The Third Rail of Adoption
third rail: an additional rail supplying electric current, used in some railroad systems. (informal definition: a subject or issue considered by politicians to be too controversial to discuss.)
Thoughts on electricity and self and adoption.
The words “adoption” or “adopted” are both so meaningless and meaningful at the same time that people should be educated and licensed to use them.
When a child is unskillfully told “You were adopted,” a third rail of electricity can enter their body, which, once triggered, will flair the nervous system until this person is nearly all nervous system and much less person.
For an example of how the third rail could get triggered, listen to Darryl McDaniel in one of my most favorite Moth Talks: https://themoth.org/stories/angel.
When one is mostly nervous system, life is often generally not all that appealing or fun or easy or good.
An activated nervous system, in my case, can become a prison. The brain believes you need to think more about what activates you. In thinking this, the brain causes you to see activation everywhere, even in your morning cereal, even in the tone a teacher takes with you, even in your own face. Everything becomes proof you are in trouble, unloved, and wrong. The more you think these things, the more proof becomes available to your eyes which are extensions of your brain which is desperate for proof that you are not safe so it can wind you up to look for safety which can result in a life of isolation and fear, for example.
One of the great gifts my recent brother’s death gave me was that it blew out my nervous system, big time, like—final flush kind of blow out. The proof of loss was so immediate and overwhelming, something in me waved the white flag after I yelled NO when my sister-in-law told me Sam had died and landed on the floor.
Hours later, I was with my daughter, and I stayed with her and her loving partner for days. I was in a safe place. I was loved. She was also blown out. She was safe with me. She was loved.
My third rail hummed, but something else was also happening. It was not comfortable because I did not know what it was. I just kept sitting, staying, feeling it all.
A week later, when I was back home, something in me felt like it was going to die. The scary part was that it felt like it might be me. I took me for a walk and listened. I realized it was a part of me that was feeling like she was dying. The part that had been Sam’s sister was dying and making place for a new part, the part that had survived the death of her brother. The part of me that had been part of a family of adopted children was also dying as my other sibling is in hospice. A part is replacing it, I can feel it happening in real time. It’s the part that got to be with people she loved, a part that didn’t think about the complicated story of adoption, just as you don’t think about music that plays so, so quietly in the background.
To survive and to pick your head up and look around is an amazing opportunity to see life through new eyes. When death touches you and passes by, sweetness and wonder often walk into the room and say LET’S GO DO SOMETHING COOL. LET’S GO FALL IN LOVE. LET’S DO THIS THING!
I have thought and written about adoption almost nonstop for over ten years. I feel like a plane that is flying through the clouds and is entering the blue sky that was always there above the darkness.
As I drove home from the park where Bird and I walked this morning, I touched my heart. “You are my person,” I said. I thought about my once trauma-electrified arms softening so they could wrap around me, hold me. My person LOVED hearing this, so I said it again. When I’m not managing the buzzing of the third rail, I can hear my own heart. I can better understand what resonates with me instead of matching up with what resonates with that buzzing third rail. I crave quiet like I used to crave New York Super Fudge Chunk. I’ve been headed for where I am, this quiet Airstream surrounded by an organic farm, for 61 years. I just had to keep going to find it.
