Adoption, Coming Out of the Fog, the Valley of Suck, Doorways of Possibility
For the last few years I’ve felt as if I was in some new stage of adoptee life, only I didn’t know what it was. It felt a little like aging woman driving towards a wall with not much hope in her heart.
I came to Provincetown to look life in the eye and ask it what it wants of me. I felt deeply confused, and I yearned for clarity.
A month in, I pictured myself in the Valley of Suck. It’s a soulless place, and in its center there is a hole that pulls everything down into it. When you are there, you are the only person around. It’s you, the valley, the hole, and your thoughts.
For many adopted people, their early years are spent maybe thinking about adoption, but not that much, or not knowing what to do with the thoughts or why they are having them. Coming out of the fog is the time when the person realizes that, in fact, adoption has affected much if not all of their life and body. This is where storytelling kicks in big time. The brain, not knowing the details of things such as who the mother is, who the father is, why you the baby were actually relinquished, who held you after you were born, who cared for you after you were born, what your first name was, who you would have been if you hadn’t been adopted etc, kicks into full gear and starts, like a spider with a thread of narrative coming out of its butt, spins and spins, trying to catch something that will feed it and make it feel whole and safe.
The Valley of Suck is you with your brain trying to make a story, a history, a present, a future out of thoughts—and thoughts are not even, uh, real, right? Can you put one in a jar and look at it? Can you hold one in your hand? They are…thoughts. Since our brain has a negativity bias, the thoughts it churns out can create a prison of fear and depression. I was not wanted. There’s something wrong with me. I am not like other people. I can’t attach. I am in trouble. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I want. This life is not my real life. I am not my real self. No one really sees me. No one cares what adoption did to me. No one listens.
The Valley of Suck lives, I believe in the left brain, and the left brain does not know the right brain, home of creativity and and freedom, exists. The left brain believes in itself. It believes what it says is the truth and the whole truth. (I could be wrong about all this, but I also could be right. Read Jill Bolte Taylor’s Whole Brain Living for a more accurate account.) What this means is that the Valley of Suck is you with your stories of loss and not belonging and trouble, believing yourself. The Valley of Suck wants to bring you into the hole of suck so you can finally disappear and be “safe”.
This is not unlike a hero’s journey. The hero goes into the pit of snakes and suddenly a hand emerges to pull the hero out. What I have discovered is that the Valley of Suck has Doorways of Possibility. I have found them myself through writing, through connecting with other people, through reading the work of people who have been through some sort of hell and have come out the other side. I think the trick is, at least for me, to realize the Valley of Suck is not all there is. That it’s an emotional state, and that I need to keep finding ways to find hope that there are stars in the sky for me to reach for. The Doorways of Possibility are amazing in that they are often things we never knew to even look for. For example, a new Doorway of Possibility for me has been the realization that I don’t have to be afraid of or avoid the sadness I carry. I felt lighter with this thought. I’m more able to be myself if I don’t have to mask how I really feel. I didn’t know I could do that—be sad when everyone else around me is happy. I thought I had to try to make other people comfortable. But if I’m comfortable with my own sadness, what’s the problem?
Know what I mean?
