Seeking long term support - I'm a mother whose firstborn was coercively taken for adoption 30+ years ago. Severe PTSD, MDD, complicated grief & more.

[LaurieD]

Hello

I've hesitated to post in these forums as loss to adoption is often a volatile topic, but I write in hopes of meeting other mothers and fathers too who have lost to adoption against their will. I am blessed with wonderful help now but what I'd highly value is to meet others like me in here for ongoing interaction, especially when I'm running rough. Like right now. I'm suspicious this time of year (Nov) has an anniversary date in it but I can't recall what that could be.

I know the richness of trusted friends who walk beside each other, sharing their experiences and what gives them strength and hope can be the most helpful sometimes. Knowing the diagnoses etc is helpful, but living with it every day is the challenge and cannot be done alone. This environment allows for focus upon difficulties which perhaps my friends & family are somewhat jaded by after over 30 years, especially since they don't know what it's like to live with (thank goodness!).

Is there anyone in here who also walks this life-long journey with whom I could join in support for each other?

Thank you for your time :).

Kind regards

Laurie

[LaurieD]

Wow.

Checking my smoke alarms for bugs & telephone for taps. You secretly know my husband, friends & medical team don't you? There's a conspiracy afoot!!!

Ha ha ha :).

I refer to your comment about art. I add you to my long-term & growing collection of people re my being an artist. Hmm.

I agree re the other options.

A few weeks ago I decided my website is about my art & contemplations, focusing upon beauty in spite of the brutality of life but not ignoring it either. In fact, beauty helps us transform & transcend suffering. My favourite documentary is "Why Beauty Matters" by Sir Roger Scruton (philosopher), even beating out Hacker & Humphrey & that's saying something ;). Sir Roger caused a riot among modern artists, if "art" can be used to define a banana stuck to the wall with a bit of masking tape which sold for $3000+. I hear some fellah thought the banana was available to eat - had a good laugh at that.

I have a range of topics, one being Disoption & Adoption as a search for meaning in that suffering. Another repeated request was for contemplation cards using my drawings & insights to encourage those affected by forced adoption & trauma etc. I agreed to that one & just got a sample package in the mail on Friday of printed material to assess.

In 2013 I began a course of marketing artwork with a terrific mentor who actually lives what he teaches & is a top bloke, but then I "fell over" & while I finished the course and am still in touch with him today I'd given up on the dream of my art biz last year. So setting up my website recently about the wonders in life especially when touched by trauma has been a huge step for me. Not a biz for now, just sharing.

Thus my search for bugs & taps... ;).

"Praise, encouragement and love or care, together with accomplishment have been the blocks I've been able to build on." That's past tense which means you've done/are doing this, so it's possible to achieve. Okay. I'll keep going as I've begun & take it on spec that there's value in it for now, finish my Logotherapy course (re meaning in life) & will see what the next phase of this adventure holds.

My need for control to feel safe is screaming at me atm but my irritation at being stalled, ambivalent & marking time is stronger. What the hell. What's the worst that could happen?!

Phwaugh, all these emotions. So diff to numbness. My favourite = laughing about artists & long arms!

Thank you heaps, Croix. Serendipitous meeting in here for sure.

Yours

Laurie

[Croix]

Dear Laurie~

I can see what you are sayng about Roger Scruton and beauty being a thing it its own right, and one of the elements we need to survive. He did however write the show when he was in his mid 70's and maybe a bit dry. I think it has a lack - even though quite right in so far as it goes. There is no humor, no ridiculous. And - at least for me - humor is an essential too.

So I'm afraid Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB KBE MVO trumps (if one can still use that word) Sir Roger Vernon Scruton FBA FRS. Actually a combination of the two would yield something special.

I'm not sure giving up an art 'biz' is that bad an idea. You are finite and can, like myself, be stretched too far.

Even 'free' art can have a disproportionate influence, the Lascaux Paintings spring to mind, as does the modern equivalent - graffiti? Maybe Keith Haring's original Crack is Wack. It's a pity we (for very good reasons) have total anonymity here, as your contemplation pieces sound fascinating.

Numbness -or overload if you like - being defeated by things including humor, is wonderful, even if not always pleasant. You are a ive, and yes have a modicum of hope - or you would not be reading me rabbit on.

