No Explanation Needed

Shifts are happening with people becoming greater educated about what adoptees face. Even so, the adoptee experience remains vastly misunderstood or not understood at all by many. Once I came out of the fog, I used to try so desperately to try to make the people around me understand.  Now I realize that not only can you not make someone understand but they have to have a desire to understand in the first place.  If something affected me, I would try to explain it. If I was going to do something or not do something, I would give a reason.  But that has changed.

In the past if my family asked me to go to a movie and I was apprehensive because I thought it may have a triggering theme, I would go into an explanation of why I’d rather not participate. Sometimes this led to my family trying to convince me to change my mind and go. This led to a heated discussion a few times as I didn’t want to be pressured to go through something that for them was pleasure and for me, pain. I just wanted to be at peace. And for me, peace in that instance meant staying home. Now I don't talk about triggers, I just say, "No, I don't want to go to the movies tonight."(By the way if you want to have a heads up about movies beforehand, go to Addison Cooper's Adoption at the Movies. He has given me perspective and saved me from a bad experience quite a few times.)

In the past if I made a leadership decision based upon a trigger or potential trigger, I felt the need to talk to somebody about it even if just one close friend. Perhaps this was to unburden myself more than anything - I'm not sure.  A while back, I sat in a room with a group of leaders who were all encouraged to host a speaker who had just given a presentation about their organization. The short talk itself was unsettling for me and I couldn’t wait until it was over. However many of the leaders around me were already pulling out their calendars to see when they could schedule the person. I just smiled and went to the coffee station for a few minutes and then went about my day, continuing on with the rest of the meetings. No need to talk to anyone about it. I just made a choice and that was that.

In retrospect, I have come to see that a lot of my stress came in the times where I tried to explain my decisions. Why I chose something or why I did not.  Why I go to certain places or not, why I participate in different things or I don’t…why I host various people or I don’t…why I support specific people, causes or organizations or I don’t. I now see that a boatload of my stress came because I didn’t just give a simple no and let it go at that.

There’s a popular meme that says, “You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.” I have come to realize that explaining my feelings or experience is often nothing but an invitation to an argument.  I refrain from commenting on some people’s posts on social media because it’s not worth the emotional energy that it takes to share the truth, although it is…the truth. It will still be the truth whether they believe it or not. And sometimes as an adoptee I find I am alone in the room with the truth. And, it’s okay. Although it wasn't okay a few years ago. In fact I felt like I would explode if I didn't say something. But I’ve had to make peace with it being okay because if not I would have driven myself to the nuthouse trying to change people who are not open to thinking new thoughts.

I can sense when people are open to education, or not. And particularly in the time when I sense they are not, greater peace comes when I realize that no is a whole sentence.