Narcissism in Adoptive Family

Life can feel like hell and I know it now. My father is a fake and my mother is obnoxious. They are both soo draining they suck the life out of their interlockers. I just can't any more. I can't be around them. I only realized it after. When I am in the swamps. Things that feel so good are only temporary. Such as acceptance from them. Now I see that it is only when it is on their standards, after I explain myself for the hundredth time. Sigh. I feel like the sacrificial lamb for humanity and them. To expose the truth about what happens when babies are disrespected and inflicted emotional wounds by their parents. Because adoption is the extreme of that and brings it to light. As BJ Lifton says, the very word calla forth images of infantilization and exposure that society does not want to think about. So they deny it's trauma. But it is trauma, and that is the very reason- because of its' secrecy and denial.

There I was, with my stunted father and codependent catering mother. Trying so hard to be good. What a stupid idea. It threw me back to my childhood trauma. Their total non understanding, and me having to entertain ideas to them about who I am. I am shocked at it now. How I slid into the role of the past.

When my mother popped in, randomly and unplanned, I was very nonchalant and wondering how much of Joe Soll's book she did read as she messaged me. She picked up on my discomfort and said, not happy to see me? I thought what an understatement. I asked her if she indeed read the book, and she said, some but I flip through it. Aha I thought not so dedicated. I told her that adoption indeed affects me and it would be nice if she cared enough to read it because otherwise I wouldn't feel like being around her. She said I understand. We got into how it causes behavior problems in school, and did she notice it. She said yes, but again about how she thought it would confuse us if we met my birth parents. I said, maybe confuse you and she denied it. She said she truly did look out for me and knew I had problems from adoption she would let me know my birth parents... Because reality was that I was adopted. She said she didn't want me to be hurt about it. I said I already was an orphan, and kids need truth so it would not have hurt me any more. It would only help me make sense of it. She said, I hear you.

I asked my father, how do you feel about this? He looked at me silently. My mother interjected, "Oh he doesn't care about things the way we do... He is here for a reason." I was shocked at her bluntness, and thought then why did you marry him. Or does she like to blame everyone else for her problems and would say he was the bad one. She always liked when people said she was a good mother, and even now she was saying that she did her best with us. She still was denying that she had remorse. I told her that was why I couldn't trust that she truly cared about me. She asked why, I said because she doesn't ever seem truly sorry when she says she feels bad about my childhood, and only says it like it was my fault for being upset. She nodded and said sorry.

It was weird. I didn't know what she was thinking. Or if she was at all because her eyes always glazed a bit. I asked her about my adoptive sister, and she said she had just asked about me this morning. It was too bad that we couldn't have a relationship, because we both feel grief because of it. I asked her to consider if my "sister" was affected by my being adopted, because she didn't get a real sister like she would have liked. She said perhaps, but she doesn't think about it. I said that is the problem. She said that my sister focuses on her life now, and said she was not up for me talking about my feelings because of the last blow up we had when I "bombarded her with my pain" during her party planning after giving birth. That was 2 years ago. But I can bring myself to understand. I said I was more mature now, that was my beginning of coming out of the adoptee fog. She said still, it was too much for the sister and her perfectly planned life. I said it would be impossible for me to be happy around her if she never acknowledged my initial trauma at all... Did not need her to fully take on my pain though.... The issue with my entire adoptive "family" was that they do not understand not being enmeshed with other's feelings so they constantly look for silent, "good" catering people. Not realizing they have problems with self esteem, too

I told her that her family never valued anything about me, as my husband noticed, they only complimented me for being "pretty." She actually said, "Well maybe that is because of you because of how you were kind of shelled away from your adoption feelings...?" I said, well still, as grown ups they should have seen me. She said it was true, and maybe they all needed therapy. I agreed. She got teary when she said that now they are all still wrapped up in their issues, when I asked her where they were for me now. They had seemed excited about my baby a year ago. Maybe they were scared of me now because of my vocalization about adoption. She said their father wasn't doing well, they had sicknesses... I said, I'm sorry but I can't really understand what you feel because I never had a father connection... Two of them... She said that was true and it was okay. I wanted to know how it felt to have one, and she said she never really thought about it.

Sigh that is the problem. These non adoptees don't stop to think about what they have and what we are missing. They don't value the primal relationship.

I told her that, now that I face my loss, I function better. Because it is no longer all balled up inside me, as Joe Soll talks about. Like it is for my brother. Fellow adoptee. She agreed with me that I was healthier. But a few moments before she had said that I seemed so sad all the time. It was mind whirling. How she doesn't seem to understand people. I told her how happy I actually was because no more self-blame and it was not me but my upbringing.. She nodded.

Am sick of explaining. She did tear up when she left, grateful for my opening up and honesty because now we are bonding. Somewhat. My father was soo needy I felt I should help him so I took him out in the wheelchair. He shrieked when I did one wrong thing with the brakes, and I quieted him like he was a baby. It was distressing for me to see him this way. He was always like this though. I cried a bit, not caring who saw. I felt genuine pity for him. This was what empathy was like, for me to see someone who lived in complete pain all the time. It was heavy to watch, and I felt good realizing I did not have to fix him only he can do that. Even though he expects everyone to. I thought of how childhood trauma causes people to regress and keep being needy for a "mother rescuer." Like he unconsciously did. I saw it straight out, and it looked so pathetic and tragic how he did not feel control in life ever. And he creeped me out by telling me in a delusion that my mother had remarried him, and that he was happy here. I doubted both. I will ask her if it was true.

I left sadly and in pain, but I was not aware of it because my defense mechanism of the past-seeing the good only- was on full force. But I was seeing how lonely the world is. How ironic that the adoptee, abandoned at birth left to survive with their own grief, gets to be responsible for their happiness and life, while the ones who had parents all along were so stuck in helplessness. I do finally feel like it's my mission to change things and spread my knowledge.