Where a Search Leeds to Dark Thoughts

My good friend at work, M, whose son was adopted out to an open adoption told me all her last contact info as they had basically lost touch. So, of course, I went home and after making a private post for some of my search angels to take a peek, I couldn’t resist a quick tour on Goggling myself. That was at 1:45 am…less than two hours later, I was sitting in front of my screen staring into the face of my friend, except on her 15 year old son’s body!!

Yeah, I ran down the stairs silently and found her number..called her and woke her as up!

“I found him, I found him!”

And then sat there..again, literally shaking..just in shock!
The adrenaline rush to a successful search is a great high! Impossible to go to sleep after that! It brought back that same happy feeling I had when I found Max both times..and all I could do was imagine M, laying in her bed, doing the same…the repeated Mantra..

“I know where he is, he is OK”.

It’s a lovely thing to share.

Again, it totally solidified my thoughts that there is a great resource to find ones under aged children. Yeah, I know lots of controversy there, but….I won’t post my tips publicly,  but if you want to know..I’ll tell ( cat’s are out of the bag; It was MySpace when this was first written, but now we all know Facebook is the prime adoption search site if you have a name) …heck, I’ll help. One does get addicted.

Where Does Adoption Pain Begin?

I was thinking the other day about the different ways the adoption of Max has effected me. Beyond the sadness, beyond the loss..the deep wounds..the personality modifications of “being strong”. I think it melds, too, into the wounds that I had from growing up so I have trouble finding where childhood ends and the adoption ones begin.

So many other moms I know have spoken of almost a paranoia with other children, fear of losing them, an high degree of attachment resulting from the loss of the first. Me…while I do have the fear of loss..it is not from the threat of someone “taking” them because I am not a good enough mother. I fear more the laws of nature, a cruel God. I fear that I have not been broken enough by the loss of Max, that I still carry too much spirit, and it was meant to be broken.

A Single Connecting Theme in Life? Loss

Ah, the muddle. I once went to a “re-birther”. While it did sound to much like weirdness to me, she was a very good, kind therapist, though I only saw her a very tiny while, maybe once or twice. I was able to comprehend her premise and it did speak to me. What is the single connecting theme in your life?

Ah, so easy..mine is loss. I call them the demons.

My List of Demons; My Life Losses

I know now that my first real demon was the loss of unconditional love by my parents. Yes, this conflicts greatly with my tribute to my mother, but it is possible to see where one was wrong, where one left wounds, where the skeletons are buried, yet still be able to miss and love the one who caused the pain.
So demon #1: my parents were grossly fucked up.

Never having been appreciated nor honored for myself, I did what many young girls do and looked to find love and acceptance anywhere else. Failed by my family, I was also failed by love…repeatedly, as one tends to in the younger years. For some time I broke up all those demons, by name of every boy who broke my heart and sent me wailing into my pillow feeling unlovable and worthless. Just more fuel to a roaring fire. #2

My father eventually left and never really looked back at the age of 16..not to my mother, not to me, not to my brother..ha is still lost somewhere in Nevada. Yeah, I understand rejection issues. They suck. Parents ARE suppose to love and treasure their children. #3

Miserable, I managed to destroy what was left to me..my dreams, my goals, I did not deserve. I lost my art, my drive, my ambition #4

Couldn’t loss Max’s father for I never had him really..so we son;t give him a number, For years he had one, but I reserve the right to withhold one now due to maturity.

Ah, Max…well give him two #5 & 6

Second career move..years put into it, then again..no interest. Poof! gone
First marriage .a dreadful mistake  but oh, it hurt like hell. If I could have willed it to happen, by sheer force of wanting it to make it work. Some normality, some real chance. Though, I look back now and don’t regret it’s death, at the time..for what it represented to me more than for what it really was deserves #7

Then my mother died and I was an orphan in this world by all standards except that my father still breathed #8

I had consoled myself though my mother’s illness that at least I would get my brother, that we would have a chance to grow up together, live together as my mother said repeatedly that she wanted. But my aunt got to her in the zero hour and the will was changed and I was left alone with no discussion, no kind words, just more loss on top of loss #9

Then the breath of fresh air. My David.
David gave me back my fate in Karma  David gave me back my faith in me. David allowed me to feel that I was good and worthy and deserved good things because David was the good thing that I had only hoped and waited and prayed for my whole life. He was the reason that I had to endure all before him and now everything was going to be all right. We loved, we laughed, and after 3 1/2 years, we got engaged  I had bought my house, I had started my “new” career as an interior designer. My work was even published. All in time for my 30th birthday.
And then David, a week after our engagement, announced he was gay..I looked up at the ceiling and said out loud “Oh, you GOT me this time… damn, didn’t see this trick coming”… three days later, and I never saw him again.#10

Control the Crisis; Making My Own Demons

Then I saw the rebirther lady. My hart was broken. I questioned it all again. I doubted my ability to know anything. I didn’t eat for almost a whole summer..survived on coffee, endless cigarettes  and an occasional yogurt. I didn’t sleep, but worked endlessly on my house. I almost went mad, but I didn’t.

