Spending time with my fellow adoptees the past few days was amazing. It's hard to know, even, how to explain it to someone else. Being around people who get it, really truly get it, is so freeing and validating. It allows me to be myself in a way that I don't often get to be.
Yet, trust issues don't go completely away. It's frustrating, really. I'm around people who have shown nothing but kindness and compassion to me for years, and I still worry that they don't like me.
I mean, I know they like me. But part of me feels foolish around everyone, and it doesn't go completely away. I worry I've said something stupid or offensive. I don't think I did, but that feeling wouldn't go completely away.
It's so hard to believe people might like me. I don't know why. Maybe because I have never felt like I could be myself, and now I worry that being myself would mean being someone others don't like. I suspect that doesn't make much sense. But for whatever reason, I struggle to believe that people like me and want me to be around.
I don't want to feel that way around other adoptees. And I did feel more comfortable around them than around nearly any other people. But moments of self-doubt did creep up now and then. They were moments of frustration in what was otherwise one of the best weekends of my life. I just want to trust people more. If anyone deserves it, it's my fellow adoptees.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Two adult adoptees talking about their experiences with adoption and searching for their first families.
Adoption Resources
Books on Adoption (that we've read and recommend)
- Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self by Brodzinsky, Schecter, and Henig
- Birthright by Jean A. S. Strauss
- Journey of the Adopted Self by Betty Jean Lifton
- The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier
- The Adoption Mystique by Joanne Wolf Small
4 comments:
You said my thoughts...exactly!
Meeting so many people that you feel so close to because they understand so deeply, you want to be fast and immediate forever friends. But the trust issue lures its head. How close can I be to you, how much of me that I be and still trust that they'll still be there?
We talk about others "deserving" our trust (I say the same thing) and sometimes I feel like that's an additional thing we punish ourselves with..."why can't we give people trust who deserve it, what's wrong with us?" *sigh*
I understand from non-adoptees that trust is a big issue for them too...a human thing maybe.
So glad you all had a great weekend, there is nothing to beat being with others who understand and have the same ideals.
Amanda, thank you so much. It's good to know I wasn't the only one feeling this a bit this weekend.
I understand you completely. I have the same feelings and everyday is a struggle, but I work on being ME, good or bad, whether 'you' like it or not. Meeting my family made me like myself more than I ever have, and I work at being comfortable in my skin...glad I found your blog;)
Post a Comment