[Peggysue]

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone else feel that they might be reacting to current situations from their frozen baby state, especially when it comes to expecting others to know what you need? Let me clarify!

In her book "The Primal Wound" Nancy Verrier points out that whilst all mothers, in today's busy world, may miss some of their babies signals, amothers are not naturally attuned to them as are bmothers. Also they do not realise the trauma the baby is suffering due to the loss of the bmother. So with the best will in the world there may be signals amothers have been unable to read.

I'm now wondering if I was sending out signals to my carers (foster and amothers) expecting them to automatically know what I needed. But more than that; do I do it today? Do I expect those around me to automatically understand my issues and problems. Is the frozen baby inside me expecting instant understanding from her nearest and dearest?

Does anyone else feel they are looking to their loved ones, at least in part, as if they should be able to see and understand their needs without asking?

Peggysue

[Jody M]

Hi Peggy Sue and thanks for writing and asking this questions. As an adoptee, I too read the book The Primal Wound. It was a VERY important book for me as an adoptee even though I did not agree 100% on all the insights drawn in it. I do think that there are extra hurdles often in adoptive relationships due to the true reality of the baby's 1st separation. Also any new moms can own apprehensions and insecurity and lack of readiness in bonding and attachment- and can convey this to a baby. But I do not think this is specifically an adoption issue. I know women who have mothered their biological children and felt anxious or hated breast feeding or felt very insecure in the mothering of newborn infants And there is the spectrum of moms who just seem to naturally mother and others who feel awkward or afraid or insecure. And yes, SOME adoptive mothers may feel some emotional issues and lack of entitlement to the child early on, or stress/strain on bonding as they witness the birth mothers sadness/pain. I know some adoptive moms in open adoptions that find it extremely difficult to not think of the grieving birth mother and their pain and this impedes their relaxing and embracing the child that is their own.
A comment- I was adopted at 9 mos of age after a quite "rocky" first year. I was born early and hospitalized the first 2 mos and fostered from 2-9 mos and then adopted by a new family. Lots of change, losses and separations. But I have been told that I attached well to the foster family and their older 2 teen daughters who nutured me and then I also bonded well to my adoptive mom. My adoptive mom did say I cried alot the first few days of placement in their home- (understandibily!) I had lost everything and everyone familiar to me- sights, sounds, smells and familiar nuture. But my adoptive mom and I bonded ( I am amazed with all my 1st year changes) and my mom is now 84 and we are super close. Sadly my birth mother died young and when I found my birth siblings , she was deceased many years before. She had a big problem with alcoholism, so she would not have been intune with my needs or been sensitive to my signals. I am sure it is a case by case situtation.
From my months in the hospital and such- I believe I learned to "soothe" myself when I cried- My husband noticed that I "rocked my feet at night"as if rocking myself to sleep- INTERESTING. Meeting my own needs for I did not have a single caregiver in my earliest days- but had to learn to soothe myself!!
Now that I have written a short novel- thanks and hope other adoptees will share in this discussion.
Blessings, Jody

[BrockBaby]

Very interesting post and question!! I love these thought provoking ones! I have also read the book, have many things highlighted and stars beside it, but there are things I don't totally agree with as well. I do think that A LOT of the book explained me. I was the poster child for the compliant child, in my mind as a child. I did everything I could to please my parents, but I can remember times when it seemed that I couldn't do anything right. I always felt like I was making mistakes and not "good enough". This was mainly in my family life. Personally, I think I didn't expect anyone to "understand my issues or needs". I was a child who didn't "need" anyone or anything. I hated anything that had to do with security, outside of myself. I felt blankets were for wimps...as a close family friend had one and I thought she was so stupid for having a "woobie". I didn't "need" a particular doll, stuffed animal, or other "security" item. I had me. I don't know that I totally bonded with my mom. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE her....but I don't have one of those relationships where I feel comfortable telling her personal things, but I'll tell my friends. So it's not like it's a matter of being a closed person. I just always depended on me...and didn't expect others to meet needs for me. It's sad really.
An interesting side note... I, too, am a foot rocker. My mom use to tell me, when you sleep your foot bounces.... SO, maybe there's something to this?!

