Talking to Mother and Fading Away

After the shock of meeting my first mother for the first time ten months ago, I called her.

It was a pleasant conversation. She always seems very happy to hear from me.

I'm now mostly over the intense feelings of grief (and anger) I finally allowed myself to have over being given up for adoption by a 37-year old woman who'd already raised three children.

So now I'm a bit more detached. In a good way. That emotional detachment allows me to be a better observer of the dynamics of our relationship. Mostly, she does the talking. Sometimes, she (unintentionally) says things I find hurtful. For example, she likes to recount with pride her determination to give me up for a better life, against family pressure to keep me. It's the language of martrys. Except she seems to forget I didn't get a "better life," just a different "bad" one as I was placed into an extremely dysfunctional, emtionally neglectful home. In our most recent chat, she said she'd always wanted girls (not boys) because girls are so cute. Obviously, being a girl wasn't incentive enough for her to keep me.

So for the last year or so, I've been saying I don't feel "safe" around my mother. I just don't.

I get very nervous when I think of talking to her. I get all cold and clammy, as if it's possible I might just pass out. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'll wake up and the first thing that pops into my head is, "I can't believe she gave me up!"

And here's what I just noticed. When I was talking to her, I felt like I was fading away. Like my voice was getting weaker and that if I held up my hand, I might to able to see right through it. Suddenly, I wasn't myself. She'd ask me a question and I wouldn't have an answer. All I could do was listen, passively. It was like she existed, fully, and I did, but weakly. Just hanging in there. When I am in contact with her, I am diminished.

This is a sensation that I have, in the past, blamed on her being self-centered. It's sort of like the feeling I get around my full blown narcissistic adoptive father. But it's worse. Much worse. It's a horrible, terrible feeling...that I might just disappear.

Before I called her, I blogged about this and Anonymous Bob left a comment telling me about psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi's paper entitled, "The Unwelcome Child and His Death Instinct (or Drive)" and suddenly, the lights went off.

Is THIS what is behind the sensation that I am there-but-not-there when I am with my first mother? That I am reliving not being wanted? That after 47 years, I can feel what I felt in utero? That I can only respond to her, not as an adult, but as an unborn baby incapable of speech or thought or opinion?

I am NOT looking for sympathy. I am trying to understand not only this feeling, but my lifelong struggle with not feeling fully a part of this world. I'm trying to understand my past struggle with psychosomatic ailments. I'm trying to understand my lack of sustained motivation and inability to meet long-term personal goals. Why I'm terrified of rejection. Why if when I do encounter rejection, it feels like annihilation.

Many of these "issues" can be attributed to being raised (or trained) by narcissistic parents. But they could have started with something else. (And made worse) With not being wanted.

Today, I'm going to the library to see if I can track down Ferenczi's paper.

More later.