Happy frigging birthday

The day started off well. Had a nice breakfast, got a solid workout in, got the worlds longest birthday hug ever from my youngest, the girls left me enough milk to have some coffee...things were ok. All my relatives that are on fb sent me lovely bday messages. And then, cue jaws music, the email from amom.

It was cute and funny to start with. Talking about all the cakes she baked for me when I was younger, and wishing she could do something for me this bday. And then her closing line... "I hope your family does something nice for you today, but if they don't even remember, don't get upset."

W.T.F. Seriously? Having a therapy appointment scheduled on my birthday is no longer a funny thing to banter about with my sister. it's a necessity. I just spent the last half hour melting down into a blubbering sobbing mess while my dogs looked on very confused just trying to get ahold of myself before my eldest gets home. That one sentence, pretty much sums up so much that is wrong with my relationship with my amom.

Sad thing is, I likely won't say one little thing to her about how that made me feel. There's a reason I have spent many years feeling insignificant, and that I don't have the right to ask for anything, whether it be something material, or attention, affection, respect, anything really. Yup, therapy is the perfect place to spend my birthday evening.

Phobia

For many many years I have been absolutely, gut wrenchingly, horribly terrified of balloons. I start getting queasy and panicky on sight. Of course that really puts a monkey wrench in the party business. Or on some days just being out in public. Growing up, I felt so alone. Nothing like feeling terrified of something so odd, and then being mocked for it, often in public, or told to get over it by "well" meaning friends and family, which ultimately just solidified my aversion to the nasty things.

One of the first things I told my natural mom and family after I met them was that I had this fear. Last thing I wanted was to go to a big family celebration and end up bolting in terror. And nmom told me that my memere had the same phobia, for as long as she could remember, and she was very uncomfortable with them. I found out that memere had tried and failed with therapy to fix it as well. In that moment, I didn't feel so terribly alone anymore.

Just like the balloons, the women in the family all seem to have issues with mirrors after dark, and close spaces. Just one of those curious things about family I suppose. The mysteries of how we all come to be, and fit together, even the quirky not so fun parts.

iphoto and my adoptedness

When I get all weepy over the Faces tool in iphoto, my adoptee is showing. I had been saving and importing pictures of my nfam. As I tagged several of my aunts, the tool popped up several pictures of myself, and sometimes my daughters as possibly being one of the aunts. And then came the weepiness. After growing up not looking like someone else, sometimes it really gets to me when it hits me that there really are people who look like me, that I have a clan.

From comments from a random stranger at the gym on how much my youngest and I look like each other. Or from family members saying I really look like Grandmama Elsie. Or that one of my daughters looks like cousin so and so. Something that so many take for granted.

There are times where its too much, and in all honesty, I get weirded out by it. After all, its still something I'm getting used to. And I wonder how I will fare in a room full of them when I am finally able to make the trek back home to visit. It's one of those things that will be exciting but so scary at the same time. I grew up with no genetic mirrors. That's my norm, sadly, and having people resemble me on a huge level is something that is partially frightening to me. And that's just looking at photos. How will I feel when I'm in a room full of relatives, many of whom bear a striking resemblance to my daughters and I? Adopted, I suppose.

Dismissing Adoptees

Seems we adoptees just can't win. We are either so traumatized by our bad experience that our opinions aren't valid because we are the "minority" and it "almost never happens". Or if a bad experience wasn't had, the simple loss of one's mother, father, family, culture, possible language, medical history, and factual documentation never seems to be enough of an "excuse" to speak out against the practice, and some dark reason for speaking out is thereby invented. Unless a person is crapping skittles, somehow their opinion isn't valid.

All the "get over its", the "you are angry/bitter/joyless/in need of the Christian God" , the "be gratefuls that you weren't thrown in a dumpster/aborted/raised by a crackhead ho." The "my babysitter's cousins' hairdresser was adopted and she is FINE FINE FINE". They boil down to this for me: STFU. I don't want to have to be made uncomfortable by your pain, your truth, or a confrontation of the beliefs I hold so dear. I don't want to have my ethics/morals questioned. So its easier for me to just say you are traumatized, or bitter, or angry, or any of the other stupid crap used to dismiss adoptees on a daily basis.

