Adoptees and Ugliness -- Thoughts after Flourish

I am wondering how many adopted people believe they were relinquished by the mother because they, the baby that was given up, was ugly.

When I talk with other adoptees, it is not uncommon to hear that, despite being aware that the thinking is a little crazy, they believe there was something wrong with them as a baby, that they were not good enough, not attractive enough, to keep. This is not a feeling that adoptees seem to grow out of. It’s like a label stuck to the body: UGLY.

I am also wondering about the confusion between being a body and being a piece of shit. Both things can emerge from a woman’s body, and if a baby comes out and is not treated like a baby but instead like a thing that can go from one set of hands to another, is there brain confusion regarding which hole one actually emerged from, leading to the more likely than not unconscious question, Am I a person or excrement meant to be disposed of?

Sometimes I feel one reason so many adopted people struggle is that the deepest questions are not all that palatable and so often go unasked.

The things I feel I can not say or ask become veils between us. You can’t plug a lamp into a socket if there is a piece of cloth between the two. How can I truly connect with you when there is so much I can’t say?

And why can’t I say it?

What would happen if we sat across from each other and made a list of all the things we could not tell each other or say to each other? What would happen if we passed these lists across the table and read each other’s words?

The way to get the plug through the cloth is to tear the cloth.

Nothing will ever be the same. And there will be light.