I’ve been coming to terms with my adoption trauma over the past few years.  It all started when a cousin contacted me on 23andMe, yet if I’m honest, it started when I decided to do the genetic test.  Before then, I pretty much lived in denial with a CAPITAL D and when mentioning my adoption, it was “all great, I’m so lucky,” the most typical party line we adoptees of a certain age were told to share with the world when asked about our adoptions.  But that is not the truth.  And I’m tired of living a lie and carrying baggage that is not mine.

Adoptees refer to the awakening I’ve had as “coming out of the fog.”  This process is not for the faint of heart.

One of the realizations that has come out of this process is that I don’t know how to relax.

“Just relax!” has been a common refrain my entire life.   I was reminded of this again last night in the middle of a restorative yoga class, while struggling to allow the floor to support me.   My mind raced as I was lying down holding a pose, forced into stillness.  Relaxing is incredibly challenging.  In fact, I have been uber critical of people who are good at relaxing and I usually call them the “L word” – the word my kids know I can’t stand…LAZY.  I read somewhere that what you judge is what you need more of in your life, and I thought about that while attempting to relax in yoga.  I don’t like it, but it is true.  I need to relax more, let go, rest, let my guard down, and embrace laziness.  Typing that makes me shudder.

To make matters more complicated, our society rewards busyness, and I’ve come to learn that constantly being on the move has its benefits.  There are the accolades from the outside world and if you are busy, you don’t have time to sit down with those troubling thoughts and feelings.  I know this firsthand because I am always on the run. After all, I did get my Master of Science degree at night while working full time, volunteering, working as a teacher’s assistant and as an adjunct professor, all while managing a NYC single social life.  That makes me tired now to think about it.  Not that my days are much calmer now, balancing work, and my two boys’ schedule.  The shadow side of all that action is that I’ve run from the very truth that I’ve been avoiding – the truth that motivated me to apply to graduate school in the first place.  When you are still, things bubble up to the surface. 

While on the outside I seemed super together, the truth has lived in my body, just ask any massage therapist or my long-time chiropractor and she’ll tell you.  I’ve lived my life clenched, rigid …. tight…. gritted jaws, neck, shoulders…. waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.   My shoulders are usually up around my ears and the second I feel any tension, it ends up in my neck and shoulders. It is only recently that I’ve made a concentrated effort to remind myself to put my shoulders in their “pockets” and breathe.

Not that this knowledge slowed me down.  Marriage, kids, work, parental demands…. you name it.  I kept whirling around keeping all the balls in the air.  Busy busy busy.  Look at me, I’m not lazy!  There’s nothing to see here.  I’m fine! I have it all together!

Then COVID19 hit. 

Life screeched to a halt.

When I was contacted by my birth cousin a year earlier, I had begun working with a therapist untying the knot of my adoption, but the extra pause of COVID gave me more time to dig deeper, as there were no external distractions, nowhere to “run” to avoid sitting with the pain and uncomfortable truths of my life.  I’ve been shedding layer upon layer – some more painful than others.   I had no idea that being unable to relax was a common phenomenon for adoptees until I read a post written by another adoptee.  Another book further confirmed adoption’s impact on children, even those of us who were adopted shortly after our birth.    

The trauma we adoptees feel is very real and has long term impact.  I learned quickly after my birth to fold into myself when my cries weren’t answered, when I wasn’t held or coddled by my birth parents.  I spent the first month of my life with strangers.   There was no one person for me to count on because the adult caregivers were constantly changing. It was always believed that I was fine because I was adopted within the first months of my life – after all, what could a little baby remember, but research shows that the first few months are vital to helping a baby regulate their nervous system and like other adoptees, I was in a constant state of “fight or flight.”

Once I was finally placed with my adoptive family, I learned to adapt but I could never quite let go of the fear that I’d be given to someone else. Within a span of a few weeks, I was in the care of yet another adult.  How long would I stay with these people? Because my parents were not biologically related to me, they never really understood me or the way my mind and body worked.  I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “who do you think you are,” when my mother was frustrated by my behavior.  Something as simple as “tanning easily without trying” made sense when I finally met my biological cousin.  My Mom constantly accused me of intentionally forgetting sunscreen in hopes of a ‘Ban de Soleil’ tan– I wasn’t – it turns out that I simply have more melanin in my skin, like my biological family.   But that is another post.

It was quite comforting to learn that I’m not the only adoptee who does not relax easily.  It made me feel less foreign and more understood.  There is work to be done to heal from a constant state of “fight or flight” from my early years.  Just look at my face in the picture, taken around eight weeks old.  My expression says it all.

As I learn more about myself, both in therapy and from biological family, I can slowly relax into who I am as a person.  I may never be able to completely shed the initial response of “fight or flight” – but if I can remain open, practice yoga as often as possible and breathe into the moment, perhaps I can learn to let go, be light and free.