week 6 - beginning 8th january 2001

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Week 6 beginning 8th January

monday
My step mum's just came back from France and Christmas with her family. Told her I'd found my mum and granddad. She thought that was great and asked for the adoptedlife's web address. I even told her about this diary! She is the same age as my birth mother which always fascinated me as a teenager.

wednesday
Saw Carol in the library. She has something of a gypsy about her, wild and beautiful. It was good to see her but bitter sweet. We used to be very close until she got pregnant and had an abortion. She pushed me away saying she didn't feel safe with me. It seemed to have something to do with the fact that I hadn't had an abortion. Today I've started to wonder if it had anything to with the fact that I'm adopted. How if I'd been conceived in this day and age chances are my mother would have aborted me. It makes me cry when I write that. I'm sad that I didn't keep going after her. I feel like I've abandoned her too. Abandoned her to my fear of being rejected again.

thursday
I realise I might have to push ahead with the next step in my search before I feel like I want to. I'm afraid I might never feel like I want to. So I asked myself 'Do you really want to find your mum?' It made me cry. I take that as a sign that I do and just that things are getting in the way of me feeling it. It's not a straight forward want, I don't want it in the way I want to see my friends or go swimming or take a walk. All I know is that if I found out she was dead I would cry and cry and cry. Part of me would be inconsolable for a very long time. And all I have to go on is what makes me cry. Can you understand that? Sometimes though, even when I cry I don't feel very much. It's like I grieve on a body memory level but the feelings are so buried I can't take a hold of them. I think that's one of the ways adoption has affected me, it cut me off from my own feelings.

As a teenager I somehow knew that I was numb and that life wasn't meant to be like this. I'm sure that was why I drank so much - a desperate attempt to feel something, anything. I also had hope that one day things would be different, that's what kept me going.

friday
I had a counselling session and talked about what it was like seeing Carol again the other day. I ended up crying masses about loosing my birth mum.