Adoptees and Money
Why is it that almost all (all) of my friends have more money than I do? Why is it that ever since I can remember, I have lived in fear that I do not have enough? (Of anything I need, really.)
Why is it that I make less money than I could? Why is it that as soon as I get money, I spend it—often on things I don’t need or like?
Why is it that buying a house of my own feels like an impossible dream, like running in the Olympics? Something for other people who are specially trained. No, not like running in the Olympics because all of my close friends own houses and they aren’t Navy Seals or highly trained assassins. They are people who earned money, saved it, and then bought a place to live.
Why is it when Pam Cordano and I announce our adoptee retreats, some adoptees get furious that we charge what they think is an unreasonable amount because, they say, they can’t afford it?
When I lived in Santa Cruz, there was a sock store down the street. The socks were all twenty dollars and above and so I never shopped there because to me, twenty dollars is too much to pay for something I could get for much less money.
People can create their own retreats. They don’t have to come to ours. We don’t have a corner on the market. We are two adopted people who created what we wished we’d had ourselves. We busted our butts and made something out of nothing, and people who have attended have been happy. Two people said the retreats saved their lives.
I don’t understand why the adoptee community as a whole doesn’t just high-five Pam and me and thank us, frankly, for working to lift the community. We don’t have to help everyone. We can’t. We have a target audience: those who want to work to heal and move on from feeling stuck and who see the value in such an offering.
Retreats in general are expensive. You could easily spend thousands of dollars for a few days to learn how to write a movie script, to meditate, or to learn how to be kinder to your partner. Retreat means to pull back from day-to-day life and to enter a special space. People often go to retreats to change their lives. The people who hold the retreats are under a lot of pressure: This better be good! I spent a lot of money and travelled a far distance to come here!
Why do some adoptees feel they should get our valuable time for a cut-rate, for a sliding scale, for free? Is it because they think we, adoptees, are so damaged that we deserve special considerations? Do they think it is sinful for adoptees to make money off other adoptees?
Should doctors not charge people with cancer for treatment because charging would make the doctors opportunists?
Should farmers not charge for food because they are capitalizing on people’s hunger?
I think some adoptees believe all those things are true. I also think these beliefs are a brilliant misunderstanding of our community—we are stronger than we let ourselves see.
Pam and I are offering an opportunity to adoptees to step into their lives as they never have before, to own their lives as they never have before, in community. There is the opportunity to decide your own well-being is so important that you are going to find the resources to attend our retreat. Some people have run public-funding campaigns to get the money to attend. There is also the opportunity to say, Hell, no, I’m not spending $1,500 plus travel and lodging and food expenses! I can do this myself!
I think I have less money than my friends because my brain has a set amount of money that is my worth, and it’s low. My outside world has to match my inside world because that’s how life works. I’m guessing my brain thinks I’m worth about $400. This was shocking for me to write, as it’s a new thought for me and, as I wrote it, I realized that’s about how much it said I cost on my adoption papers.
Damn.
Part of existing with a trauma brain can be the feast or famine reaction: the belief that either you have it all or you have nothing. There’s no middle “safe” ground. Historically I have bounced back and forth from being at a buffet and shoving my face with food or standing with my empty bowl, wondering where all the food went.
I consistently have about $400 or less in my bank account. Truly. I live like that. I don’t have health insurance! What do I think is going to happen if I get sick? Who is going to take care of me?
The answer is my dad. My 82-year-old dad will have to dig into his retirement. Or my friends who have all helped me financially countless times. Or I’ll just hide and crawl into a hole and die, because that’s what I deserve.
This is so horrible to write.
The funny thing is, I could get a job. I have it in my power to change my situation. I could do what 10 year olds learn to do: open a savings account and put a little bit in every week. I could keep track of my spending so I could plug up wasteful leaks.
I don’t want to do those things. They feel unnatural.
I like feeling anxious and shitty about myself. I like feeling like I’m worth $400. It’s home.
My lack of self-worth costs those around me so much money. I am a black hole of need.
And the strangest thing is that all of this isn’t about me wanting money. My poverty-mindset isn’t about having or not having money in the bank. It’s about feeling wounded, hurt, lost, when what I really need, my deepest need, is to feel safe in the world. When I get myself into financial trouble, I get to mirror the alarm that has been screaming in my subconscious since I lost my mother: YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE! I get to have an outside world that matches the inside world. An inside world I don’t consciously hear. If someone asked me when I was twenty years old, thirty years old, if losing my mother had created anxiety and a poverty-mindset for me, I would have said no. I would have said it wasn’t something I thought of much, that good people had adopted me and that I was fine with adoption.
The fact is that on top of all this, I have made a conscious choice to live the way I’ve been living for the past three years so I can have the time to do this blog, so I can have time to really immerse myself in what it’s like to be an adopted person, both by listening to myself and to others. This is a full-time job, and I have taken it. It just happens that most of it doesn’t pay, but the level of satisfaction I get from it is off the charts.
I came to California this week to put together the retreat with Pam and to stay at a friend’s (amazing) place and do some writing for her. I came here to infuse my life with joy.
This week, my intention is to leap a fence to a mindset where I believe I am priceless. It feels impossible, but I have learned that these impossible-feeling leaps are where higher powers and faith comes in. I am sick of costing other people money. I am sick of thinking I am in trouble.
In the movie Brittany Runs a Marathon, Brittany tells a guy at a gym to fuck off because the gym charged $140 to join, and she knew she could run outside for free. But later, when she wanted to run in the New York City Marathon, she got a second job to earn the money she needed both to register and to join a gym so she could make herself even stronger. Part of owning her life was her deciding what she wanted and and how to make that happen. That’s empowerment.
I’m done with all that.
Pam and I created something magical. An antidote to anxiety, I am finding, is creativity and collaboration. These things build faith and confidence.
Creativity and collaboration make me feel excited instead of afraid. Hopeful instead of dead inside.
I love the retreat we’ve created.
