Day # 264: Section four of my birth story

        

#264

 After two years of looking in databases, I went back to TRY to ask their advice.  I joined their support group and started to attend meetings.  What I learned in my late 30’s was that I knew how to give out support in support groups, but did not know how to ask for what I needed.  Groups just became another responsibility for me and not a place of support, but they were a place for collecting information.  I did meet other women who had relinquished their children and I met adoptees so interested in meeting birthmothers and fathers who were searching.  I filed my name with the Connecticut adoption groups and I read and listened and offered as much support as I could.

 I went to an annual conference of a national adoption association which was held in Stamford, Connecticut, just down the highway from my hometown.  Living in Vermont and W. Massachusetts allowed me some distance, but Stamford placed me back in the heart of my pain.  All day I went from one workshop to another, listening to women in the field who were impassioned, dedicated, informative.  They were collecting data and forming hypothesis and doing all that important work.  I bought a book there, Lost and Found, by Betty Jean Lifton.  It became my Bible.  Written for adoptees, it still gave me insights into the world of adoptions and, helped me to stop thinking I was a freak.

 At the end of the day I went to a workshop set up for birthmothers only.  The presenters made us mimic a secret society or a place to speak of shameful things.  They made at least 70 of us draw our chairs up into circles, close the doors and had us whisper.  The first woman who spoke showed us a wonderful windup toy of a witch.  She wound her up and let her go, “This is me, the wicked witch who gave away her own baby,” She let it fall off the table.  Everyone in that room cracked up, uncomfortably laughing, knowing they too lived with that inner self image; the cruel heartless person who gave away her baby at birth.  That workshop went overtime and after it ended people stayed in tears, laughing, sharing and showing outrageous empathy for each other. For many of the women there it was the first time they spoke of their experiences openly

Two specific interactions at that conference changed my life.  The first was with a beautiful 19 year old girl hiding herself in baggy clothing, her hair long and in her face.   She admitted she was a cutter.  She cut her stomach.  She would binge  and then  starve herself.  She hated her body, thought she was ugly and that her body was diseased.   She had relinquished her baby when she was 15.

 I wanted to shout, “No, you are beautiful, you are courageous, you are good, you need to be good to your body.” A light went off in my head, “Lindy, so are you, this is what you do, too.”

          
The second incident was with a woman about 75, who had been quiet throughout the whole workshop.  Towards the end she raised her hand to share.  “I have never told people that I gave away my daughter a long time ago.  I’ve kept it to myself all these years because I am so filled with shame. I’ve never told my husband.” she started to sob, her body convulsing.  The woman leading the session looked at me and said “put your arms around her.”  I was shocked at the idea that she had lived with that huge secret her whole life, never sharing it with her life partner and now here she was melting down in my arms, a total stranger. 

I tentatively touched her back, frail, and then pulled my arms around her.  I felt myself go numb.  It was too much.  I held her until she regained some composure, took care of her and at the end of the workshop went in search of my car, left the conference and drove home.  I’m not sure how I made it; I was on automatic pilot for 120 miles.  I came into the house, lay down on the sofa and slept until late the next morning, wrapped up tightly until it was safe to cry.

           
I, too, had kept my secret like a good girl, and I had been abusing my own body punishing myself for committing the worst crime imaginable, letting go of my own baby, rejecting my own flesh and blood.  It all struck me as the horrible tragic lie I had been telling myself for twenty years.  I had not rejected her, I loved her intensely, I was protecting her from having to repeat my childhood. No matter how much I was given as a child, I was raised among mentally ill and addicted people and they still ran my life when she was born.  She did deserve a better start and as soon as she was gone I knew I had to leave, too.  18 months later I had left home and never truly returned, could not return. 

          
I also became aware of the fact that it was not completely my choice.  My mother had given me an ultimatum at a time when I was not healthy enough to go off with a baby and take care of both of us without family support.  And here I was over 20 years later understanding why and wanting desperately to stop punishing myself; wanting to stop feeling as though I wasn’t capable of truly loving another person, flawed.