[Ramned]

So depressed.

Well, I'm an adoptee. I reunited with my mother last december. It was and still is the best thing that has ever happened to me. It was also the toughest. I was overwhelmed by my emotions and I ceased with no warning communicating with her. After eight months of talking every day, I just stopped talking to her, and she promptly did the same.

When my birthday came a few months after this, she sent me a card telling me she respected my feelings and that if I chose not to communicate with her, she was okay with it, although saddened as well.

I decided to respond by sending her a letter and a book, the well-known "Primal Wound." I finally told her how awful my relationship with my adoptive mom was growing up (an abusive one) and I told her how much she meant to me. It was a fairly long letter from the bottom of my heart. I didn't know how else to explain to her why I had pulled back other than to just tell her everything.

Today, about four days after receiving it, she texted me this. I really am not sure what to make of it. I just want to move past this with her.

"Thank you for your letter. I want u to know that I have received it. It is a lot to absorb. My thoughts and feelings haven't settled down yet or fallen into any line of valued consideration. I am glad you shared with me so much and I am glad u reached out. However i am finding my emotions very pressed for a variety of reasons. I love u son but i dont feel comfortable responding directly to all u shared until i am sure of what i would like to say. in the interim i ask for ur understanding. i do hope that u have found clarity and some place less challenging of emotion. again, i love u. "

What do I make of this?

[RavenSong]

It can be devastating when a birth/first mom first learns of the abuse that happened when their reunited son or daughter was a child. It takes a while to process everything...at least it did for me.

My son opened up to me about the physical and emotional abuse he suffered as a child about a year or so into our reunion. (We reunited right after he turned 18.) That day is forever burned into my memory. I can still see the expression on his face, and I remember how time just seemed to stop for I don't know how long. All I remember saying at the time was, "I am so very, very sorry for putting you in harm's way. I am so sorry that this happened to you." I remember holding him close, just rocking back and forth with him while he cried and spilled his guts.

I saved my own emotional reaction for later that night when I was alone. I went down to the beach and screamed into the wind. I cursed God, his adoptive parents, my parents, his natural father...and myself most of all. It's a darn good thing that no one else was on the beach that late night, or else I would have been carted away in a straitjacket. The only other time in my entire life that I remember having such an intense emotional reaction was a couple weeks before my son was born. One night when I was all alone and nine months pregnant, I realized that our time together was almost up and that I was going to have to sign the surrender papers soon. I screamed and cried, pleading with God for a miracle that would allow us to remain together. I ended up totally exhausted, falling into bed. I had that same emotional exhaustion happen the night I learned of my son's abuse.

It's a lot to absorb, and I think your mother is most likely trying to find the right words to say. It's going to take her a while to process this new information. I am so glad, by the way, that you opened up and shared your history with her. That took a LOT of courage on your part. Try not to worry too much...I'm sure things will work out fine for the both of you. It sounds like both of you have a pretty good handle on the challenges of the early stages of reunion.

[Jillie_sweetheart]

I don't know that I have the words to even begin to describe the sadness that I feel from this post.

I am new here as well as new to this life as a birth mother. What I can offer though is that had I found out my little guy had been abused in any way, I would need time to process it. I placed my son with the hope of giving him the life I couldn't give him. I think it is the only way that I live with the guilt of the adoption. Finding out that he had to live a life of all the things I tried to prevent would break my heart so badly. Even just thinking about it makes it hard to breath.

[Hummermom]

Originally Posted by Ramned

So depressed.

Well, I'm an adoptee. I reunited with my mother last december. It was and still is the best thing that has ever happened to me. It was also the toughest. I was overwhelmed by my emotions and I ceased with no warning communicating with her. After eight months of talking every day, I just stopped talking to her, and she promptly did the same.

When my birthday came a few months after this, she sent me a card telling me she respected my feelings and that if I chose not to communicate with her, she was okay with it, although saddened as well.

I decided to respond by sending her a letter and a book, the well-known "Primal Wound." I finally told her how awful my relationship with my adoptive mom was growing up (an abusive one) and I told her how much she meant to me. It was a fairly long letter from the bottom of my heart. I didn't know how else to explain to her why I had pulled back other than to just tell her everything.

Today, about four days after receiving it, she texted me this. I really am not sure what to make of it. I just want to move past this with her.

"Thank you for your letter. I want u to know that I have received it. It is a lot to absorb. My thoughts and feelings haven't settled down yet or fallen into any line of valued consideration. I am glad you shared with me so much and I am glad u reached out. However i am finding my emotions very pressed for a variety of reasons. I love u son but i dont feel comfortable responding directly to all u shared until i am sure of what i would like to say. in the interim i ask for ur understanding. i do hope that u have found clarity and some place less challenging of emotion. again, i love u. "

What do I make of this?

It sounds to me that she wants to let the fury and anger of learning about your abuse to settle down a bit before she responds in depth. Like Raven said, it's a God-awful event, finding out that the people who were supposed to love and cherish your child did neither. She's struggling, struggling HARD, and she doesn't want to say the wrong thing to you in the midst of her struggle.

We don't want to add to our children's burden so we try really hard to respond to it all the right way. It takes some time to let the initial surge of hatred and guilt and anger subside so the rational can take the lead.

Please be patient, and if you really need to talk with her about it send her a text and ask for a date and time to call. That might help both her and you.

