Dear friends through adoption,
As I began searching in earnest for my birth mother, I didn’t realize how hard it would be to let go of deep feelings of loyalty to my Mom and Dad. I was loyal to a fault, always wanting to please them and not knowing that beneath it all was attachment disorder symptoms as well as unresolved grief.
Here’s an illustration to let you see what I mean. My parents, Retha and Mike Cook from St. Johns, Michigan, loved to golf. I didn’t like it at all, so when they went golfing, they would let me stay home. Yes, alone….and that’s another story.
One time when they were gone, I got the Pledge and the sweeper and boy, was I going to clean up the house for them. They would be so happy. When dusting my Mom’s dressing table, one of her gorgeous broaches lay open, and before I knew it, that broach was in my little hand (about 8 yrs old) and I was scratching this message into their fine furniture:
“I love you, Mommy” on the right side, and “I love you Daddy” on the left side.
When they got home, I led them through every room to show them how clean it was. When we got to the bedroom and they saw my scratched-in message, my Mom’s chin dropped. “We love you, too,” she stuttered.
If you’re not familiar with attachment disorder, this one is a classic.
Beneath the please-my-parents syndrome, however, was a deep fear of rejection. Would they ever reject me, their only child? My Mom never did, but it was a different story with my Dad later in life.
As adoptees, we need to let go of that need to be loyal to a fault…to please our parents, no matter how much effort it costs us. We need to let go.
This is not easy, but entirely possible!
Let me know about your experience, okay!
Thanks for visiting and reading, too:-)