Medical History and the Adoptee...the gift that keeps on giving

Our family is currently going through something that would be incredibly difficult to even start to process, diagnose, or understand without even a modicum of medical and family history. As it is, I can't provide my daughter's doctor with enough information to satisfy. I am however lucky enough to have nfam that I can ask. Every available family member has been duly quizzed, and poked and prodded within an inch of their tolerance I do believe. A big part in diagnosing what is going on with my baby girl, is having a strong family history of it. At least the history gives them an idea of where to start.

It's at this time that I think of every adoptee out there who has no inkling of their medical history, not of their choice, but a situation forced on them, and the effect it can have echoing down generations to come. I think too of the adoptees who don't care to search, and what "gems" might be in their history that may affect their children, or their grandchildren, so on so forth.

Those who say genetics don't matter can kiss my everlovin butt. Because they do. Especially when someone's health and well being are up in the air.

Friends

I'm stunted socially. It's just a fact. I think my radar is broken, or tuned to the wrong frequency. My intense fear of rejection has kept me by the sidelines for years. Even in the adoptee group I am part of, I fear being myself, or really opening up, and jumping in, though I am doing better with that as of late, but even so, that's on the internet, if this were face to face, I have no doubt I would be doing my level best to blend into the woodwork.

I have made friends over the years, I'm not some friendless wonder. But it's certainly not an easy thing for me to accomplish, and an even harder thing to maintain. I have a tendency to either put up with too much, or nothing at all, and I haven't found that happy medium that most people seem to manage before they hit 20. My uncle tells me there is nothing wrong with me. That he isn't inclined to friendships outside of the family, he likes being a homebody, and certainly doesn't feel there's anything wrong with conducting one's life like that. So I wonder is it just who I am, at my core, or is it a bit of that with a side of not knowing which end of attachment is up. Would this seem so unhealthy to me if I had been raised knowing people who were happy not having a social life to speak of.

Nmom kept me for a month. Then went through 2 foster homes in rather quick succession due to illness with my first foster mother. Then I was placed with my AP at 6 months. That's got to have a profound effect on someone. All those experts that say a child's personality is cemented in the first 3 years of life, well that first step for me was a doozy. It's like I had enough time to get comfortable, then suddenly, the people I'd adjusted to were just gone.

I'd like it to be just my personality. Because that would be easy, and not require taking time, effort, and frankly, pain to overcome. It would be easier for me if my pull to attempt to form friendships was just a perception of what I felt people should do rather than what I wanted. I suppose it's time to find a therapist that specializes in abandonment issues to help me figure out what it is I really want, and who I am underneath this mess. I can't help but feeling like I am gipping myself out of some very meaningful relationships and experiences by staying house and family bound.

Reunion and Generations

In a few days from now, it will have been 13 years since I met my first biological relative, my first born daughter. She was the first person in my life that I looked at, and could see parts of me staring back. It was an incredible moment, to feel that bond to another living person. It was primal, it was beautiful, it was things being as they should be.

It smacked me between the eyes in a rather painful fashion when I first reunited with my sister again, that the years lost, the time, the people, they weren't just my losses, they were my children's losses too. This is their family too, not just mine, and they didn't consent to being clipped from the family tree any more than I did. This is their reunion as much as it is mine.

I remember how sharply my daughters watched us all interact during my sister's first visit here. They commented on similarities in looks, mannerisms, and they were so excited about it. They are drinking up everything right along side me. It's fascinating and sad at the same time. Because we shouldn't have to do this, this should have been our birthright from the start.

My sister and I, together, are trying to find our younger half sister. Reunion has definitely changed, and added to my perception of what family is. And I so desperately want to find her. But she's good at staying hidden I suppose. I can only hope that one day we will find her, and my girls will be able to know all their aunts.