I tell myself a lot of things to remind myself that I’m alive everyday. I tell myself I’m ok. I tell myself that it’s ok to feel my feelings, that the negative feelings will pass. I tell myself to relax my shoulders, to unclench my jaw; sometimes I need to remind myself to breathe. Most days it takes massive amounts of effort to allow myself to take up space, to speak my mind and to allow myself to satisfy my own needs. 

These things appear to be so simple to the others, the non-adoptees. I think that these “simple” things are so difficult for adoptees because the [m]other never satisfied our needs when we were born, so do we really deserve for our needs to be satisfied now? 

I feel like a giant mistake, that I wasn’t supposed to be here, that I shouldn’t have been given life. How dare I take up space now? When these thoughts creep in (every day), I need to tell myself that I’m here for a reason; I have a right to take up space, to be seen and heard and to have my needs met. It’s a constant battle in my head. 

I was on my Wednesday night Flourish class last night when Pam quoted a psychologist by the name of John Bowlby. He said, “What cannot be communicated to the [m]other cannot be communicated to the self.”

B A M

Instant pressure in my chest. A  sudden wave of anxiousness came over me. I couldn’t focus on anything else. I kept thinking about what I couldn’t tell my [m]other, and in turn couldn’t tell myself…

[M]other I need you

Don’t leave me

Hold me

Take care of me

Fight for me

Love me

=

Self I need you

Don’t leave me

Hold me

Take care of me

Fight for me

Love me

That’s just the tip of the iceberg: the list could go on and on. These are the things I am most afraid to allow myself to feel in my heart, the thoughts that consume my brain until I’m physically ill with stomach pain. These are the things I don’t say to myself… but I need to!

Then I began to think about the word [m]other and the way I saw that quote printed with the letter m in brackets, leaving the word other separate. Then I started to think about the other mother, my adoptive [m]other. What would baby me have liked to say to her when she held me for the first time if I was able? What am I not saying now that I wish I could?

[m]other Who are you

I am not yours

You are not mine

Don’t touch me

I want to leave

I don’t belong here

While writing this out, I am coming to the realization that these are the things I say to myself every day subconsciously. 

[M]other = things I should be saying to myself

[m]other = things I need to stop saying to myself

[M]other is where I need to be living

[M]other

[M]other I still need you