Recently, I had a short interchange with a birth mother on social media who couldn't believe that a birth mother wouldn't want to meet the child that they put up for adoption.
As I do try to show through my podcast the wide expanse of different experiences for everyone in the adoption constellation, the experiences are varied, both for adoptees, as well as for adoptive parents and birth parents.
I wasn't sure how to respond to her, but since my podcast shares real, true stories week after week, I simply shared mine. I hope that I opened up her perspective a little bit, as I think this is the way to more empathy and understanding and grace for everyone, to just share our truths.
My birth mother met me as a young adult, and we had a pretty good relationship with some ups and downs along the way. Then she ended up abandoning me again. The first time, okay, I understand. But the second time really hurt like hell.
And here I am trying one more time to reach out, as she is 75 years old, to see if she is willing or wanting to try again. I have to know that I at least tried and did everything I could.
I’m sure her story would be different from mine of what happened between us. Adoption trauma happened, that’s what happened, and we just couldn’t put that frayed umbilical cord back together. So, I have plugged that umbilical cord back into myself, knowing I’m enough even if she doesn’t want me.
I have somatically and subconsciously gone back into the womb with SMGI therapy, during which I have felt her pain of knowing she had to give me up, and at the same time wanting so badly to keep me. SMGI allowed me to 'hear' conversations she had with my birth father. I could feel the stress hormones and the anxiety she was producing. I experienced birth, and heard her cry out in pain, both physically and emotionally, a primal scream I still hear now ringing in my head. My birthday wasn’t celebrated. Relatives were not waiting to hold me in excitement. It was a day of heartbreak and sorrow and survival for both of us, and that subconscious experience gave me so much compassion for her and what she went through.
But in the end, we just couldn’t survive it, I guess. I can’t change it. I can only try to bridge the distance, and then move on if I never see her again.
How can anyone can say to just get over it? That's insane! No one wants to hear the real stories because they are too painful. And once you know, then what? It’s easier to just look away and be ignorant.
Tell your stories! Tell your truth! It’s time to educate the world about adoption.
If you have a story to tell about your adoption experience, contact me at mindyourownkarma@gmail.com for a chance to be on the podcast.
