Want to Hear a Door Slam? Hurt an Adoptee's Feelings.

In the past few months, I have let down three adoptees (that I know of). This means that either I didn’t show up as promised or I behaved in an unpredictable, unsupportive manner. 

Basically, I didn’t deliver safety. 

I don’t remember the first time it happened, the first time I felt the door inside of me slam shut to someone, but it has been a powerful force in my life, this slamming. When it happens it means there is no going back. The person I have slammed the door on is essentially dead to me. 

The thing is, it doesn’t feel like I am the one who slams the door. It’s something that happens inside of me, and my job is to play out the repercussions. No, I won’t answer your calls. No, I can’t breathe when you are close to me. No, nothing you say will make a difference. The bough was ripped from the tree. You can’t tape it back on. It’s dead.

Remind you of anything?

Re-living trauma that was never fully processed can be a life-long activity. My mother shut the door on me? Okay. Watch this. I can do that, too.

The problem is, of course, that slamming the door on you does nothing about how I feel about what happened when I was an infant. 

But I can’t stop trying because my body/mind has me by the neck. It dumps all these hormones into my system, and my hate and fury for you feels so real I can’t catch my breath long enough to consider the full picture. I have to act on my feelings or I feel I will lose my mind.

When I finally was able to write my story, it was because I had lost my mind. 

It was so scary. I was like a tornado. My bag of tricks had completely emptied out, and I was a hurt baby out in the world, lashing out at everything that rubbed me the wrong way: my work, my friends, my lover. I hate you I hate you I hate you.

That’s not it. It wasn’t hate. It was just not this. The feeling was not something I could language. It was a twisting, a sickening. Living with this feeling was like trying to drive while wasted. Sooner or later I was going to crash. I had to get out of the car. 

And so I did. 

I left. I put myself in a safe place--no one I knew was nearby; there was no one I had to talk to because I wasn’t answering the phone--and I wrote. I finally, finally, finally, listened to myself and put what felt like the story I needed to tell on paper. 

I stood in front of god or the universe and said I AM HERE.

It was terrifying and simple and huge and amazing and super sexy. 

I am here.

And instead of asking, What are you going to do about it? I learned to take agency and ask myself, What are you going to do about it? Not, How are other people going to behave?, but How am I going to behave? Not What are they going to do?, but What am I going to do?

I was no longer a pawn of my own creation. I was a key player. I had goals that were mine, dreams that were mine. All my life I knew I wanted to be a waitress, but that wasn’t something that was acceptable in my white-collar family. I knew I didn’t want to go to an office, live that kind of life, but boy did I sort of try. I bounced back and forth: Okay, I’ll try your way. Jeezus, I can’t do that anymore. I’ll do my way but not wholeheartedly because I’m afraid of your judgement, so I’ll end up going back to your way, etc. etc. etc. I’m not a waitress now, but I’m certainly doing my own thing, and it feels amazing, shocking, like coming up for air after a lifetime of living underwater and seeing just how easy it is to breathe.  

I am learning that I can’t entirely trust my body/mind. I am learning that sometimes when it tells me to run, to slam a door, that the healthier, truer choice is to stay, to not agree that the door is shut even though I can’t see any light in the cracks.  

The way to do this is to believe more in my commitment to my vision of who I am and what I want from my life than to believe in what my body/mind tells me. What this means is that I think about how I feel more than I think about how others feel, and not, I think, in some narcissistic way, but more in the I have to take care of myself before I take care of others way. If someone is late and my body/mind tells me, They don’t care about you. You don’t matter. They are worthless, dangerous. Ax them before they can hurt you again, I can take a deep breath, ten deep breaths, and ground myself in my heart, in love, even while thinking what I am doing is complete bullshit because I am so mired in hate and fear.

I can use my words. “I struggle when you are late,” I can say to the other person, secretly thinking I will kick them in the head if they don’t respond the way I want them to. “When I was a baby my mother left me and didn’t come back and part of me is still this little kid. I’m trying to grow up. This relationship is important to me and that’s why I’m telling you all of this. Know that I’m trying, okay? And also know that if you are late, I might freak out.” I say these things because part of me believes them, the part I like best, the part that does not want to kick others in the noggin. 

I’m still learning to communicate. There are probably many more skillful ways to say what I wrote above, but I’m learning. Just the fact that I am committed to using my words instead of running away buys me a lot of leeway with myself. Trying is good enough. I’m proud that I’m trying. Know what I mean? If people can’t handle my efforts, that’s fine. There are enough people out there who can. I’ll hang out with them.

When you have damaged a relationship and someone gives you a second, a third shot at repairing it, it’s can be like repairing cracks in ceramic with gold. Repaired relationships, to me, seem even more magical than the ones that suffered no earthquake. 

Amen.