Adoption Feelings and How They Manifest

        So what if you raised them? They are still not your kids. They are someone else's daughter/ son. Closed adoption is stealing. Taking a kid from their mother and keeping them for yourself as if they are your own, for large sums of money, sounds like a kidnapping to me. Child trafficking. This child is stolen from their heritage, their roots, their family. Things that make up who they are. They lose an identity. Having to form a new one based off a new beginning, and pretend the old identity/start is dead. No wonder they feel a part of them is dead inside. they are acting their whole lives. Pretending to fit somewhere they do not. Always knowing the lie inside. And everyone lives the lie, having to fake it all their lives as if life depends on it. She is their child, no other discussion about it. But the discussions linger in the child's mind, haunting them at every turn. Who am I? Where am I from? The outside rules do not let them acknowledge it, so they repress their need to know with an "I don't care." But this comes out so angrily and defensively that it is obvious that the subject is indeed important to them.

        I see how is affects how I see my biological, baby daughter. I have a hard time feeling connected to her, and seeing that she really has part of me and my husband. I am just not used to having that bond, and when I do, it is new to me. I love it and I hug her lots and rejoice when I see her having the same traits as me, such as smiling a lot and liking to play on her own. But it is still different to me. I spoke to my birth Mother yesterday, and it greatly disappointed me when I saw how she wasn't interested in anything that was exclusively about me. Even though she did seem excited that I had called. It hurt me and confused me more. Like, if that is my biological mother, doesn't she want to know about me?

          How does one work with their feelings and identity crisis? It seems so vast to me now. I really do not know the answer. Yesterday, angry spilled over at my daughter for not giving me some peace and quiet to myself, and I finally sat with the feelings. I screamed at my husband not to leave because I needed him there, to do compassionate listening. I felt waves of pain at having to give to my child, and discovered it was because I was not given that attention as a child myself. I told my husband about it, and he asked how I feel. I said I felt like I was nothing, worst than garbage. He was quiet and I screamed inside. I ran to the bathroom angrily, and he followed and I told him I felt abandoned by him because he did not say anything. He apologized and told me he does care, but it is hard for him to say anything because he is not used to showing caring feelings because in his home they never did. I apologized to my daughter and held her in my arms. She did her nervous wagging of the head back and forth anxiously, and knocked on my chest. I held her and tried to be present. She started hiccup-crying, when she sounds like the wails are stuck in her throat and she does not feel comfortable getting them out. I felt pain and misery. After 1 am, I couldn't take it anymore because of my exhaustion and my husband rocked her to sleep. I felt awful, but I could not handle it anymore.

        I do wonder how I am supposed to deal with my feelings. I try so hard to do the right thing, and feel awful about myself for my weaknesses. Such as when I have no patience and want to do nothing, but the right thing to do would be to clean, take care of my daughter, or play with her. I am a child inside, as John Bradshaw talks about, and I feel unheard inside. And then there is the need to focus on the positive and feel grateful for what I have. And to DO good for the world, and pay attention to others. It is a hard balance, and I do not know which way to do turn many times.

         John Bradshaw says that the most important is to make sure your child knows he is not responsible for your feelings. This causes him to become enmeshed with you. And prevents him from having his OWN life. Therefore, I need to make sure my sadness does not get in the way of my raising my daughter too much.
       
        I am lucky that my husband told me yesterday, when I expressed my  guilt over not doing anything practical that day, that he does not mind if the house is messy as long as the baby is happy. He would rather have a messy house than an unhappy baby.