Deja Vu
I was thinking of this concept and I watched all about it in the TV show This Is Us. I don't watch TV, but I allowed myself this one show because I heard it was powerful and about adoption, and they portray it in a different light than the usual on TV. It is raw and more real. So I have become addicted to it, always watching the shows and waiting and wondering about the storyline. It is not perfect, there are very "TV" show moments where I roll my eyes. Such as way they display the relationships at times. But it is still pretty powerful and meaningful.
So this time, I watched the episode where the adopted son, Randall, aged 36 and raising a family of his own and highly successful in business, decided to adopt to "understand his own feelings." And he admits to it, and his wife and him have a whole heartful talk about how he tried all his life to be perfect to run away from feeling his emotions of unworthiness because of his adoption, something all of us adoptees relate to in some form, and now he wants to adopt in order to "save" his former self. To "fix" himself. I thought it was very typical and was a bit annoyed about it. Because I am very into facing your feelings, I feel he runs away from them and is trying to live vicariously through an unfortunate child.
I was quite surprised and pleased by the turnout. We see how he struggled as a child when he ran away from meeting his birth mom from the fright of his feelings, and how his two adoptive twin siblings we're extremely there for him in his confusing, painful emotions.As usual it cuts smoothly to the present time where he is speaking with the foster girl they took in who is in a lot of pain, and he tells her poetically and perfectly how he gets her feelings because of him own feelings as an adoptee, and he felt "split" from himself and the life he could have had. She is visibly touched, as he says that since he became successful and has a wonderful woman beside him, she can do it too. He also really got her emotions when she got anger and threw down the glass frame that he showed her. He understood her trauma. It was a beautiful thing. This made me think of my own life, and how I am never validated for MY suffering a kid, and how strange that is. That is exactly why I cannot validate it for myself and feel so numb. It got me angry how adoptive families are so blind to their child's pain because of their own selfish need to love and not understand that the child is in pain. And anger flared up. And I saw more posts about it on my Facebook group "Is Adoption Trauma." How a birth mother was asking is she should take back custody of her 2 year old son if she has a chance. And all the adoptees were like "Yes, do it, at least he'll know you wanted him!" And I felt like nobody in my family realized how much I needed validation and love from my birth parents. That I felt abandoned.
It also highlighted in the episode the way unless you deal with your grief, it'll feel like yesterday. Because of how Kevin, the other twin brother, could not face his father's death from decades ago, and when he was reminded of the way important memories can feel like yesterday even though it happened years ago, he experienced painful flashbacks that did not let him stay present in his acting. Those flashbacks are something like the ones I experience all the time when I am triggered to feeling alone and rejected. By every little thing.
I have a hard time feeling my love for my daughter and it makes sense because I don't really believe I am loved. Am I still that baby inside? I guess when we feel our own feelings are real, we can see them in our kids, and that was what Randall did when he saw the foster girl's pain. It was beautiful.
So this time, I watched the episode where the adopted son, Randall, aged 36 and raising a family of his own and highly successful in business, decided to adopt to "understand his own feelings." And he admits to it, and his wife and him have a whole heartful talk about how he tried all his life to be perfect to run away from feeling his emotions of unworthiness because of his adoption, something all of us adoptees relate to in some form, and now he wants to adopt in order to "save" his former self. To "fix" himself. I thought it was very typical and was a bit annoyed about it. Because I am very into facing your feelings, I feel he runs away from them and is trying to live vicariously through an unfortunate child.
I was quite surprised and pleased by the turnout. We see how he struggled as a child when he ran away from meeting his birth mom from the fright of his feelings, and how his two adoptive twin siblings we're extremely there for him in his confusing, painful emotions.As usual it cuts smoothly to the present time where he is speaking with the foster girl they took in who is in a lot of pain, and he tells her poetically and perfectly how he gets her feelings because of him own feelings as an adoptee, and he felt "split" from himself and the life he could have had. She is visibly touched, as he says that since he became successful and has a wonderful woman beside him, she can do it too. He also really got her emotions when she got anger and threw down the glass frame that he showed her. He understood her trauma. It was a beautiful thing. This made me think of my own life, and how I am never validated for MY suffering a kid, and how strange that is. That is exactly why I cannot validate it for myself and feel so numb. It got me angry how adoptive families are so blind to their child's pain because of their own selfish need to love and not understand that the child is in pain. And anger flared up. And I saw more posts about it on my Facebook group "Is Adoption Trauma." How a birth mother was asking is she should take back custody of her 2 year old son if she has a chance. And all the adoptees were like "Yes, do it, at least he'll know you wanted him!" And I felt like nobody in my family realized how much I needed validation and love from my birth parents. That I felt abandoned.
It also highlighted in the episode the way unless you deal with your grief, it'll feel like yesterday. Because of how Kevin, the other twin brother, could not face his father's death from decades ago, and when he was reminded of the way important memories can feel like yesterday even though it happened years ago, he experienced painful flashbacks that did not let him stay present in his acting. Those flashbacks are something like the ones I experience all the time when I am triggered to feeling alone and rejected. By every little thing.
I have a hard time feeling my love for my daughter and it makes sense because I don't really believe I am loved. Am I still that baby inside? I guess when we feel our own feelings are real, we can see them in our kids, and that was what Randall did when he saw the foster girl's pain. It was beautiful.
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