Living With Feelings That Are Too Big (Pt. II)

As the years passed, I continued to have more powerful feelings but throughout these tough times I put my feelings to one side and pushed them away because I felt that they didn’t matter. I learned as I got older that this is one of the worst things one can do. Everyone needs someone to express themselves and due to me having no one I always felt very lonely.  

Quite a lot of the time growing up I never felt like a kid due to the adult problems I was dealing with which at the time I was unable to manage which carried a burden with me and a heavy weight on my shoulders. I never felt like I was like the other kids who were surrounded around me at school and they didn’t understand me so this led to bullying which lasted for years. There were times when I felt I had to grow up quicker than I was ready to do. Not in terms of emotions as I was delayed in certain skills such as communication but as a person, I have faced situations and hardship due to the losses and trauma however I never let things take over me and I believe due to this I’ve become a resilient, determined and sensitive person.  

Reunion for me was a disaster, there are no other words to put it. The way I felt during and after reunion (n.1) had ended in 2015 was rejected and abandoned for a second time but now as I was older and barely just turned an adult, I could name the feelings I had compared to when I was a child but the feeling that resurfaced all the time was pure anger and I just couldn’t remove the anger from me. Anger was not something new to me as throughout my childhood and youth it was an issue for me.  Due to everything and the way I was treated I took a long break from being in touch with my birth family for a total of 4 ½ years for my own good and wellbeing. However, not being in touch with my birth family didn’t change the way I felt. I felt my emotions were in overload and I was the one which had to suffer and go through this all the time without any proper support in place. Don’t ask me how I’ve come out at the end of the tunnel alright because I don’t know I guess you can say perseverance.  

Now having been in reunion for a second time giving it another go/chance and nearly three years in my feelings towards reunion have not changed or made things easier for me. I’m going to be honest with you all and the fact is since I’ve reconnected with my birth mother my family and I have been treated really badly to a severe level and throughout this time I’ve been hurt again and this is no joke because then it’s a journey to get back up again with no proper support in place. I fluctuate between being angry and not angry but I cannot forget all the history. The thing is I don’t make it part of my everyday life, it’s just there in the distance.  

During the pandemic and lockdowns, this was really when I was able to think to myself and think things through in terms of my birth family and what will happen.  As I had all the time in the world to think about myself, I realised what I’ve been through due to them, the list is long: past and present which has been a lot for a young person to handle and get over the hurdle. I decided from then onwards I was going to put my wellbeing first and start fresh. The first step in this process for me was to think less of my birth family because up until this moment my thoughts were surrounded by ideas and things to do with my birth family not because I wanted to but because it seemed to happen subconsciously. As time went on and as I thought less of them and removed them from my daily life, I was able to start to feel happy when this has not always been possible.  

Some things which contribute to my unhappiness are not linked to me being adopted but a consequence of the abuse and neglect I suffered and witnessed from my birth parent's care and life in foster care. The consequence I’m talking about here is in foster care my inability to speak which led to a diagnosis of severe speech and language delay due to the abuse, neglect and how the foster carer treated me as an infant and young child.  later in life and something which is still with me is the difficulty for me to make friends and due to this, there are moments when I do feel low due to not having actual people the same age as me in my life on a fairly regular basis physically around me for me to have a sense of belonging, that I matter and some serenity. I feel and know that this will change in the future but I’m just talking about my present-day experience and situation and I feel why do I have to wait till I’m older for things to change and improve to just have some happiness in my life. 

“Loneliness doesn’t come from having no one around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that are important to you”.  ~Carl Jung (Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst) 

To overcome our problems, one needs help. One cannot overcome them by ourselves or wish and pray that they will go away because they will not if anything they will get heavier.  

After receiving my file in June 2019, the social worker gave me a choice n. 1, to have counseling, or choice n. 2 which was to have conversations with her. At the time I was not ready to have counselling even though in my mind I’ve known for a long time I needed it but have never known how to go about it. I was only given a choice because the social services department admitted as it took them 4 ½ years to provide me with my documentation they allowed me to do it at the council otherwise I would have had to go to the regional adoption agency. At the time when counselling was suggested I took offence to the social worker's suggestion not because I thought she was wrong but due to insecurity and stereotypes associated with counselling and therapy. A while later roughly six months down the line whilst having a conversation with my mother she brought up the topic of my file while we were waiting in line at the supermarket and I just put it out there that I had received my file. Moving on to a little while later both of my parents were abroad on a business trip and on a phone conversation they mentioned that they thought it would be a good idea for me to have counselling and asked me if this was something I wanted. I straight away said no even though in my heart I felt I should have said yes but I was unable to as I feel uncomfortable talking to my parents about things in general let alone deeper things such as problems, worries, fear, wishes, dreams etc. so I just ignored it carried on with my life which was uni at the time and then four months later the pandemic hit and that was the end for me due to family circumstances which is still ongoing.  

For me asking for help is something that is hard. I remember as a young child I struggled with this too but also trusting other person is hard because a lot of the time I’ve been let down.  

Getting help is not as easy as it sounds in the adoption world. Just because let’s say a counsellor or therapist is qualified doesn’t mean that they can help you. Anyone can get qualified status but there is a huge difference between being qualified and knowing how to help someone in a therapeutic way. Also, a person in my opinion should be trauma informed if they want to help a person out and this is very difficult to find.  

Also, in the UK to have access to support it is a postcode lottery. What I mean by this is depending on where you live across the country you will either have support or finding support is like a needle in a haystack it's that hard. This shouldn’t be the case as adoption is a lifelong journey and the problems usually occur later in life as an adult and that’s when there is no support around.