I'll be 40 this year, and have yet to know and discover my birth-mother, not to mention my birth-father, birth-siblings and other birth-relatives. These people, yes, real life people, are all out there but a complete mystery to me. I am starting to assume this is how it's going to be, that there will always be that missing connection. Separation at birth, undoubtedly affects the lives of both adult and child, more particularly, mother and child, both mentally and emotionally.
Unrelenting feelings of abandonment and loss are natural byproducts of being relinquished by adoption (also referred to as "emotional amputation"). I can certainly relate to that and have to believe that birth-mothers must feel that same loss, shrouded perhaps with painful guilt, grief and emptiness. Consciously or not, their inner selves have suffered.
I have also learned over the years that the need to be connected with my biological and historical past is an integral part of my identity formation. I am starved for that special bond that was developed in-utero. It's natural for me to want to hear her voice, smell her body, see her facial expressions, feel her skin - I was born to her. And in my case, I don't believe I will be healed until I do. If I don't, it's pretty simple that I will always be wounded by my adoption.
Knowing this all to be true, and knowing that I am not unlike any other makes it bearable, and even livable. It was the years of not knowing what was wrong with me... Why did I feel so sad all the time? Now I can see a reason for those feelings. I've been able to expand my thoughts to include consideration of the feelings of the woman who gave me birth, but could not give me life.
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