Life after Trauma

Return to sender - of birthdays, silence & sorrow

They say everything can be replaced/Yet every distance is not near

Bob Dylan

Return to sender (Donovan Beeson, flickr creative commons)

 

When I got back from a recent trip, I didn't check the mail for a few days. When I did, I found the card that I'd sent to my daughter - the one who I relinquished for adoption and who I'm estranged from - in the mailbox. There was a yellow sticker on the bottom right hand corner of the card that read, "Return to Sender. Not Deliverable as Addressed. Unable to Forward." I was so upset that I barely touched the card and threw it, unopened,  on the table with the other mail. I was upset because a previous letter that I'd sent came back with a slightly different message: "No mail receptacle." That was a message I'd never seen, so I phoned my daughter's local post office, located in a small town near her rural home. They told me that my daughter was having her mail held or forwarded for a year - I don't remember which - and, then, assured me that if I sent the card  back in a new envelope, addressed as the first one was, they - i.e. the post mistress - would make sure it was forwarded. I believed her and did what she said, only to discover upon my return home, that it had NOT been forwarded. 

 

Angel of sorrow (ekletik2xs, flickr creative commons)

 

I was sad when I made the discovery, but even sadder a few days later when I realized that for the first time since my daughter and I were reunited thirteen years ago, I couldn't send her a birthday card. It didn't matter that I haven't spoken to my daughter in three years. (As of yesterday, July 25.) Somehow it didn't seem so final if I could send her a birthday card, as I've faithfully done on the previous two birthdays since we've been estranged. See more about the story of our estrangement by clicking on the link: Estrangement - telling our stories. Yesterday - July 25th - was the 42nd anniversary of the first time I lost my daughter and the third anniversary of our estrangement. I guess that means that I've only been in touch with my daughter for about ten years of her life. Not for lack of trying or lack of hoping. No, that's the way adoption was done back in the 60s and 70s and, today, both my daughter and I are still living with the aftershocks of the day we parted. We both left the hospital alive on that long ago day, but something died: the normal relationship between mother and daughter was lost forever. Does that make me sad? Yes, yes, yes! More than I can find a way to convey. However, the deepness of the sorrow and frustration I felt yesterday, frightened me. It's appropriate to grieve, but I know that I have to let go of the hope that someday my daughter and I can be a mother and daughter again. 

 

bouquet, flickr creative commons

 

 Letting go of that hope feels so painful that it's hard to think of a metaphor. The best one I can come up with is imagining that the roots of a tree called sorrow are growing around my heart.  Pulling this sorrow tree out feels like it would kill me, but I have to try. "Don't let your grief hold you hostage," my therapist said today, when we talked. Amongst other things we talked about what letting go might look like and we also discussed suggestions for a personal ritual of closure. Letting something go into the ocean - which I live near - was one of the things we discussed. I immediately thought of a small creek in a nearby botanical garden. The woods are deep there, a small wooden bridge crosses the creek, and it's a quiet spot, perfect for such a ritual. Right now, it's too dry for there to be any water in the creek, but come fall and the rains, I can plan a ritual that involves a close friend or, if he'll participate, my son. After all, my first daughter is his half-sister. I can picture the flowers and how they will twist and turn in the current before heading along their journey to the sea. I like the ideal; it's a place to start.

Meanwhile, I still have the card sitting here on the table in front of me. It was a beautiful card, carefully chosen, telling my daughter that I would be in Michigan for a few weeks where I thought she was - indeed, may be - living and suggesting we get together for coffee. Of course, she never saw the card. I'll probably put it in the box with the mementoes I've collected over our decade of reunion. Only time will tell whether someday in the indefinite future we'll be back in touch again. For now, though, I have to get on with my life, and set at least part of this heavy burden down. It's time. 

In the years that my daughter and I led separate lives and neither knew where the other was, I often kept the words of one of my favorite Motown songs in my mind.  "There ain't no mountain high enough/Ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough/To keep me from getting to you." I never imagined that my daughter would be the mountain or the river - that she would be the one who wouldn't let me get to her. More on why adoption reunions fail and how to cope in a future post.

  

Why is it important for trauma survivors to speak out?

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 

I Can't Hear Your Pain

"I need to minimize my exposure to your pain," a friend told me recently, while we were discussing some of the traumatic events we've both experienced in our lives. Sadly, this isn't the first time I've heard those words. Another friend told me that "it makes her stomach hurt," to hear about my past experiences. The friend who I met for coffee last week, happens to be the father of the daughter I relinquished for adoption: aka my ex. The original intention of our reunion was to discuss and heal from the experiences of the past. Now, he's decided that he doesn't have room in his life for me anymore and he doesn't want to hear anymore about my grief. What he had to say hurt, but I had seen it coming for a long time and I wasn't surprised. 

The Loneliness of Trauma

Processing trauma can get very lonely at times. Therapist Dr. Kathleen Young refers to this as trauma stigma and her take on what silencing can mean to trauma survivors is worth reading.  I am a trauma survivor with complex PTSD and complicated grief recovering from and processing multiple traumas that took place over 20 years of my life - ages 17 to 37. That doesn't mean that I talk about trauma all the time. Far from it. I would get exhausted. However, there are times when I want to share how I'm feeling with friends, family and - in the case of my ex and my husband - those who have gone through traumatic experiences with me. I  have several wonderful friends who are not afraid of my pain. They can let me feel what I feel and be who I am. This is not a small gift. Others - even people I love - behave as if trauma is contagious and the less said about it the better. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that they can't really understand what it means to be silenced. Sometimes, however, this is no longer possible. It is not healthy to be silenced. The problem isn't that I MUST always speak about my pain. The problem is that the traumas I experienced are a part of me and, even though I am working on healing, the pain may never be entirely gone. And so, I have to limit my exposure to people who want to silence me. 

