Reunion with Parents, Emotions that Get Stuck, Loss, Grief and Moving On

          I am amazed and happy about things I've learned in Betty Jean Lifton's book, Journey... She says in chapter 12, The Painted Bird, that in reunion often the birth mother does not want to meet their long lost child because she cut off emotionally when she had it, or was pregnant, due to the feeling of shame or it being wrong by society, a "bastard." Many adoptees who had mothers like this say that they have this feeling in them of being a dead baby, unwanted and unloved. One even said she must have been born early because she knew her mother was thinking of aborting her, so she left to escape. Or they felt a cold deadness inside in the womb. Lifton says that prenatal studies showed that children who where desired and loved in the womb have a better feeling about being alive, while unwanted or rejected babies in the womb feel a drawing to death and unworthiness all their lives. This makes so much sense to me. Ambivalent feelings in the mother during pregnancy can cause rejection and shame in the child's life, too.

          Lifton goes on to say that adoptees in reunion are always looking for a reason they can feel worthy of living, and a mother as proof as they were naturally born. One woman, even when finding her birth mother and seeing how she was a cold, stocky woman who had no emotion left in her body to give, was still at peace that she had seen her mother. This proves my point that adoptees have it worst than someone having to grow up with dysfunctional, abusive parents, because at least they have a sense of being human and born from someone, which adoptees are denied of knowing. Meeting the birth mother or even knowing she existed by photographs, and talking to relatives, can still help the adoptee feel more grounded and less "magical." One young man, whom Lifton calls reincarnated of his mother, who never met his birth mother because she died before he found her, used to come to adoption events carrying her blown up photograph of her smiling with an eerily similar smile as his. He said that he wasn't so bothered by her death as it let him continue on "fantasizing" what she was like or felt towards him. This is interesting because I find that adoptions is all about appreciating what one never had, and therefore we fantasize a lot about how our "real" family is, as Lifton mentioned in the book, and are sometimes scared to meet with them BECAUSE of the fear of letting it go. Scared of rejection. And sometimes when adoptees ARE rejected by their birth parent, they spiral down into feeling worthless all over again. If they are strong, they can take it as a problem on the birth parent's side, and still appreciate knowing their "narrative." Maybe this is what people mean when they say they envy adoptees, because they feel like their real parents are bad and wish they had a way to "fantasize" that they have other parents. I guess all of us have to come to terms with whom our parents are, and that no body is perfect. But it still causes a way bigger headache when you can't even know who they are, because then you're left wandering in life, with unanswered questions. 

          Mourning the loss, and if the parents is not that great there is more to mourn, is important for adoptees. Acknowledgement of it is the first step. Lifton says that when a person who was adopted for being "a bastard" and "unwanted" gets hit with those feelings, they are coming to terms with it. She calls it a "bastard moment," such as when the birth family rejects being open about the adoptee's identity to others out of shame, and the adoptee feels like an unwanted baby once again. I have experienced that when I went to visit my (birth) mother's aunts and uncle, and they all went on about how they had to reject the baby because of religious reasons, and I felt as though I was a reminder of the pain of it and they harbored bitterness towards me. It made me feel overwhelmed and crushed with grief, that I even cried on the way back in the car. 

        It was astonishing to me how birth mothers learned to cut off emotions towards their child because of the taboo or force of society, professionals like doctors and social workers who shamed them, and their parents, that they couldn't stand meeting them and pushed them away. It feels so cold to me. 

          When the parent does want to meet the adoptee, there is a yearning to squeeze all the past years together into 2 or so short years, and there can be dysfunctional looking closeness. I always felt like I wanted this in life, a friend or lover who can be like a mother and give me all the security in myself I lacked. After this ends, usually it is the mother who has to gently push back to the adoptee to live their own life. Like a little toddler learning to do things by himself. It is painful at times, but takes baby steps. I have always had a hard time letting go of things or people, feeling like I couldn't make it on my own. As a child I was terrified to death of my adoptive parents dying. Or getting close to people, because I felt like I would be rejected. I stayed frozen in a child emotional stage, trying to attach myself to things for security. Now that I know about adoption psychology, I know where it comes from. I will start building  own identity, feeling worthy of being human. I don't NEED my birth parents, I am an adult and can make my own decisions. But I feel it will be a nice thing to be with them now if I can.