week 17 - beginning 26th March 2001

to see previous entries first click here

Update - Emma's fallen in love with her best friend who might be embarking on a relationship with someone else, also called Emma! She's also found out that her birth mother isn't on the Adoption Contact Register.

tuesday
Went to my monthly counselling group today. We did some anger work inspired by Caroline's letter about a workshop she'd facilitated in Ireland. She'd got each person to be counselled by 5 or 6 people at the same time who all had mattresses and were encouraging the person to fight for themselves. Because there were so many people to push against who were well protected people really went for it and everyone fell apart at some point and did some deep emotional release. She said what seemed to be coming up for people was strong isolation stuff. That's what they were all so angry about, being isolated when they were young.

It was hard for me to stick with being angry but I eventually got into it by talking about how Britain and the US are the only countries that want to bomb Iraq and keep the deadly sanctions going. Anyway then I got angry with the social workers for deciding which family to put me with and how it was decided on the basis of their class and hobbies. Nothing about how loving they were or how much they cared about children. Nothing about how they smelt to me or what it was like for me to be held by them. I was given no choice. I wanted to stay with my mother. I can feel the anger boiling up now as I sit at my computer. I was shouting my head off, pushing against my counsellor. I was fighting off the social worker who finally pulled me away from my mother. Raging to stay in the arms of the one I loved. Raging not to be separated from part of myself.

When I got home I had a bath. While I was soaking in the water I dreamed and planned like I hadn't done for months. In that dreaming and planning I saw my hope, that things could change that they could be different, that I could be the person I wanted to be. Where had my dreams been hiding all this time? I believe our unexpressed anger, the anger that we keep down because from a very young age we were punished for it, sits on our hopes and dreams. You know how people say you stop dreaming when you're older, you loose touch with your ideals and so on, well I've never believed that that's an inevitable process and now I'm absolutely convinced it's not. It's just too many years of keeping our anger locked away taking it's toll, taking away our dreams and hopes for ourselves and the world, eating away at the power we know that we have somewhere inside us.

I was interested in what Caroline said about people being angry because they were isolated when they were young. It's why the world is in the mess it's in. So many people are isolated. Our western culture doesn't welcome babies the way we are expecting to be welcomed and our child rearing practises compound the isolation. The sad truth of our society is that you don't have to be taken away from your mother to be abandoned.

friday
Got angry again this morning! I had taken the day off college to have a chance to spend time with Lucy while Lily was at school. She rang last night to say she might be a bit late because she had to go to the laundrette to do her washing. I said she could bring her washing here and use ours. Okay she said. This morning by the time she was an hour and half late I realised that she must have felt it an imposition to use my washing machine and had gone to the laundrette after all! (Me being her dear old friend who loves her more than the world.) Anyway when I realised how much she was cutting into our time together and that I given up college to spend the day with her I suddenly felt angry. Really angry. I stomped around a bit thinking why. Why am I so angry? She'll be here soon, it's not so bad, it must be something carried over from my childhood. Then it hit me. I didn't feel important. I didn't feel important to my mum and no one thought I was important enough to think about what I would want. I found my self walking round and round the kitchen shouting 'I am important'. I finally understood how when people seem to disregard me I get to feel so angry. Disproportionately angry.

She arrived a few minutes later and we talked it through - it was great. Turns out she did feel it would be an imposition to use my machine, which is also why she couldn't do her washing at her friends house where she's staying. I have banned her from ever using a laundrette again even if she's in a strange town and has to ask someone she doesn't know for help - this idea made her laugh a lot. As for me she says I am important to her! And that the day was important to her too - she had forgotten that I was giving up college - she says she often lunches out on the things that are important for her. I was pleased that I told her how I was feeling, rather than what I used to do which was try and rationalise the feeling away with 'oh this is too trivial to be angry about', or 'it's old stuff that doesn't belong in the present' or 'I don't want to upset Jill and she won't have meant it' or 'I love her and once she's here I'll soon forget about it'. It's what I'm working on with myself at the moment - letting myself feel. It seems to work we had a great day together.

To be continued next week.......