You asked what the worst was that could happen. I guess failing to believe in at least some people and only having your own resources all alone. That was just about the stage I was at and only be including another I survived.

It is both the past and present tense, I'm still (mostly) continuing to improve.

Irritation can be useful

Croix

[LaurieD]

Hey Croix 🙂

Haven't forgotten you. Will reply tonight. Hilarious about Sir Roger & Sir Humphrey!

Be good to you.

Laurie

[Croix]

Thanks Laurie, but there really is no pressure, there is always Real Life™ to contend with beyond the forum:)

-C

[PhoebeWings]

Dear Laurie,

Yesterday, I found your post.

I hope you read this.

Like you, I lost my only baby to adoption - 47 years ago.

It’s a battle isn’t it?

I can pass through seasons of relative lightness and purpose - then the pain creeps back in - and I get lost in the turmoil of feelings, grief...

November/December are particularly hard. They are trigger months for me. Right now I’m going through much pain. In our daily lives, it can be a lonely place, to live with this trauma.

I’ll write more when I find some energy - I have been blessed with an exchange of support with several women over the years.... but sometimes, the pain reaches down too deep and leaves me blindsided.

Please let me know if you read this - I hear you sister, truly.

With a gentle hug,

Phoebe

[LaurieD]

Dear Phoebe 🙂

I am so pleased you've written to me! Thank you - I know what that takes. "Battle" is the correct word. Atm I can only write a quick note as I'm running really rough & it sounds as though you are too. Where can we go to have a break from ourselves??!! In the next day or so I'll catch my breath & I'll be back - looking forward to getting to know you. I pop in here at least once a week so I won't miss your letters.

I hope you endure the enveloping Deep without drowning, until it wains & once again there is light and air and life. I hope the Darkness of the Deep is pierced with moments of wonder - the twinkle of a star, the light of the moon reflecting our love onto wherever our children are, the deep magenta of a petal, the perfume of jasmine, the song of a bird, the glamour of a sunset... whatever it takes to be greanted a few moments of rest in your soul and your heart. Be good to you, dear lady. Grieve well.

Chat soon

Laurie xo

[PhoebeWings]

Hi Laurie,

Thank you for your sweet and beautifully crafted response - we do indeed look to those moments when nature catches us and soothes.

This ‘crash’ has been particularly evil as I’ve been pretty OK for quite a while.

There is much to my story beyond the forced loss of my only son - I was just a 15 year old school girl...you know how that goes, sadly.

The story itself has its own life - for me, right now I’m just trying to keep afloat mentally and emotionally as past trauma keeps me in the ‘prison’

As a master of ‘pretence’ I’m hosting in-laws over Xmas and this past weekend had a houseful of my husbands family. I perform my best trick - numb and act the part...unfortunately it leaves me depleted even more, hollow and empty.

But....typically, it also serves well to keep my eye on the world around me, rather than disappearing down my own black hole 😎

Keep walking dear, you’re not alone 💐

Phoebe

[LaurieD]

Hi Phoebe 🙂

Glad to hear from you. I don't know about you but I've noticed I am one of many who finds it hard to speak with other mothers/parents like us, even though I've met many. It touches on the brokenness & is very challenging. So I value your letters.

I know exactly everything you speak of. It is what MUST be done to survive. I feel deeply for you, the damage I know too well what you're doing to yourself simply to function in what to many is just normal life, yet it must be endured it seems as "falling over" is "not allowed" somehow. Tragic stuff. I hope that very soon you are free to give you what you need, if you know what that is, rather than the Deep. Sad that to avoid the black hole one must disassociate one's very self. Rock & a hard place, hey :).

At 15 you were among the younger mothers yet I am of the opinion that this age is not too young to raise a child - many do within community. I was 21 - the av age - in 1989, working as was my fiance. My story too has all the stuff of nightmares, as are others stories I know of into the 1990's, and even today consents are not fully informed.

I too am not faring well. Christmas Day at 5am was spent fending of a major "panic attack" - first in a while. Maybe tablets aren't working properly anymore. Don't know the trigger but have been running rough for a couple of months. Exasperating & terrifying & atm I'm very angry which I haven't been for years now.

My nervous system is all over the shop atm so I must be careful & stay calm. I draw & am making a website which will include everything I've learned about the damage done to us & our children & plan to collate it & send it to the Aust Psychological Soc & ask/beg/demand/plead them to DO something about this cruel practice & its impact, esp since it's on the rise again.

