Tag Archives: adoption fog

Key Fob Not Detected

It was one of THOSE mornings.  My husband and I switched cars at the last minute so our teen could drive his car later and not the loaner car I was using while my car was in the shop.

Mornings can be sticky, but today we were ready to go on time.     I hopped into the jeep to start the car -“KEY FOB NOT DETECTED.”  Huh.  The key fob was in the back seat but that’s never been an issue before.  Ok, key fob now up front, let’s try it again.  “KEY FOB NOT DETECTED.”  WTF???? Again.  No luck.  Again.  FUUUUUUCCCKK!!!  Quick dash around the house to discover that hubby’s key fob is not in the house.  Try to call him but he’s on his way to work and on a daily conference call.  Keep calling – maybe he’ll get the hint that he needs to pick up?

I’m on a call.

I know! Car won’t start.  Where is your key?

With me.  Put the key fob near the start button.

Did that, not working.

Keep trying.

I have.  Need to get G to school.  Need a working car today.  You need to come home with key.  It is not starting.

By the grace of God on the 25th try, it starts.  I tell him to meet me at school because the warning light now reads “key fob has left the vehicle” even though the engine is now running, and my key fob is in the car.  I know that once the car shuts off, it’ll be a challenge to start it back up with my key fob. 

I was not my best self when I shouted curse words in frustration.  Our son was watching me and told me to calm down.  “It’ll all work out Mama.”   On our drive to school, he told me that it always works out and I needed to chill.   I called him a prophet and he called me a “mean old witch in a Disney movie.”   It made me laugh.  And it got me thinking.

I am thrilled that my son believes that it’ll all work out.  Not thrilled about the “mean old witch part,” but then again, he is a pre-teen and gets annoyed by what he considers my “arbitrary rules,” like putting his phone away by 8:45 PM.  

It will all work out. 

This is something I’ve been working hard to embrace for the past six months.  I didn’t realize how much I thought it didn’t apply to me.  I believed that things didn’t work out for me – that I had to try harder than everyone else and I couldn’t trust in the process.   Good things happened to other people, but not to me.    This realization has been a part of my process of “coming out of the fog” as adoptees call it.  “Coming out of the fog” means when an adoptee becomes aware of the impact their adoption has on their life.  And no, it’s not because I had a bad adoption experience.  Being separated from my biological mother at birth caused trauma.  I had a subconscious belief that there was something wrong with me, which is why she didn’t want me.  I constantly performed, trying to fit in, to please, to make sure that I wasn’t rejected again.  I couldn’t just be me because me wasn’t good enough to keep.  I internalized these feelings and had no idea how much it colored my thinking until I started to untangle all of this over the past few years.

I have been working on reminding myself that it always works out, but in times of stress, old habits die hard.  I lost my cool this morning.   My son did make it to school with two minutes to spare. My dog made it to the dog park and still had time to romp with friends. It will all work out.  Maybe not the way you planned, but it does.  Or at least that is what I’m still learning, but my son already understands.

With the Ease of Someone Completely Adored

Last night I had a disagreement with my husband and knew at the time I was not articulating myself well, so I headed to bed.  I woke up around 5 AM feeling unsettled and picked up my book, hoping it would lull me back to sleep.

“With the ease of someone completely adored.”  That line jumped out from the page.  This – this is the very thing I was doing a terrible job of trying to explain last night, my words getting jumbled with emotion and frustration that he didn’t understand me. 

As an adoptee, my baseline at birth is very different from people whose birth parents keep them.   Research is uncovering how the preverbal trauma adoptees experience impacts them throughout their lives.  This is not to say that we sit feeling sorry for ourselves.  No, that is not the case.  Many stay “in the fog” a term used by adoptees who have not yet confronted their adoption trauma.  I was that person for decades, exclaiming, “I’m fine!  I’m lucky!  It’s all great,” while feeling so uncomfortable inside but not understanding that discomfort was not experienced by the world at large.

If you are an adoptee, you’ll identify with this immediately.  If you’re not, please stay with me because it is important that you understand if you have an adoptee in your life.

At birth, most non-adoptees live from equilibrium, safety, connection, security and love.   There are cases where this isn’t true – if a birth mother dies or the child is separated from the parents, but for the most part, there is this sense of ease.  I see this baseline of safety in my own children – even in their hardest moments, and they’ve had many because they have a genetic bone disorder, they have the absolute knowledge that they are loved, adored, and safe with us.  I see it in my brother – the biological child of my adoptive parents, my husband and his siblings.  I’ll think “how entitled,” when they act in a certain manner, and they are, to no fault of their own.  They don’t know how lucky they are and how much harder it is for me to feel safe and secure.

An adoptee begins life from a place of fear, the unknown, alone, loss, confusion.  After 9 months of being literally dependent on another being, we are born and torn away from this being.  She is not there.  No familiar sounds or heartbeats.  No recognizable smells or the person we desperately need to feed us, hold us or comfort us. Adoption now allows adoptive parents to be with the child at or immediately after birth, and while this allows the new family to bond, it does not take away the trauma the baby experiences.  Yes, someone is with them attending to their cries, but not the person they are seeking.   This is not to say that the baby does not form attachments to their adoptive parents, it’s just that adoptees start from a place of loss – our baseline is from a place of disequilibrium, and we must work harder to get to that place of security and equilibrium.

There is plenty of trauma-based research out helping adoptees understand and heal.  I’ve spent the better part of five years working through my adoption trauma and still get triggered.

