Losing It From Ignoring My Inside

I feel invisible and helpless trying to put my daughter to sleep last tonight for 3 hours when I only slept 5 the night before. Since I had wanted to enjoy a night out so I woke her up after 1.5 hours napping. It was so scary, I wanted to scream and hit someone meaning my husband. He was sleeping since 11 and it was 1 a.m. She could not sleep because of her tension and I did not want to force her to cry as she doesn't trust me to cry anymore so she keeps all her pain and feeling unheard in, and I feel cruel when I force her to look at me and she cries like a maniac and beats me away. I almost felt like giving up. It was horrible. Exhaustion and tension from not sleeping and feeling alone in the world now without an adoptive mother who truly cares crushed me. I was so desperate that I made a video talking about my feelings just to make it feel more real. When she did not fall asleep it did not work. I became hysterical. Thinking of how unfair everything was. How was I expected to be so loving and compassionate when I never got it myself. My husband got angry at me for screaming, saying I acted like a two year old, and that made me so angry I couldn't even speak. I sat there numbly and just told him to go back to sleep. He was waiting for an explanation, though and couldn't see that I was in the trauma vortex. He kept saying I had no right to be so angry, and I kept saying that he was useless and annoying. He made up explanations for why I was acting this way, such as, "You're a martyr and then you get mad at both her and me and you never take care of yourself." I was furious and felt so unheard. I finally told him that I was only putting her to sleep because she wouldn't fall asleep next to me and then I would get stressed out and not be able to sleep myself. And didn't he care about her feelings of not being loved because I was ignoring her by sleeping myself? He said that it was worst if I was tense by putting her to sleep because she felt my resentment. I agreed but said I had no choice. She was nodding off as we spoke, so exhausted even though we had screamed so loud. I told him about feeling unheard and invisible, like I was a toddler myself. He calmly said that I had to take care of myself first, and could not expect perfection. My daughter would understand that she had to sleep on her own.  I chocked out that she would feel unloved the way I felt. Like the Matt Logelin blog about taking care of his daughter who was born and then his wife passed away, and he said he wanted to give her as many things as she wanted because she "had lost her innocence way too soon" for a 5 year old. I had related very strongly, having lost my birth parents as a baby, but no one ever saw me as an orphan so I never got to own my pain. Everything was a huge coverup of me having loving adoptive parents. It all hit me how significant that pain was. It clouded everything I did, every waking moment of my life. When I felt invisible and like I am worthless, when I run from it by muffling it with pleasures like food and games all day.

But then I read Searching by Carol Schaefer, where she writes about trying to make peace of the trauma of losing her baby to adoption 20 something years ago, as she tries to piece together the relationship with her found son, and she said when there was a block in her future that she read a quote that When you use what's within, you will be happy, but if you do not use what's within it will destroy you. How profound and resonating. The pain was destroying me, and I keep finding this. Life eats away at me when I am not HYPERAWARE of my adoptee grief. That is why Carol needed to continue writing and working on the adoption trauma. And still is doing it till today, searching for her missing piece. I think that is the apitomy of humbleness, because she knows what she is capable of and never becomes proud of her accomplishments beyond her true self. I know if I do not face my pain and give from there I will never be real. It haunts me, my story, but it also creates my true self. I cannot move without it. 

I noticed that by being aware of it, half the old issues are gone. Such as today, meeting my new cleaning Lady, I did not let myself get swallowed by her, with her tough attitude. I watched myself, and let out what I wanted to tell her in order to clean. It was pleasant, interacting with another, and I didn't take it personally when she challenged me by asking why I do not have all the cleaning supplies. I suppose when you have been broken to the core and pick yourself up, you are non-defensive and more caring towards others. I see myself as a separate person and do not expect others to make me feel better. I love being responsible for my energy. It makes life easier, and being able to have healthy relationships. Chosing who I can let in and who not, without expectations.

Now that I know where my pain is from I can work on it and not over expect myself to be normal. I am pitiful, and that's okay. People think that vulnerability is weakness, and that when you show emotions something is majorly wrong. It is not true, and having emotions and learning where they are from is actually strong. It is pathetic when people act out of their emotions without knowing where it is from, though.