[Jackiejdajda]

Knittygirl

I am in a state of emotional crisis after my mother's recent disclosure of having a daughter out of wedlock in 1970 and giving her up for adoption. I am 33 years old and was never told of this person's existence until she initiated contact with my mother.

I gave my son up in /65 and I was not allowed to see him.. I was not able to grieve (show emotions) as I slept on my mom and dads couch for a year or so after giving him up.. (yes I landed on them and yes they helped me to the best of their ability)

What happened to you is wrong.. My daughter (I told her when she was eleven or so) asked me if I had any other secrets..
And….. she had had dreams about me leaving her.. before that..
I know I did wrong by my kids by not telling them.. I told them when bson was in his twenties and may find me.. and I also had decided to turn around and face my emotions.. and seek therapy etc..

While my mom had previously decided to take this secret to her grave and never inform me or my full sister, she immediately began having near daily phone contact with this person, has visited her several times, calls adopted daughter's children her grandchildren. They only started having contact 3 months ago.

I will not do a critique on your mom and how the reunion is going.. but I personally believe a reunion needs to be slow.. and heck needs to be seeing all involved.. you..
IMO Its this darn secret keeping.. and being told I must never tell..
Being told by the workers at the agency at that time.. (the common belief) that I need to just get on with my life and forget..

The so called experts told us this!

It is so toxic..

My sister and I did not speak for a long long time.. after our relationship dwindled because of the secret..
We ended up fighting..

There is a book.. Written by John Bradshaw called Family Secrets..

Here is part of an interview with him.. about this..
Family Secrets - An Interview with John Bradshaw

RP: In Family Secrets you talk about how patterns or secrets that we have may have come from our parents, their parents, or other previous generations. And by discovering or uncovering these types of patterns, a lot of healing can take place for individuals in the family.

JB: Yes. There is a family mapping system that was developed by Murray Bowen called a Genogram. Most family systems theorists and therapists use this family map because it's a way to get a rather quick picture of the generational context of a person's symptoms or problems.

Bowen felt that most failures in families were about the parent's developmental deficits and immaturities, so that they would function like an adult in some areas and more like a child in other areas.

Bowen discovered that people were often carrying the projections of their parents own immaturity. He could trace it back to the previous generation. And he saw that that generation had not gotten healthy parenting because their parents may have been extremely immature.

The genogram helps you to see your family visually in a larger context. And this helps to reduce blame, because you see that a lot of problems you have, your mother had and her mother had.

I will add that I think my parents with their desire to keep the secret were part of the societies toxicity.. If you read books by Rickie Solinger like Wake Up Little Susie you will see how this went down..

I am struggling mightily to cope with and accept this situation. I was raised the first born child in my family and it has been an identity crisis of such to discover that there was another one before me. Also, my mother is very critical of my feelings of betrayal, sadness, fear that our relationship will never recover this situation. I am in therapy, but can't seem to work things out with my mom so that we can even talk about this without fighting. She tells me that I should be happy for her, and should just decide not to be upset any more.

Some will call this (what is happening in your moms reunion) part of the honeymoon period.. So may emotions coming up.. so fast..

Bottom line your upset is justified.. it is real..

I can't just stuff my own feelings like that. I feel like she is cheating on me with another daughter and I can't find any source of support from others who may have gone through something similar.

Not telling you.. and not telling the world that a person has given a child up for adoption is dysfunctional.. is wrong..
But it happened.. and now hopefully you can learn how to heal from it.. I am glad you are with us.. I hope you stay and learn more.. Teach us what you are going through.. Show someone that maybe they need to tell the telling and face the dragon..

I am hoping that someone out there will see this and offer me some contructive advice as to how to mend my relationship with my mom and come to terms with this person who seems to be replacing me in my own family.

As John Bradshaw says.. family secrets are toxic.. I say start from there..

Jackie