Unpacking My Baggage
“And if I asked you to name all the things you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself?” Author Unknown
2-22-24 (Previous Journal Entry)
I didn’t expose myself to my greatest fear… I Was Exposed.
I am adopted. You constantly hear doctors and scientists talk about the bond that develops between a baby in utero and the mother. They tell you the baby recognizes the voice of its mother because she/he has heard that voice from the inside - nestled safely beneath a mother’s heart. Shared DNA, shared body. No other bond in our lives is like this.
When that most precious bond is broken, as soon as you enter the world, there is trauma involved that nobody ever mentions or speaks about. It’s called the Primal Wound. And with it, settles in an insurmountable fear of abandonment. That fear followed me through my entire childhood, always the people pleaser and peace maker because I didn’t want to lose the love of those around me. It followed me into my adult relationships and the choices I made in partners in my constant search for the love I was seeking. I carried that baggage with me always, everywhere life took me. It doesn’t matter as an adoptee, that a loving family “chose” you and that you were given a good life. No matter what, your very first and most profound bond, was broken. There was loss. A prevailing sense of not belonging and emptiness that, if talked about, made you seem ungrateful or insensitive to others. So you learn at a very early age to stuff it down and be quiet about your feelings.
Fast forward to the birth of my first daughter. I thought here it is, my place in this world; my purpose. I found my identity in her, my beautiful baby girl. She would have everything I didn’t and more. She would be beautiful and talented and she would have the courage to be all the things I never had the courage to be. I would love her with every cell in my body. Finally, someone in my life who would never leave. After all, she “couldn’t”, we were blood, bonded for life… Right?
When my daughter left, she left with no notice, just an email full of judgement that filled me with shame and regret. It the very breath from my lungs. The world as I knew it stopped. Everything I thought I knew, I no longer believed or trusted. The solid foundation of my beliefs in the value of family, no longer rang true. I was in a free fall.
Perhaps it could be looked at now, as a gift. I was forced to face my darkest fears and my shadow self. I finally acknowledged my own childhood wounds and recognize how I unconsciously raised my daughter with the baggage of my own wounds and insecurities. My journey in life and love, the broken relationships, the people pleasingr - all of this had a profound effect on her, my daughter. Without realizing it, I taught her to be a people pleaser, and not to make other people feel uncomfortable. I taught her she should be grateful, even in circumstances where she had every right to feel unseen, or angry or targeted. I see now how innocence and optimism and our identity is stolen from us as we are taught to obey, be smaller or easier. You don’t realize as you’re navigating life; work, kids, projects and homeowrk, divorce, your own struggles, traumas, insecurities and anxieties, what all you’re passing onto your children. The baggage that we subconsciously carry around is transferred onto them. My estranged daughter used to tell people that I was her best friend and that we had been through everything together, the two of us. And She was right! We had been through everything together, and she had no say or control in what that looked like. No wonder she’s so angry. How can I blame her? Her emotional needs weren’t met by me. I was too busy surviving my own bullshit.
And now I have seen my monster face-to-face. The thing I was most afraid of, abandonment, has happened by one of my very own children. My girl is gone. I am constantly looking backwards into the past and recounting scenarios that I wish I could change or do over. I wish she could shed the weight of the past. I miss her every day. But if this is what it took for her to find her own voice and her freedom and her own path, then it was not in vain. I love her so much. I love all of my children more than they know. I love them so much that I don’t want them to carry my baggage for me.
So Ive been very busy, unpacking.