Anyway, I'm fragile atm so I must focus on the jasmine bush just outside my window which with the rain is finally flowering & its perfume will soon render me incapable of anything as I lay back & get "drunk" on it :).

Are you fully persuaded that what they told us re who we are is totally false? I've noticed a pattern ie the 1st thing "they" do is dismantle the woman at her core of humanity, no matter what age, & men too prior to their strategy of dismembering the identity & r'ship of mother/father.

Walk, stand, sit, foetal position - whatever it takes.

I have to go. Darn word count :).

Big hug & walking with you.

Laurie xo

[PhoebeWings]

Hi Laurie,

Extra tough couple of days....

I’m so sorry to read of your early morning panic attack, so painful on top of the day ahead.

Like you, in those moments of numbed disassociation, or agonising otherness...I draw up my inner love of ‘the moment’ in nature - breathing in a flower, or watching the sky.... a hundred and one different caresses of the heart can be supplied by the beauty around us.

I have lived a very full life, and you’d probably think I’m a bit of a fake if you drew conclusions from the apparent wide and largely successful life I’ve had....

I’m writing this, not to say ‘oh I’m pretty successful’ but to say, me too, me too.... at the deepest possible level I can’t begin to describe the damage, which I have fought for so many decades to nurse and repair the hurt ‘me’

And it’s a challenging conversation to attempt - as no-one can understand except those of us who have experienced the trauma caused by forced adoption. I wasn’t a bad, irresponsible kid - but the world around me insisted that I leave hospital without my baby, forever.... because there was a lovely married couple out there who were deserving of him... and he deserved them.

I’m hearing you Laurie.

Are you fully persuaded that what they told us re who we are is totally false? I've noticed a pattern ie the 1st thing "they" do is dismantle the woman at her core of humanity, no matter what age, & men too prior to their strategy of dismembering the identity & r'ship of mother/father.

To the above....YES. You nailed it.

Hold your head up high Laurie, you’ve endured and are surviving the unthinkable.

love

Phoebe

[LaurieD]

Dear Phoebe

I've been thinking about your letter for days, esp the words "fake", "success" & "endurance". I wondered if we are indeed "fakes" and, how do we measure "success", and what is it we must "endure?

Our Selves are not fake but faking is an action we do so yes, we do fake things, that we're okay, not grieving & so on - you know :). We "fake it TO make it"; we can easily list the reasons, perhaps the main one being to protect our Self from further shattering.

Whose yardstick do I use to measure success? Is "success" a life of adventure, material wealth, power, a stable marriage, children...? Those who had all but the last insist they weren't successful until they had a child/ren, & when denied such naturally turned their attention to other less "successful" parent's children, insisting that they & those like them are more deserving so, they took our babies. And continue to do so to this very day.

Asylums, shackles, drugs etc are frowned upon now so we "modern losers" get the full works of psychological coercion & more, enough to make cult leaders blush at their own incompetence. The Big 3 still loom large - Religion, Science & the State (be sure not to confuse God with Religion).

A rebellious, anarchistic & inquisitive intellectual like me 🙂 asks, "Why?". As objectively as possible I've learned much & reach the conclusion that what we endure, when it's all boiled down, is evil. In historical & sociological context we see a parade of Marxism, heresy & apostasy, materialism (scientific), Holocaust, Gulags, Killing Fields, cold & hot wars, social unrest, "Enlightenment", slavery, feminism... & us, the Fallen Women. I find nothing Biblical, Political or Scientific to qualify these adoption practices as a "good thing". Much I could write, but the word limit restrains me still :).

I choose wisely whom I expose my shattered self to but I cannot stay silent anymore, to rescue, enable nor be co-dependent on those who perpetrate such cruel practices either in action or belief. My shattered Self can no longer be hidden - my secret is out & consequently, so are theirs. Their response? Self-justification, "Apologies" ie legalistic wranglings to avoid consequences. I'm not bitter but do quietly laugh at every scramble "they" make to cover up albeit continue their cruelty because the end of the matter is: we are parents whose children have NOT been legally adopted till 2016ish = that is their biggest secret of all. I kid you not. Messy, hey :).

Laurie xo