For the most part what I did start doing was controlling my own crisis. See, my life was always a crisis of one kind or another. And with David, I was reassured that the crisis time was over. At last, I would have peace. Of course I expected that after Max too, and after my marriage began it tentative foundlings, but I finally, with David, didn’t just hope, I believed. I was entitled to it, I had deserved it.

Emotional crisis, I was done with those, but a financial crisis, that was interesting. I could control that. Save myself in the zero hour. Pay bills at the last minute..like right before they shut something off. Wait until the house is almost in foreclosure before you can write the check. Drive a car with an inspection sticker that was 6 months old. Procrastinate, procrastinate..and always live in fear. And, never, ever, let anyone know. Until you HAD to ask someone for help, but never ask the same one twice..and always at the zero hour.

I was able to function completely normally in all other aspects of life. Weird isn’t it. Just a heightened state of panic at all times, but perfectly fine. Really, with a smile.

After the second foreclosure proceedings of my house were stayed, it was really getting old. How many times does one really want to rush home form work and frantically call the electric company to turn the house back on before your child gets out of day care and your roommate gets home? I figured out what I was doing to myself and essentially why.

Part of me so really loved my house, that I tried to take away the one thing I had, because I didn’t feel I deserved it. Punishment for the trials of losing David, probably losing Max, losing my father, losing my mother, my brother, myself, my husband. The other thing that was probably key was that I had started dating Rye, and I told him.

Facing Reality and Mental Health

It’s not like he is all great with money either, but man, he can ride my denial like a hawk. He has no fear of shaking it in my face, of EGADS! telling other people that we are strapped, and making it more than my controlled panic crisis mode that feels good to me, but makes it reality that does not feel good at all.

So after trying to play God and failing, I had to let real life begin again. There is something to be said for taking chances, though I think I still deny myself at times. .

Less Loss; More Blessings

Granted, I did lose my job at Barb’s, later evil William’s that did sting like hell because I feel into the trap that I deserved something again. Lost that great opportunity at Saratoga, and watched my dreams for the new position in Westchester crumble. Yeah, sometimes I still feel cursed by the Gods. When that was all happening, the demons came out and played tag in my head. In fact right now, my career is on stand by. But it is OK most days. The demons are resting.

For it also began the time of really taking stock of what I did have and adding to the pluses. I know that in the real scheme of life, I do have some great things. Miraculously  I still have my house. I have three great kids that I am raising, and I have found my Max. I have Rye, who might drive me mad at times, but it real, and concrete and very much here..everyday no matter what we put each other though. And it might not be a career, but I enjoy my job and I have great friends.

What I don’t want to do is get too cocky. I am afraid of being too happy and smug. I don’t want to be too sure. I try to fly under the radar, just to be content with what I have been given and not ask for much more.

I am Not Broken

But I am not broken yet. This humble business conflicts with something inside me that when it gets strong and heals, gets loud and demanding. I start to believe that I am worthy and I want MORE. And I worry, then, that the God’s will see me and try to break me once again.

When my mother died, I knew I would not be broken. I knew then that the pain was not anything really. Yes, I cried  yes I miss her, but I was ready and OK with the passage of life. I remember standing at the doors of the church for her funeal. all in black, long black coat, my hair freshly dyed, back sunglasses  and holding Garin’s not yet four year old hand, and thinking “Jackie-O, eat your heart out” for I was young, beautiful and had my Jon-jon next to me. Give me the drama of a funeral walk.

Driving once with David, a year before the “announcement”, still so happy, we were talking and somehow I happened to be telling him how I felt if he was hit by a bus and died. I admitted that I would be sad, maybe even for a year I would be a mess, but I would be OK. I didn’t doubt that for a second. For I had lost Max and after that, not him, not my mother, nothing would shake me.

