Adoption and Coming to a Place of Peace

“The odds are that everyone sitting in this classroom today will not make it through this course. Some of you will drop out because it will become  uncomfortable to deal with the issues that will be brought up in this class.” 

This was said by my professor this past semester in a Christian counseling course I took as part of my bridge work toward my doctorate.

The professor was right. I recall three people who dropped out mid-way through the course. And among those who didn’t, it became emotional at times. I cried during two of the lectures and I remember glancing over at my colleague who is another minister about my age – a big strong man. There he sat at his desk with his head in his hands, handkerchief up to his eyes, weeping.

What was going on? A considerable amount of processing our past.  

I Don't Fit In

I don’t fit in, in most places in my life. In fact, I can’t think of one spot where I fit in!

This used to slay me. Oh the tears I cried! Today,  I do not say this for sympathy. I have finally accepted and embraced that I am different. I know that I am not different just because I'm adopted. Part of it is being an INFJ (the rarest personality in the world. Only 1% of the population has this personality type) and the bottom line is -- God made me different!  As I mentioned, this wasn't always easy for me.

Growing up, when my friends who are not adopted talked about various aspects of their lives like genetic commonalities with their parents and siblings, I could not relate. It made me sad. Being adopted also brought about moments of getting what I call “that feeling.” I wrote about this in a post at Lost Daughters a few years ago:

“Each time something in my life happens that makes me feel different, singled out, and unique from the rest of the population, it becomes a trigger. Instantly I experience that feeling... a flash of rejection, linking whatever the latest happening in my life is, all the way back to 1966. But whenever I get left out, over-looked, singled out in a negative manner, uninvited or forgotten, I instantly go all the way back to my childhood and have this flash of a thought that I'm somehow doomed to be different, singled-out, left out, over-looked, uninvited and forgotten because I'm adopted.”

Like many adoptees, I started running hard to achieve to overcome the ache in my soul over being different. In my twenties,  I was in counseling for workaholism and the counselor said, “What are you running so hard from?” At that time I didn’t have an answer. I was still unaware of why I did what I did. It’s interesting that the intake forms said nothing about adoption. In the initial session the counselor asked if there was anything about me he should know that wasn’t covered on the forms. I said, “Well, I’m adopted.” He kept right on going like I said I take two teaspoons of creamer with my coffee. Like it was nothing. But it was really the key to everything. It was the reason why I was running so hard. He missed it. My issues would continue for two more decades without the root of it being discovered and addressed. 

I watch the show This is Us, and like many adoptees, I relate to Randall. My life is a combo between running hard to achieve and being overwhelmed with anxiety.    

I’ve found that once you realize why you do what you do, things change. I think I have made peace with why I run hard. I stopped trying to change myself in that regard. I’ve also learned how to find peace when I’m anxious. I have had to find tools to do that, and one of the recent ones I’ve started implementing is known as Soaking Prayer. This has been more helpful in quelling my anxiety than anything I have tried previous. 

Here is something to think about…

If you are struggling with not fitting in, here is something to think about. When you are odd, you aren’t overlooked. Everyone notices that which is different. And, is sameness really a worthy goal? No one who ever did anything great was the same as everybody else.

I am at peace knowing that I don’t fit in. I recently heard it said that you have to make a mental shift and realize, it’s not that you are missing out, it’s that you are set apart for something great. You have to own your oddity and make it work for you.    

   

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.    

  

      

Adoptees: Do You Believe in the Adoption-Reconstruction Phase Theory?

This theory is above, for those that are unaware of it. [Credit to Amanda Woolston who created the graphic.]

I’m not sure what I believe about it.

Yep, ya heard me right. 

I don’t know.

I have friends who seem to believe this theory is accurate.

And others believe it’s from the pits of hell.

If I had to classify it at this moment I might say it’s purgatory. Never mind that I don’t believe in purgatory.

My biggest doubt is about number 5. It's not that I believe you can’t be adopted and find any peace. I am more skeptical about the ambivalence and the integration, more than anything. 

What do you think?

[Reminder: I have posed this question to ADOPTEES. Thanks.)