Adopted People and Narcissists

It occurred to me the other day that so many adoptees, especially those newly coming out of the fog of thinking adoption had not affected their lives, are like drowning people, desperately grasping for a sense of self and belonging, and that, generally, if you’re looking for people to trust, a drowning person would not be first on your list. And if you’re drowning, where is your trust in anything?

So I was thinking about trust.

And then I started thinking that insecurity about your place in your body and in the world can lead to a life where you either feel surrounded by narcissists because you never show up as yourself and so you let everyone steal the show because you’re offering no show yourself, or a life where you feel like a narcissist because you seem to only care about yourself.

It occurred to me that what I take as self-centeredness in myself—a preoccupation with finding a safe felt sense of self in the world—is perhaps a corrupted version of narcissism. Narcissus was cursed by the gods and fell in love with his own reflection until he withered away and died because he did not care about tending to other, basic needs such as eating.

I’m obsessed with finding a reflection.

What if adoptees secretly champion narcissists because we see that narcissists have what we most want: a true reflection of the self? What if to adoptees of course our parents would look like narcissists since they can’t possibly mirror us back to ourselves in the way a biological parent would, and we can’t possibly mirror our adoptive parents back to themselves as their biological child would? So in our eyes, they are only seeing themselves. And, perhaps also, they, our parents, see us only seeing ourselves in some cases and this leads them to Facebook groups where they can commiserate with other adoptive parents about their self-centered, badly behaved children.

Once upon a time there was a child who was adopted. She’d had many surgeries to correct a body issue before her parents adopted her when she was a few years old. The girl went down to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get snacks. The mother knew this happened because the girl left clues. Crumbs. Drawers open. The rule of the house was no eating at night, so the mother locked the girl’s bedroom from the outside during the night.

The end.

This story is one reason I can’t stop writing about adoption.

There are some fundamental misunderstandings about the body and trauma that are breaking people’s hearts and spirits and ability to stay.

This piece wasn’t meant to add up to a conclusion. I had some things on my mind, and I wanted to get them on paper so I could see what happens next.