Poor Rye, he has his own issues..and he will at times threaten to leave. He likes his drama too and wants me to run after him and beg him to not go. Sometimes he needs that. I won’t play. Ever. I refuse to do it. I can’t. Ok, I tell him. If you want to go, go. He never does and he doesn’t even try it much anymore..so unsatisfactory is my response. But I always am thinking of how I will survive, an escape route is planned.

I am not the over protective mother. I let them go and run forth into life. I had no problem as a single mom, letting Garin go to his dads for the weekends, on vacations with his grandmother, first day of school..I shed no tears. Babysitters, I don’t think twice. I am hard. Something is gone in me, sometimes, I think.

I Can Still Shatter

What gets me though..and I have such trouble writing this even..for they might see..don’t kill one of my children. I would shatter.

Garin had open heart surgery this summer. He needed a new aortic valve and he had an aortic aneurysm ..so he has a new aorta too. I was soo afraid..not of the surgeons skill, or complications  or success rates, or level of care at the hospital. I was afraid of my luck with the Gods. And I had been too OK for too long. That they would let him die to teach me a lesson or to watch me break. And so, I made clear to them that it would not work. I saw my escape route, I envisioned my survival after his death. And they let him be OK. I don’t take credit for it. I know that Garin is not just here in this world for my life. But I was spared, he was spared, and for that I am humble again.

My two babies can still inspire great fear in me. So I don’t think of it. I can’t. I was thankful when each one of my children made it past the 6 month SIDS mark, though I tempted fate and allowed stomach sleeping. I watch them eat whole grapes at age two and mentally went over choking and CPR. Heightened crisis or laughing at my own fears..I don’t know?

What Came First Loss or Adoption?

I don’t think I can ever truly feel that my lessons in loss are over. I don’t know how to not be hard and ready to just not care so I can survive and live again. Do I truly not fully attach so it won’t matter when they are all gone? Is this adult ADD? I know sometimes, I push them all away..sometimes for sanity, sometimes for clarity, sometimes for a bit of peace, but sometimes because I don’t think that I deserve anything at all?

I don’t really put the shoe up in the air anymore and try to catch it, but I am always wondering when it will fall.

Is this adoption? Or is this how I am broken? And did my brokenness open the window to allow me to fit into the birthmother mold? And with that I was cast in stone?

Merridee and I have talked much on this..so similar in our ‘escape” routes in our relationships, in the ways we deal with things. It was she only I could confide in right before Garin’s surgery of my fear of luck and if he was to die it would only because I was his mother. Is it the original loss of our children that makes us like this? Or were the seeds planted long before that let us give our children away?

Losing Max was redeeming to me at the time. I was worthless and horrible to get pregnant in such a manner. So I had to make it right by denying myself what I wanted, for I did not deserve. The act of sacrifice made me worthy and deserving again. A theme I keep on reliving or is it because I was unworthy as a child and had to sacrifice myself from the beginning and it was just the first act of many?

Even now, I see the act of placing Max as undeserving, so here I try to redeem it. I save the world of the wrongs of adoption and try to make it worth something again. And sometimes, I don’t even feel worthy of being “anti” since it was something I choose..I was not tied down and drugged. I just had an escape route all planned out and I left a loved one behind before they could leave me.

Is a Birthmother Already Broken?

What I wonder is if something inside us all is very similar..our mothers, our backgrounds, our “themes”….so out of all the women who become pregnant unplanned, we are more susceptible to the adoption rhetoric  We are more easily able to succumb.  I do not think  birthmothers are really “different” than everyone else, but maybe the seeds of doubt are there in us all, but the words of adoption are seen like a sun, a ray of warmth, where we had none, and we soak it up. But the sun is just fire…more fuel to the fire and we end up burning. Hard. Scarred.

I would love to see a real deep physiological study done on the growing up, formative years of women who “choose” to become mothers of loss. My guess is that we were not loved unconditionally by mothers with issues who tended to be narcissistic  I think our fathers might be either absent or didn’t stand up to our mothers rule. And maybe that could also be reversed too? I wonder if we ever felt worthy of anything, so how could we be worthy of our children?

Its a hard battle to feel I am suppose to have anything I want and keep it. Sometimes I don’t feel I deserve it at all. And then, part of me screams how much I should have and I am entitled. But I still am afraid of the loss again.

What is the broken me? What is the child in me? What is the healthy me? And why can’t they just get along? Without the God’s striking me down….(shush..don’t tell them I have been speaking of this, they have a sick sense of humor)

I am humble. I have character. Leave me and mine alone.
Don’t make me shatter.