week 23 - beginning 14th may 2001

to see previous entries first click here

Update - Emma's known where her birth mother lives for 4 months now and found out she's not on the Adoption Contact Register. She recently fell in love with her best friend who jilted her for someone else.

Apologies to readers for the recent delay in postings (I got stranded abroad without internet access!).

monday
I was thinking today about how hard birthdays are for adoptees. I think we need to make up some alternative birthday songs.

tuesday
Heard on the radio that 3 million children in the UK have a different biological fathers to the one they think is their father. It was a programme about women having affairs and then deceiving their partner into thinking that the resulting child from the affair was his. It also happened with women who had finished one relationship and started another having just got pregnant. It works out at one in twenty children are attributed to the wrong father! Apparently if the acting father finds out he is entitled to sue his partner for deceiving him. He can claim for the money 'the' child has cost him and the emotional trauma. Imagine how the child in question would feel about that!

thursday
Have been feeling unvalued by John. He still doesn't want to see me. The reality is that I have even less of him now than before we were lovers for that brief time. I feel like I've lost him. Lots of grief feeling that he doesn't care about me.

Had a great counselling session today recognising my intrinsic value. I realised that how I value myself and how I assert myself are connected. That if I truly valued myself I would assert myself. Also I would be able to interrupt people mistreating me in a clear and powerful way. So my goal for the moment in my counselling sessions and in my life are to value myself. That will bring a few feelings up!

Did actually assert myself soon after as my landlord came in at 8 and said we had a house meeting at 9pm he seemed to have an expectation that I would come because I happened to be there. I said that actually it wasn't enough notice for me and I wouldn't be coming as I had other things to do, which was true. He was a bit taken aback!

saturday
'My parents are a part of me'. A man said this on the radio today. He was a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust and had been in Auswitch. He was talking about the day his dad sent him off to safety promising to follow soon - of course he never did. He was completely gutted by this. 'My parents are a part of me' he said. I choked on my cornflakes.

I can't imagine my parents being a part of me. Is this because I was adopted and never really bonded again. The Primal Wound* talks about adopted babies/children forming attachments to their adopted parents but never actually bonding. It says we can't bond until we've healed from the wound of adoption, the wound of abandonment. This makes me feel hopeless that I never really will bond with anyone and hopeful that if I heal enough I will. Oh god the pressure to heal feels so enormous sometimes.

* The Primal Wound - understanding the adopted child - is one of the best books I've read on adoption. It's written by Nancy Newton Verrier and published by Gateway Press ISBN 0-9636480-0-4

sunday
Spoke to dad on the phone this morning. I was telling him about my multimedia course and how I would be able to use what I was learning on adoptedlife.com. It's only the second time I've mentioned the web site to him (and therefore my interest in adoption!). You could have heard a pin drop in the few seconds silence that followed before he said he was pleased for me. You know that quality of silence as the person reacts and then gathers themselves together so that they manage to sound as if they are talking about the weather and not as if their heart has just been pierced by something you said. It was that kind of silence. I know because I do it myself sometimes when I'm afraid to show my vulnerability. Knowing my dad as I do he'll be thinking what is this interest in adoption that she's got, what's it all about? Why does she want to be bringing it up all the time? I guess these thoughts help mask his pain. My brother says he would feel threatened to know that I want to meet my birth mother. His anger with me for wanting to 'drag up the past' is a way he can avoid facing his fear of rejection. Blaming me saves him from feeling his own vulnerability.

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