Hang tough, ramned. (((((ramned)))))

[Gwen72]

I can only imagine what she must be going through trying to deal with finding out that you were abused by your adoptive mother. We place our babies for adoption because we think that they will be better off being raised by someone else. We suffer from the loss of that child for the rest of our lives. Then to find out that our sacrifice and our suffering was in vain would be beyond devestating to me. Also, my son and I were reunited last May. He turned 20 in September. When I communicate with him it can take weeks for him to to respond to me. For instance, on his birthday I sent him a letter telling him about my pregnancy with him. I shared my thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams that I was going through at the time. I told him everything I did to try to keep him and the straw that finally broke my back when I knew I couldn't. I told him what I had named him. I opened a part of my soul that I had kept safely locked away for 20 years for him. I have not heard a peep from him since. Part of that is because he works full time and has a girlfriend and he is active in his church. Part of it must be that he is emotionally processing what I shared with him. Intellectually I understand this, but emotionally it hurts me when I share myself with him and he doesn't respond to me. So, when you just dropped off the radar of communicating with your birthmom she probably went through a terrible roller coaster ride of emotion about that like I do. It's my guess that she sent you the note she did because she doesn't want you to think that she has dropped off the radar because she doesn't want you to go through what that feels like. I would love it if my son sent me a letter like the one she sent to you. It would save my heart from so much turmoil. My advice is to give her some space to work through all of this. You guys will get past this and it will work out. (((hugs)))

[Hummermom]

Good points, Gwen. I take my cues in terms of frequency of contact from my son. I let him drive, and if I haven't heard from him in a while I send him a text just to say hi. I really don't want to overwhelm him.

Perhaps that's part of it, ramned?

[firstmom47]

As a birthmom in sporadic reunion I can tell you she wants to say a lot, but doesn't trust herself not to say too much or the wrong thing. We have this fantasy of having given our child the perfect life, even though it's unrealistic, and knowing bad stuff hurts....it also is tempting to think, "well, see, now he needs ME," which might not be true at all, or for very long.
I know sometimes I've said too much, sometimes too little, and it all seems so IMPORTANT that when it's off balance it feels like we've done something terrible.
Fear of driving the child away, guilt over the bad treatment by adoptive parents, which would feel like her fault for giving you up.
Write again, but about regular stuff in your life, ask about hers.
Each time there's emotional contact, there's fear that it will be withdrawn again, I don't know why, even though we want it. It's also hard when it's not in person, harder to judge reactions. When we don't have contact for a while, we assume the worst.

[VancouverShar]

It is absolutely cruel and devastating to drop contact with no explanation. You have no idea how crushing this is to first mothers!! We replay every word we've said, every reaction, over and over trying to determine what we did wrong. It can be debilitating.

Is it any wonder she needs time to sort this all out? She will be walking on eggshells for some time to come to make sure she doesn't invoke another sudden 'no contact' reaction. It brings back every emotion we felt the day of your birth. The guilt she feels will be overwhelming. She is devastated. We assumed you would be getting a better life and to realize this wasn't so is extremely difficult.

The Primal Wound is a good start but doesn't do much in the department of healing. I highly recommend the books written by Joel Soll - an adoptee.
https://www.adoptionhealing.com/Moms/
https://www.adoptionhealing.com/Adoptees/

My advice is to give her time. It was very brave to write that letter! My heart goes out to you for having to endure such a horrible upbringing and to have become the sensitive and caring person that you clearly are. Be patient with yourself and her.

[Ramned]

Thanks everyone for hearing me out. This site sure has helped me ALOT with all of the good advice there is here. I appreciate it.

[DeanClark26]

Originally Posted by Ramned

So depressed.

Well, I'm an adoptee. I reunited with my mother last december. It was and still is the best thing that has ever happened to me. It was also the toughest. I was overwhelmed by my emotions and I ceased with no warning communicating with her. After eight months of talking every day, I just stopped talking to her, and she promptly did the same.

When my birthday came a few months after this, she sent me a card telling me she respected my feelings and that if I chose not to communicate with her, she was okay with it, although saddened as well.

I decided to respond by sending her a letter and a book, the well-known "Primal Wound." I finally told her how awful my relationship with my adoptive mom was growing up (an abusive one) and I told her how much she meant to me. It was a fairly long letter from the bottom of my heart. I didn't know how else to explain to her why I had pulled back other than to just tell her everything.

Today, about four days after receiving it, she texted me this. I really am not sure what to make of it. I just want to move past this with her.

"Thank you for your letter. I want u to know that I have received it. It is a lot to absorb. My thoughts and feelings haven't settled down yet or fallen into any line of valued consideration. I am glad you shared with me so much and I am glad u reached out. However i am finding my emotions very pressed for a variety of reasons. I love u son but i dont feel comfortable responding directly to all u shared until i am sure of what i would like to say. in the interim i ask for ur understanding. i do hope that u have found clarity and some place less challenging of emotion. again, i love u. "

What do I make of this?

I am so sorry to hear that you had to go thought your life like you have. i am a birth mother of a 7 year old girl and put trust that i have made the best life choice for her. if i ever found out that she went tohugh any thing bad in the hands of her mother and father i think i would snap and flip out. when an adoptive parent takes a child in to their home the promise to love an dthak care of that child so it makes me sick to think some one could ever do any thing but. so sorry to hear everythin that is going on in your life you deserve a break and some one to love you it sounds like

[DeanClark26]

I am so sorry to hear that you had to go thought your life like you have. i am a birth mother of a 7 year old girl and put trust that i have made the best life choice for her. if i ever found out that she went tohugh any thing bad in the hands of her mother and father i think i would snap and flip out. when an adoptive parent takes a child in to their home the promise to love an dthak care of that child so it makes me sick to think some one could ever do any thing but. so sorry to hear everythin that is going on in your life you deserve a break and some one to love you it sounds like