There was a time when I skirted the topic in conversation. Every time I had to twist or orchestrate an answer so as to steer away from what I was hiding, I felt uncomfortable and sad. I think some of us, instead of heeding that discomfort, just get used to it.

And it spills over. We find that there are other stories that must be rewritten as well in order to better insulate our secret.
My secrets made me insecure and gave me anxiety. They didn’t want to be kept.

When my new friend (from the previous post) and I placed, the institution and culture of adoption had barely begun to see how it had erred. For generations, we were told to just pretend and deny, and that it would go away. This would be best for us. Even if this was not the counsel given, there was no venue for our stories to be told.

I have met several women over the years who tried this prescription. It failed. Many have started from where they left off. At 15-20+ years post-placement, they come out of the birthmom closet and they begin the healing and sharing and processing what they’ve denied themselves. We find that most of the fears that held us hostage were unfounded. And those which have come true, we can brave. The liberation is well worth the vulnerability.

There are others sadly, who through the lens of their own damaging experience, can only see adoption as damaging.

My hurting friend expressed the frustration her secret had caused in her relationships. How can anyone know us if we conceal from them something so very defining? No one will ever know me until they know my adoption story.

I remember from those protective days the anxiety I would feel when I’d come to the point where, for whatever reason, it was time to expose myself. I’d built it up so much, I’d entertained so many dreadful scenarios of what might happen if anyone saw. It was these experiences that taught me that my fears were my own creation and when faced, they never lived up to their fierceness.

“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

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As we went from each segment of the lesson, my withheld comment continued to be relevant and the prompt to share continued to press on me.

Finally in the last moments of the lesson, I decided I’d better heed.

I started “Do you mind if I share something of a rather personal nature?”

The instructor joked “How personal?”

“Well, it starts ‘When I was 17 and pregnant’”.

I shared a small part of my adoption story. I’ve learned to be candid and even use humor so as to put people at ease that I am ok, that they aren’t watching someone fall apart.

I spoke for about 4 minutes and before I’d finished, there were sniffles from every direction and every woman within arms length seemed to have a hand on me. There were whispers from every side; “thank you for that”, “bless you”, etc. It was actually incredibly sweet.

In a few moments, the class was over and a teary faced woman was making a B-line for me. “Did you come here with people? I need to talk to you, please”

“No, I’m free.”

We went to the back of the classroom. “How did you do that?!” she said. “How could you be so brave?!”

She proceeded to tell me that she’d placed 17 years ago and discovered that talking to her friends and family about it made them uncomfortable. So she did what so many of us did, especially in those days of little or no adoption community or resources. She buried it. She’d almost never spoken of it. She talked to me of guilt, secrecy, loneliness, and feeling undeserving, of fear of being judged and misunderstood.

In the next few posts, I’d like to explore the differences that have brought her and me to our respective view of our experience, and a few things I’ve discovered that have helped me with many of these struggles.

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