I was talking to my daughter yesterday and she was asking me about why I did and said certain things early in our reunion. It accurred to me that I have written about why I had trouble with the whole idea of meeting her and then about what it feels like now. I never have really said much how it was at first. I think it is time I give it a try. As an aside, I am sitting in my den writing this with the assistance of my very new 6 month old kitten Elspth Le Chat (aka Ellie). She is not my beautiful Freija who I miss badly but she is a fine little hellion of a kitten. We have found out the hard way that it is not a good idea to live in an old house in the country without a cat in residence.
Enough of avoidance of the subject. My daughter and I have been in reunion for three years. We met for the first time in Chicago, a neutral city, so we didn't have the spouses, assoted relatives and friends nearby and could just get to know each other. It was wonderful in many ways. We found out we liked the same things, thought the same things were funny, could finish each others sentences and pick out just the right clothes for each other (we both showed up wearing jeans and black tee shirts). It was terrifying for me in many ways. I have never felt so close to a person in my life. I wanted to just hold on to her and bring her home with me. Everything I believed about adoption screamed WRONG! I was some kind of a freak. She couldn't have the same feelings I did. She didn't remember me. I was NOT her mother. Her mother was the woman who adopted her and gave her everything I couldn't. Why should she care for me. She would try to get close and I would pull back. My feelings for her were so strong and 'inappropriate'. She was a grown woman with a family of her own. There was no place for me. She already had a mother she didn't need me to mother her. All this and more. One of the strongest feelings was that I didn't deserve her. In some ways I didn't want her to need me. If she needed me then something was wrong in the perfect world with the loving parents and the swimming pool that was the best thing for her. The problem was that I loved her and believed I had no right to. Her mother deserved that love not me. When I went home after our 3 days together I was numb. I didn't know what to think or how to react. I pulled back and sent her chatty little e-mails. I was so sure that if I bent an inch that I would smother her and she would run away as fast as she could from the crazy woman who thought she could just waltz into her life and be mommy. In short, I put up barriers based on what I thought she should want and on the lie.
It is hard to explain what it is like being in reunion and clinging to the fog (the lie). I had gotten through 35 years believing that I did the best thing for her. That belief is what got me through all the hard times of wondering where she was, how she was and just feeling empty without her. Wherever she was it was a much better place than I could have provided. I clung to that belief like a life line. It has caused more harm to our reunion than anything else but I just couldn't see it. I can understand how some women can never get by it. I just kept setting up rules about how I should act with her. Sometimes I would slip and let my feelings show. Naturally I would then jump back to the nice safe place in the fog and go for the caring adult relationship. My feelings terrified me. I couldn't face the idea of her not being part of my life but I had to protect her from from the crazy woman who wanted to just run away with her. I had to be an adult. I had to let her be an adult. I started reading and the first truth I came to accept was that adoptees have a lot in common including feeling rejected (well duh) and never being quite good enough. OK, I could help her with that. I could reassure her that I did what was best for her because I loved her and let her know she was more than good enough for me (actually I think she is amazing). There is an interesting set of boundries, give what you think your daughter needs/wants but never ask for anything. It makes perfect sense with the lie. Just what everyone needs, their own personal martyr. After all this, the short answer about what reunion is like is terrifying. It is not because I cared too little it is because I thought I cared too much and would smother her.
I am still working on this. Even after recognizing the lie for what it is. it is still hard for me to ask for anything because I don't want to be demanding. I still back off and give her 'room' even when she doesn't want it because I am afraid by holding her too close I will loose her. I'm working on it.
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7 comments:
Thank you. I don't know if this is applicable to my situation. Maybe it is? Maybe it's not. How did you keep from slipping into the fog entirely? What kept you from walking away from the intensity? What kept you from stuffing your feelings, yet again?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I missed where you wrote about why you were so afraid to meet your daughter. ;o) Was it because you kind of knew that you'd have all these overwhelming feelings? Or maybe you didn't know at the time, but a part of you (the part that had them all along, but buried them in lies etc.)--the real you, in other words--that part knew? So maybe you felt those rumblings of a world built on sand that was about to fall apart?
I love how you guys really love each other. I hope I don't sound perverse when I say that, even when reading about your pain, I still feel so glad that you have each other. Really, bless you for sharing your hearts. And keep hanging in there.
All those years of thwarted maternal instinct rising to the surface! In order to survive, mothers had to push that instinct into the deepest part of our souls. Now its back with a vengence, how can one be expected to react?
Not to mention the view of society that we are NOT mothers, we lost that privilege many years ago. How dare we try to be a mother after all this time! Sick world we live in.....
Maybe is so right. A big part of the on-going problem is that to most of society we are not mothers. We relinquished and that it it.
Eve, I was afraid of meeting my daughter because I knew how I felt but couldn't believe she could care about me. I knew once I saw her I would never want to let go. It scared me. It was WRONG. I had no right to her affection much less love. The fog, the media, and society at large said so.
Julie, I was entirely in the fog and still fight the leftover habits. Somewhere along the line I finally realized that I had to face my fears or I would loose my daughter That is far scarier to me than being fog free. It helped that she let me come out gradually. It was very hard for her. From what I have read, I am pretty typical of BSE moms. I think what is hard for some of our children to understand is how different society's attitude was then. Being pregnant and unmarried was not just a personal indescretion. It was a negative impact on your family. This was something that simply did not happen to 'nice' girls. Part of the guilt we carry around is what we did to our family. We were at best an embaressment and at worst a burden they had to shoulder. I am very lucky. My mother, sister, and husband are all wonderful. My mother is so proud of my daughter and has introduced her to all her friends in the small town where she lives.
That is so wonderful about your mom introducing your daughter to her friends.
I remember mostly being hurt/angry about the "impact" on my family. (I cared much more about my feelings than theirs.) Unfortunately for all, their concern for the stigma of illegitimacy overrode their loving and/or sense of decency towards me and my daughter.
Fuzzy Rat mother, thank you for your explanation. I had a daughter who died when she was 12, and I felt for a long time afterward that I just couldn't survive if anything happened to another child of mine. I meant that; I felt that I would dissolve or go crazy or implode or ... just disappear as a person, a second loss would be so painful. I know this is not what happened to you, but this is one way that I'm trying to understand what you mean. It sounds like the first loss of your daughter was so awful that, once she came back, the prospect of losing her again would be just like my losing a child again. For you, it was the same child (but the loss would be even more wrenching the 2nd time because of what the 1st loss took out of you). For me, the loss would be of a different child; but still, even more wrenching because of what the first loss took out of me.
Is this close to what you mean? Because if that's the case, I can understand that. I can completely understand it, because losing a child is the most severe emotional pain I have had. My whole body literally ached, and I thought my real heart would break (as in, the organ itself). Just that bad.
I had very similar feelings.
All I wanted to do was hold my child. I'm am sure it was the bonds of motherhood that had been cut reforming.
Reunion really opened my eyes.
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