Speaking Up

My ex followed up our talk with a hurtful email that said, amongst other things, that being reunited with our daughter should make up for any trauma that I experienced in the past and that he wasn't interested in holding my hand while I continued to grieve. If it were only that simple. My relationship with my daughter is a tenuous thing and she hasn't spoken to me in over a year, while my ex sees her and talks to her regularly. Both my ex and my daughter imply that "if only you would change and let go of the past everything would be great." That might be true. But it is hard for me to believe. Telling people that "if only you change, I'll love you," rarely seems to work, at least in my experience. My therapist has often told me not to disown that part of myself that experienced the trauma. I also know that if I tried to silence that part of me, not only wouldn't it work, but I would have to erase a large part of myself and I can't do that. It reminds me of the hikers we met along the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. There was a large dead seal near where they had pitched their tent They had simply thrown some dirt over the seal and moved their tent 20 feet. Both black bears and mountain lions frequent that stretch of the trail and neither animal would be the least bit fooled by dirt. Trying to cover up trauma and grief can be that way: only the person burying it thinks it's hidden.  To get back to my ex, I responded to his email with one of my own. Amongst other things, I said that "I am tired of your anger and your inability to accept me for who I am."  And that's what it comes down to: acceptance or silencing. I have silenced myself for many years and now that I am learning to speak out, I can't stop. I have a voice and I need to use it. That doesn't mean I have to speak out at inappropriate times and places. All I know is that I don't want to be silenced again. And after I sent the email, I felt a burden lift from my heart. Below, Dr. Maya Angelou reads her poem "And Still I Rise," Her poem evokes the beautiful resiliency of the human spirit under difficult circumstances. It is a poem that resonates with me. 

 

 

Has anyone ever silenced you when you were sharing your feelings about past traumas or your grief? What did you do?

This is the first in a series of posts on trauma within communities and why trauma survivors need to speak out in order to heal.  

Thanksgiving - A tough time for some parents

They say everything can be replaced

[But] Every distance is not near

                    Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Released 

 
                                                Mother and daughter 

Another holiday is here and with it, for parents like myself, comes another day when we don't hear from children who are no longer in our lives. It shouldn't make a difference that today is Thanksgiving. After all, my daughter - who I relinquished for adoption when she was a baby - and I have never spent Thanksgiving together - although we had been in reunion for almost 10 years. But it hurts just the same. It hurts that she won't be phoning to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving and is probably eating Thanksgiving dinner with the mother who raised her and her biological father. An unconventional arrangement, to be sure. How it happened is too complicated to explain in this post. In a nutshell, I live on the West Coast and her biological father lives only a few minutes drive away from my daughter. Last year, my daughter's husband died suddenly and things slid downhill from there. Before that, we visited each other most summers and remembered each other on holidays. Now, all that is gone.

Welcome to the heartbreakingly uncertain world of parents with estranged adult children. According to experts like Dr. Joshua Coleman, this type of estrangement is a growing epidemic. And it is never tougher than on holidays. Read  Strangers at the Table for Dr. Coleman's take on why the holidays are so hard. It helps when you realize you're not alone. Still there is no getting around the painful uncertainty of never knowing when the phone might ring and it will be your son/daughter on the other end of the line. When Family Ties Unravel discusses this issue and offers some light at the end of the tunnel. The fact is that many estranged adult children and parents eventually reconcile. On the other hand, others do not.

My grandmother never lived to see the son who left home at 18. Junior was the boy sandwiched between my mother and her older sister Eve. He was a handsome young man who, as can be the way with middle children whether you are the middle of 3 or 12, felt that his father didn't treat him fairly. I don't know whether there was a final argument that made up Junior's mind or whether he meant to come home and never did. All I know is that when he walked out the door of my grandparents house one day in the 1950s, he never came back. Grandma never spoke about it. She was a loving mother, however, so I'm sure she thought about it and, as a Nazerene, I'm sure she prayed about it. I hope those prayers gave her comfort.

The fact is, it doesn't matter how many children one has, the one who is "gone" will always be on your mind. There are stages in the grief of "losing" a child to estrangement, just as there are in losing one to death. However, unlike death there is still hope. This hope can break your heart sometimes and it can also be that tiny spark of love that hasn't gone out. So, on Thanksgiving, if you're grieving for a "missing" child it's okay to feel sad. But even if you're sad, give yourself a break and listen to the Bob Marley song below (sung by Tracy Chapman). I know it always puts a smile on my face. And take a moment to read the poem below. It's not necessarily about estranged parents and children, but it could be. 

 

 

The Place Where We Are Right

From the place where we are right       

flowers will never grow 

in the spring.

 

The place where we are right

is hard and trampled

like a yard.

 

But doubts and loves

dig up the world

like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place

where the ruined

house once stood.

                Yehuda Amichai (translated from the Hebrew by Stephen Mitchell)

For more on parents and estranged adult children see When Parents Hurt.  Also see 3 Tips for Successful Reunions.