The word “adopt” originated from the Latin word adoptare. (ad — to + optare — choose).

If I can be adopted, I can also adopt (“to take as ones own”).

If I can be chosen, I can also choose.

I choose this reality. I choose this story. I choose this interpretation of events.

It’s an amazing moment when, as a child, you realize you can manipulate reality with language. You can decide what happened in how you tell a story. If you are resolute, if you refuse to admit things might have happened another way, you become the creator of your universe. You might even be confused when people call you a liar because you have, like a great Method actor, become your role.

I would have chewed off my own arm before I would have admitted to my parents I was lying to them. What they saw perhaps as a step from A to B (this is true/okay, it’s not true— lied), I saw as annihilation of self (this is true because I said it/if this is not true, neither am I and the repercussions of this fact are unimaginable).

I was a child who was being sucked in by an undertow no one could see. Lies were one way to stay above water. I needed someone to recognize the danger I was in as I sat there nicely dressed at the dinner table with a plateful of food and no idea why I was so moody. I needed someone to say, “Sweet Baby, come here. Let me hold you. Let me rock you. What’s wrong? I have all night. All day. All month. All year. I will wait. You can tell me slowly or not at all, but I will keep holding on. You need help seeing how precious you are, I think. We can get that help. I’ve got you. Everything is going to be okay.”

And then get the help. Have those people who have walked this path of motherloss trauma on speed dial and get them on the phone. Get them to your house. Bring in the army of those who know relinquishment and trauma and the brain.

Now.

(I wrote this while I was halfway through listening to Robyn Gobbel’s webinar on Lying as a Trauma Behavior.)