I have been away from this and all other blogs for a while. I wasn't sure exactly why until I read what my daughter wrote. I realized that what she has been going through plays into every evil fog hangover insecurity I have. I have been feeling quite useless. The last time I was out trolling around the adoption blogs I came up on one of the best BSE mother articles I have ever read (of course I can't remember where it was and how I got there). Whoever wrote it was saying everything I would if I were half as articulate. I felt like I had been kidding myself. Everything I have to say has already been said. What do I have to add to this. I can't make anything better. So that relates exactly how to what your daughter wrote, you say. Easy answer, what she describes makes me feel like nothing I do or say can make her feel any better and many times I think I just make it worse.
Here is where the insecurities relly come in to play. The 'best for the child' lie is based on the idea that you (the mother) are incapable of giving your child what she needs. I absolutely believed that. What kind of an idiot could possibly think that a child wouldn't be much better off in a stable home with a mother AND a father. What child wouldn't be better off being raised in a home with economic stability and the chance for a good education. So it follows that I have nothing good to give to my daughter. I cannot make her life better only worse. Yes I am out of the fog but I have one hell of a hangover on that one. I want her to feel secure and know she is loved. I want her to understand how important she is to me. If she doesn't feel loved and secure then I have failed her. I really need to get past this hangover. I act weird when I feel insecure. I send out all kinds of mixed signals and ping around. This behavior is not helpful. I know it makes her feel like she has done something bad by comming into my life. That is the farthest thing from the truth. When I told her I don't trust emotions this is what I was talking about. I know that adoption has hurt both of us. I know that her hurt goes to the very center of how she feels about herself. I know that it made me feel completely inadequate to be a mother (yes I am one of those who never had any other children). I don't want to let that crap control me. It is past time for me to get over myself and let myself enjoy all the good things she gives to me starting with how incredible it is that she actually loves me despite my bouts of bullshit. Hey, even my grandson loves me and he is a very cool kid. Sure reunions hard hard and very emotional. They are also wonderful. I think I need to remember the wonderful more often and remind her of it. Reunions may not solve everything but I know that it has brought two very exceptional people into my life that I love more than they imagine. I hope she can come to feel the same way.
Mother and daughter separated by closed adoption, reunited since 2005, working our way out of the fog and into reality.
fuzzy duck
daughter
fuzzy rat
mother
About Us
Blog Archive
Blogs We Read! (this list will be growing...fast)
- Adoptee Journal
- Adopting My Identity
- Amy Adoptee
- Bastard in a Handbasket
- BB Church's Funhouse
- Champagne and Tears
- Infant Atwell
- It Came from the Cabbage Patch
- Joy's Division
- Joy's Mom
- Kim Kim
- Life and my boys
- Lizard Chronicles
- Musings of the Lame
- My Mouth is my Palace
- Possum's Place
- The Chronicles of Munchkinland
- The Daily Bastardette
- The Scoop
- Ungrateful Little Bastard
- Without A Tribe
- You Never "Get Over It"
5 comments:
But what is making you continue to believe that you are inaequate as a mother, when it's clear from what Duck writes that you could actually be the mother she needs? What is preventing you both from just doing what you need to do to break through and get what you both want?
I don't see what prevents you, other than your own faulty beliefs. Why don't you try believing and acting on a different paradigm for six or twelve months and find out what happens? You of all people have all the right stuff. I just don't get it.
And in case you want to tell me "hurt" prevents people. I have worked with and raised many hurting, abandoned, abused people and I've seen them heal with my own eyes. It's done. You, too, can do it. So I'm wondering what's stopping you? What might happen if you gave up the excuses or reasons you keep in your head? What outcome would occur that you actually don't want or are afraid of?
Love? True love? The responsibilities that come with it? Or the overwhelming feelings of unworthiness? Or what?
I believe conditioning keeps us from feeling like we deserve any contact with our children. The conditioning that tells us we are useless, incapable of being a good parent, what the child needs and other crap that is spewed. If you never had any more children how can you have proven to yourself that you are a good person, capable mother, and what that child needs? You would have no references. I waited almost 20 years before having more children because I believed I wouldn't be a worthy mother. I was afraid I would fail again and I couldn't bear the thought of losing any more children to adoption. It took me a long time to get past that because I believed everything everyone said about me.
Finally one day I just got sick of hearing it. Same as with other things i was accused of. I just got sick of hearing what kind of childhood my daughter would have had if she stayed with me. She didn't stay with me and so it was now irrelevant.
My boys love me. They don't want to be in another home with another mother, they want to be with me even though they don't have all the things they could have materially.
You have no reference point. You have no other mothering experiences to compare yourself to. You have not been able to prove TO YOURSELF that you can be a mother.
You don't have to. Just be a friend. I have a great relationship with my daughter and although I gave birth to her, I still do not feel like the mother who she regards as Mom. I don't feel like a failure because of that. I feel special because of it. I am one of her best friends.
It is always difficult to read the pain in my mother's words and see how much of her self esteem has been lost. What I wish she understood is that the barriers I erect to protect myself have little to do with her personally and more to do with our situation.
Specifically, she lives 3,000 miles away from me. That will not change anytime in the forseeable future. My husband's job keeps us locked on the west coast, and her husband is determined to stay where he is because he's found a place that is comfortable and makes them both happy. I don't begrudge their choice to live where they do. However, I cannot spend my life wishing that things were different and wishing that I could have my mother around me and spending hours crying into my pillow. I want more than she can give. And I refuse to spend my life wallowing in it.
The thing that is lacking here is a foundation in history. Kids grow up and move away from their parents all the time, but the foundation is always there. We don't have a foundation. We have to build our own history. Because of the distance, the ability for us to build a history is limited. Without the foundation, the ability for me to form trust and any kind of a secure bond is limited. I don't know if this is true for all adoptees, but it's certainly true for me. I buy Freud's theory on this one. Therefore, I have to find a way to live within the parameters I am given.
What has been worked out between my therapist and I is that I need to limit my emotional involvement and keep my sense of self intact. He told me to concentrate on what our relationship IS...not what it isn't. That helps to keep a positive spin on things. What we DO have is two women who share a unique bond and enjoy spending time together, even if we can only do it infrequently.
So, in summary, I'll take what I can get, but I'm not spending my life mourning what I can't have. My fate was decided a long time ago. I'm adopted. Adoptees are good at adapting. And adapting is what I will continue to do.
I can't help but think that the fact that you two are sharing what appears to be a very honest blog does nothing but bode well for your relationship.
I was touched by the things you wrote - both of you.
As a birthmother, I hope I can someday be in your shoes, and be able to see my daughter again.
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