm working non-stop, adoption crap SEEMS to go away. But then it always comes back. Always. I hope you have a different experience. In any case, enjoy the feeling good. I do when I can.
{{{{Nina}}}}
thats a tough question i've often asked myself. is acceptance a form of giving up?
or is it just realizing what's doable and what isnt.
i think it means being realistic as long as you are taking care of yourself.
Elizabeth, So glad you commented. Maybe, once we've opened the ole Primal Wound, that distraction becomes our friend. Perhaps what I was (mildly) worried about was when distraction slides into denial...then I'm back to the false self again...a state I NEVER want to be in again!
Erika...I knew someone somewhere would have pondered this question and I really like the way you framed it...is acceptance a form of giving up.
Nina..I agree with elizabeth. Trauma ebbs and flows like the tide but each time the tide may not come in as much or go out as far...the seas calm eventually for awhile before the next lunar phase. One can forgive but can one really forget or does it work the other way around? I suppose it is highly individualized yet everything I read of you tells me all is going in a good direction...towards acceptance of what was, what is and what will be...and what can never be.
Very beautifully put, Leroy...as usual! That you used the term "trauma" is incredibly validating. No matter WHAT some people say, adoption IS a trauma. That's just what soooo many people don't seem to get.
I think Elizabeth is right - and I also really like the the way Leroy put it.
I think - for me - it's just so liberating that I can say this stuff (or at least write it) out loud now.
KWIM??
Poss. xx
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home