Adoptees and Choice

I was listening to the Audible version of the book Good Morning, I Love You and in it, the author Shauna Shapiro wrote about the stress that comes with choice. 

She talks about a study done by Barry Schwartz at Swarthmore College that said the biggest reason people fail to make a decision is the fear of making the wrong one. 

He calls this the paradox of choice--paradoxically, the more choices we have, the less likely we are to make a choice, and if we do make a choice, the less likely we are to be satisfied with it. 

For example, in one study people who were travelling were asked if they preferred non-refundable or refundable airplane tickets. Most chose refundable, desiring the greatest freedom of choice, but then the study showed that those who chose refundable were less happy. It turns out that the people who had the freedom to choose from seemingly endless dates and times suffered from the anxiety of trying to make the perfect choice, ending up less happy. 

Shapiro writes, So then how do we make our best choices? 

First, we need to limit the number of options. We need to focus just on what we truly want. This begins by getting clear on what your standards and goals are and then to feel satisfied once you’ve reached them.  

I think people who aren’t adopted see adoptees as lucky because they aren’t defined by their family in the same way that people who are with biological parents are. Your family doesn’t stamp you with their talents and physical traits and so you, dear adoptee, are free to be whomever you want.

Want to play a game? Go find an adoptee and start asking about his or her preferences. What I have noticed in myself and in many of the adoptees I know is that we will first try to find out what you prefer and then go along with that choice.

Why would we do that?

Habit. 

Survival.

Fear of being alone.

What if you want chocolate and I want vanilla and, when you find out I don’t like chocolate, you decide we’re not compatible? Being different from you is so frightening! I don’t even really exist when you put me in a pot and boil away all the surface stuff, anyway. I don’t have my original birth certificate; no one calls me by the name my first mother gave me; hell, my first mother as far as I know never even touched me! I’m a ghost pretending to be real, and so if I step out on the plank and say I like maple walnut, if I have a preference, what if I’m the only person in the room that likes that flavor? That’s too much pressure! Too sad! Too much aloneness!

However, being like you is also frightening. I’m not you! I’m me! Maybe you’re not real!

Oh, my poor brain. Spinning spinning spinning.

And you want me to have a vision of my future??! How can I do that when I don’t know my past. You are crazy.

I can be anything, do anything?

Damn! That is the worst news! I don’t know what I want to do! I don’t know what I like! It’s not that easy, picking, choosing, being a wobbly arrow to an invisible target! 

Maybe I can eat my way to a decision.  

Maybe if I get married to you, you can tell me what to do so I can both feel purposeful and then hate you. 

Maybe my job can tell me who I am. 

Maybe my clothes can. 

Or my car.

So many of my things tell me who I’m not: I’m not my family. I’m not you. I’m not my stupid sweater that I wear every day but hate because it’s so not me. I’m not my life.

I’m…

I’m…

I’m…

I can’t choose. When you go to a candy store and there are six thousand amazing looking candies behind the glass and you are told to choose one, you will probably end up crying soon. How can you know you chose the right one? You barely even look at or taste the one you ended up picking because you are so busy thinking of all the others.

I’ll be damned if I’ll choose a life path because I do not want to choose the right one. It’s better just to drift, to wait for my real life to start then to commit to something that is not right.

 Welcome to the inside of an adoptee’s head.  

Shapiro says that mindfulness helps keep us focused on our intention, zeroing in on what’s most important. 

See, this is the kicker. When you are adopted, survival often feels like the most important thing, long after you’ve been swaddled, claimed, rocked. Long after you’ve grown up. When your body and mind is convinced you are a step away from dying (hello, old reptilian brain, you freaked-out crazy baby), caring about what flavor ice cream you have or what you are going to do with your life is asking your brain to do what it’s too worn out to—let you make decisions so you can become a fully realized human. 

This year I am going to make a million dollars and I am going to hire someone to come over my house every morning and night and hold me like a baby and rock me. In the late morning I will have someone come over to do some sort of somatic practice: yoga or Feldenkrais, perhaps. I am also going to hire someone to come over in the afternoon and give me a two-hour massage, helping ground me in my breath and skin. I will build an ice bath and a hot tub and a pool and utilize all three every day to again help ground me in my breath and skin. I will have a chef who makes me meals that keep my blood sugar balanced. I will have a specialized therapist give me MDMA and help me release any trauma my brain is holding onto. I will buy clothes I like. Clothes that would make my dead mother roll her eyes and say, Oh, Anne. I will build a house for myself because I can finally stay still long enough to buy a sofa and stay for a while. I will have rooms for family and friends because I will be comfortable enough, safe enough, real enough, to feel seen. 

This is sounding really expensive. I may need two million.

 When you are adopted, money helps. It doesn’t change history, but it sure can help butter the toast. 

Oh, yeah. And mindfulness. That helps, too.