Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Please Tell Me I'm Not Insane

This morning I'm again driving to North Carolina. I'll stay about 36 hours, then turn around and head home. I don't want to go. I go because of [perceived] duty. I go because I try to treat my mother with respect. (I had to figure out on my own how to do that.) I go because I need to view myself as a good daughter. I go because it's the right thing to do.

Each time I set out on this drive, I think this may be the last time I [have to] make the drive. (Mother is 98 years and 160 days old. If you're counting.)

Family and beloved advisors ask why I do it. Maybe it's because I'm responsible. Maybe it's because I'm looking for approval and acceptance. More likely, it's because I'm trying to reinforce my attempts to view myself as responsible, approved of, and accepted.

I've been looking for approval and acceptance for about 61 years now. (And 138 days. If you're counting.) All I ever got, in my perception, was criticism and disapproval. The implicit message was "You're not good enough." I always expected to be given away again.

As Mother was preparing to go into surgery in mid-June, she said to me something about how happy they (she and Daddy) had been to get me. What a gift I was.

I heard the words. I didn't feel the meaning. I couldn't feel the meaning.

How can I analogize this deafness, this inability to feel? Is it similar to the medical student who has attended so many rock concerts that he needs an amplifier on his stethoscope to clearly hear the patient's heartbeat? Is it the person with the deviated septum to whom all food tastes bland? Is it an abused child who was locked in the blackened closet for so long that he lost his sight?

My experience tells me that one with whom the mother has not bonded does not develop the ability to bond.

I was told I was special, I was loved, but her words were far louder than her actions. There were no loving actions to believe in, therefore I never developed the ability to believe in her words.

And therefore, my ability to believe, to trust, to bond, is stunted. I continue to believe that I am forgettable. I continue to believe I'm not someone that others want to have around. It's a sickness. It's an awful, miserable, painful, heavy sickness.

A 61-year-old sickness.

If I had a platform, I would gather around me all adoptive parents on the day—about six months after they receive their "special delivery baby", about the time the thrill starts to be dulled by the enormity of the task—and tell them this:

Listen carefully to me. This child needs more love and attention and approval and acceptance than you ever imagine. More than your natural children need. More than you realized you had the ability to bestow.

You need to dig deep down into your gut and pull up everything that's there and form it into loving words and actions. To not form those loving words and actions and envelope your new child in them will forever alter who that child is. You need to go above and beyond each and every day until that child is an adult. Then you can relax.

Demonstrate that the child matters to you, is good enough to you, is acceptable just as she is, without change now. Now! Don't wait until you think you're on your deathbed and say, "I loved you so much I would stand by your crib and cry." That's not good enough.


I hate that writing this brings tears to my eyes. I hate that at the age of 61 years (and 138 days), these feelings still ricochet back and forth in my skull with the slightest provocation.

But, at least until the day she dies, it is what it is. To expect to feel acceptance and approval from her, especially at this point in her life, is insanity.

I accept the lack of acceptance.

And then I'll return home to love and acceptance and approval and joy and laughter.

2 comments:

elecpencil said...

Bless you and you are not insane. I feel the same way but was no adopted. I was many times threatened to be given away so I did feel adopted. My mom is 81 dad is 83. As far as raising kids I learned a lot from them. I did everything the opposite of them and my two kids have turned out great. I agree with you that children that are adopted need extra love and caring. Think of everyone you know as family and you'll see you are actually surrounded by love. As you said you can return home and be with that family.

Jan Crews said...

Thank you for your feedback, EP. I appreciate your viewpoint.