Back to our disagreement. I created a quick medical consent form, while preparing for a quick out of town getaway.  Overkill?  I hope so.  For me, the “just in case” aspect of the form gives me comfort.   It has my children’s insurance information, their allergies and consent for my sister-in-law to make decisions in case we are not available.  My husband asked why I was all “doom and gloom” which sent me into a tailspin.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s been incredibly understanding and patient as I’ve worked to unravel a lifetime of denial.  I felt myself sputtering to explain and getting angry, so I put myself to bed.  I didn’t want to say something I’d regret because I was triggered by our disagreement and couldn’t explain myself clearly.

I’m jealous and in awe of the ease with which he moves through the world with a confidence that no matter what, he is not only meant to be here, but is very cherished.   I’m proud of myself for stepping away from a petty argument and instead waiting to explain my actions from a grounded place.

Before you say, “but you are cherished, your parents love you,” please stop.  The love I have experienced in my life does not erase the infant trauma of being separated from my birth mother.  The baby inside of me was alone.  My first weeks in life I was scared and searching.   This fear lives inside me and all adoptees.  We can heal from it, but it is always there and sometimes it is triggered. 

I hate that I must explain myself, but I’m grateful for the work I’ve done to heal.  If I look back on the fights we’ve had over our 18 years of marriage, I can now see where my preverbal trauma was running the show and I’m even more proud of myself for recognizing it last night and heading to bed.  My husband may not need a “Consent to treat” form, but if it makes me feel at ease, then this is what we’ll do until I don’t need to do it anymore.

Unclenched

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.

Mistake

I’m ridiculously hard on myself and always have been but haven’t thought much about the reasons why I’m so hard on myself until recently. 

A few weeks ago, my husband made a mistake – a big, costly mistake.  In reaction he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, I made a mistake.”  Immediately I felt myself tense up. I was shocked by his reaction. I thought to myself, are you kidding me?  THAT’S YOUR REACTION?  You make a huge mistake and you shrug your shoulders??!!!   Even typing this a few weeks later I can feel the tension building in my stomach and shoulders.  How can he react like that, so calm about his mistake?

I was startled by his response, along with being completely annoyed by his reaction (and the mistake), but I was simultaneously curious.  How is possible for him to react so casually about this mistake?  Why isn’t he taking this more seriously?  Why isn’t he yelling at himself or punishing himself?  And it was with this question that it dawned on me that I have some work to do around mistakes, especially because my children seem to be taking after me and are extra hard on themselves when they make a mistake. 

When it comes to mistakes, I am tough on myself.  I personalize it. I say the meanest things to myself, but usually not out loud.

And here’s where the hard truth comes out – the one that hurts to admit.  The one I am scared to share yet has colored much in my life without me even realizing it. 

I am a mistake.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I am a mistake.   A whoopsie, an “oh no I am a pregnant, 20-year-old un-married Catholic dating a Protestant” woman’s child.  I can’t say what I ingested while in-utero, but I suspect that the words screamed at my birth mother were not kind nor supportive.  The little I do know is that her parents were pissed, and she was sent out-of-state to have me and give me away.  No black marks on their perfect Catholic family.

So, you see, I really was a mistake.  

I was adopted and raised by loving, but flawed people.  My Mom is a perfectionist and so when I made a mistake or didn’t measure up, she’d get upset.  I understand now that my mother’s perfectionism had to do with her own trauma and anxiety, but as a child, I had no clue and would get very nervous when my mom got angry for fear that if I upset her, she’d give me back.  Spilled milk infuriated her.  She would get impatient with me when I didn’t behave in a way that she understood or when I didn’t agree with her.  I understand now that this disconnect had to do with the fact that we are not genetically related, as more research is done on adoptive families.

To me, a mistake was proof that I was damaged, and it confirmed my worries and belief that I was unworthy.  It was an earthquake, rattling the foundation of what was an already shaky sense of self.  One who was trying so desperately to please her parents, to do whatever they wanted to ensure their love, but would always slightly miss the mark.  I was fearful that a mistake would cause my parents to give me back – to return the damaged goods.  I felt like I had to be the perfect daughter in the mold they wanted – and when I fell short, which was frequently (because let’s be honest, who is perfect?), I was super hard on myself, figuring it was a character defect keeping me from this elusive perfection.

The amount of tension I feel in my body as I write this is incredible.  I feel sick to my stomach, afraid to even put this on paper.  If I’m brave enough to post it on my blog, which I don’t promote and that my parents may never see, will I still be punished for it?  Why am I terrified to share this painful truth?  I’m sure I’m not the only one who has felt like a mistake.

Whoever thought that revealing one’s self would be so challenging?

I’m doing the work, through journaling and therapy because I no longer want to go through life being hard on myself.  I certainly don’t want my boys to feel that they are anything less than the wonderful, flawed humans that they are. I am working to heal myself.  And while it is still cringe worthy when I make a mistake because old habits die hard, I’m working on being gentle with myself.   I’m going to post this without agonizing over whether it is “perfect” enough to put out there.

Here’s what I do know:  I’m here. If I was truly a mistake, I wouldn’t be here.  Maybe my birth mother and her family believed that I was a mistake, but I’m not.  She MADE a mistake by not using birth control – or having sex before marriage – however you want to look at it, but I AM NOT THE MISTAKE.   I am here for a reason, so that can’t be a mistake.  I can’t carry her mistakes or her shame anymore.  I can’t carry my mother’s anxiety and perfectionism either.   They’re on their own.  They’ll have to heal themselves because I’m focused on repairing myself.

I wish I could wrap this up with a nice tidy bow, saying that I’m no longer hard on myself, but that wouldn’t be honest.  Instead, I’m taking this day by day.  Every day is a new day to practice, to embrace my shortcomings and work on saying, “oh well, I made a mistake but I’m not a mistake.”