Living In the Intellectual Spiritual Side Only

Just realizing how good things are and how I have it. My daughter is a beautiful and smart girl, and I also have good looks and charm to make anyone feel understood when I put the mind to it. I love people, and am sociable. I am living well, with plenty to eat and money to enjoy myself. Then why do I feel so depressed?

I realized this after talking to my birth father yesterday. He is the opposite of me in emotions- whereas I am scattered and nervous about life, he is positive and never bothered. But on the downside, he cannot listen to real issues and always dismisses them with positivity so I feel dumb for having them. Such as when I tell him it's difficult to deal with people sometimes, he tells me he never has that problem because he just cleans their cars and does what they want and they like him. (He works 80 hours a week at a car wash). It makes me wonder if he really lives for himself, or if he just does for others all the time. He never takes off from work, because he says his boss doesn't let him. He'd only take off to see me if I come to town. 

And then when I explained my daughter's birth trauma and said how she is hard to take care of, he said she's happy because you're a good mother. Dismisses the hard job I had to do. And about adoption feelings of not feeling good enough, he sighed and said that was why he told my mother that they needed to stop having babies because they could not keep them, the social worker kept taking them away. I felt like I was talking for nothing, he didn't hear me. He kept side brushing the issues. He said he had no problems, he was good when I said he must understand a bit because of being in foster care since 5 years old because his mother was a drunk. He also said he met my mother when he was 18 or so and she was good to him, so I muttered "She ruined your life by having kids," and he was shocked and laughed, "What? No." He justified it by saying she was good looking, like my older sister who was a model. I was crushed, because I thought he didn't think I was pretty, maybe because I covered my hair with a scarf. I hung up, before he said, be happy and take care. I mumbled thanks. He said when will you call again? I said later. I do not see the point. 

I was sad, the calls to my birth parents did not cheer me up. Just made me feel less understood. I thought about how I was too emotional, and nobody wanted to hear about it. My husband denied it by saying he didn't mind hearing it, and people who care do want to hear it, my adoptive mother just made me think it was not so. I cried though, feeling like a burden to my parents and wondering if I'd ever feel appreciated by others for who I am. 

I realized that adoptees learn to live in their intellect, because they don't trust their emotions. So they can seem very spiritual, because they rationalize everything that they went through, because of the need to make sense of it. Be appreciative like everyone tells them they should be. That is what my birth father does, too. I wonder if he is really happy or if it's just surface level. If he cannot access his true feelings like I can.