[shef]

I have read some of nancy verriers book coming home to self....i think she makes some very interestin gpoints, especailly about how the brain can be underdeveloped and almost damaged becasue of truama in the womb etc.....
I dont really know if I expect others to know my needs.....as to be honest, I dont always know waht they are either...and so give out many mixed messages to others at times.
I know that in the years early months and years I was in the orphange, tehre were many babies, and we were all treated the same on rote so to speak. So we were all fed, left in our cots etc at the same times..and even put on the pot at the same time...can you imagine rows of tiny tots all sat on the pot side by side! I think becasue like Jody, we had not specific carer, then who would get to know our individual needs anyway.....I have always had a problem with that subconcioucly so maybe it does go back to those frozen baby days. How will we ever know peggy sue?
I was already potty trained and a young 3yr old when i went to my foster family....so I had learn to cope by splitting off any "baby" needs...but I have to now say, since trying to face some of the deeper issues due to relinquishment and adoption etc these past few years...something like you talk about has surfaced....and i think I never have understood why it was when my foster mother was dying, I knelt by her bed like a child, and said in my head, please dont leave me, you havent told me you love me yet.....you havent held me yet like I need.....so your question is good one......if we allow the frozen baby state to defrost, what happens then I wonder?

shefalie

[Peggysue]

Wow, amazing replies ladies. Thanks for sharing. I felt I wanted to go back in time and pick up and comfort the baby you, for all of you. Shef, your description of all the little children on the potty together was heart-rending. BrockBaby it seems so sad that you became so self-reliant, no doubt so others couldn't hurt you. You come across now as a very friendly person. Jody, I didn't realise you had experienced so many changes before your adoption. I can see how you and Brockbaby were comforting yourselves with your foot-rocking. No-one has told me that I do that, but when I'm feeling low I curl up and rock myself.

I too had incredibly good bonding with my amother, who I really thought of as my mother. Sometimes with my cousins I am aware that I am not a biological relation, but I never felt that I wasn't a child of my aparents, and I think my amother did pick up what signals she could. But I just wondered if I expect too much of friends and did with my ex-husband; acting out of the frozen baby state. It seems that this is not a common issue and I take your point Jody about biological mothers varying in their nurturing abilities. We seemed to have had particular good amothers. I had never realised before how amothers in open adoptions might feel about the bmothers. It was an eye-opener, and something which must be difficult for both mothers.

BrockBaby I can identify with the compliant child. Was the 'not feeling good enough' a throw back to relinquishment? I can see what you are saying Shef about changes in carers. I suppose individual carers would get to know things about the children, but it must be disruptive for the children, when the carer went off shift. I can imagine the ache for that carer to come back, or for the child to be acknowledged. Shef, you mention "splitting off" I have read about that, but don't quite understand its implications. You wrote poignantly about your foster-mother dying. The Shef-at-whatever-age-you-were-then would be bereaved. Are you saying that the frozen baby was also there, asking for assurance of her foster-mother's love and maybe trying to make-up for the ealier years in the orphanage? From what you write I'm sure she must have loved you dearly, but I can see how you would want reassurance.

I'm glad you mentioned Nancy Veriier's Coming Home to Self. I was thinking about buying it.

The question about allowing the frozen baby to defrost is a good one. What does happen? Can we handle it?

Blessings,

Peggysue

[shef]

Hi peggy Sue.

I think nancy Verrier has some good pointers for adoptees about learning how to stay more in the adult than the child in her book, and how she challenges us to take more responsibility for our lives and how we live them, like not blaming or being victims of other people choices or circumstances.
I have to say though, that since asking God to help me, that is the only way I have been able to find healing and some victory in these areas, not through psychology, ive tried all sorts to help me heal, I have been in the new age stuff..and gotten more into diffiuclties....and God has to dig a bit deeper in the pit to haul me out...Thank you Jesus he is doing that.

As for the frozen baby.....well I dont understand it all....but when i say splittin goff, what i mean by that is that i have sort of seperted the baby needs that i have seen in me, and shut them off, like I dont allow them to have an existence..so I hide them, push them down, ignore them until I beleive they arent there, becasue I cant or oculdnt cope with them.
For me...since I have not had any referecne or mirroring of my time as a baby or toddler before i was fostered, its almost as though I never thought about myself as a baby at all. No one ever talked about her, no one mentioned the normal things about being in my mothers tummy, and I knew my foster mother was not my mother...so I just lived "as if" I started life at age 3. I know its sounds stupid, but i completly split the emotions, feelings about that age away..she didnt exist.....People in the church at times tried to pray for me about being in the womb etc, but I wouldnt let them, the pain was too great insdie of me....until a few years ago, when the ice block started to thaw......and I could hear this scream of a baby, but didnt know where it was coming from.....that is a testimony in itself, and if you want to know about it I will be happy to share how God got through to me about this frozen baby.......becsaue you know Peggy Sue....I have learnt that God is a redeeming God, and he wants to redeem the years and years that have been lost to us, but he does it His way..and he wants us healed in the places where we are still broken and wounded....and only he can reach back that far and carefully bring the needs of the unmet baby to the surface where he himself can meet them.....his way.......well thats what I am finding out anyway.......I must say, this journey is full of challenges and suprises with God.

shefalie

[shef]

I forgot to add about the splitting bit....one of the main things I had not realised in growin gup and also into my adult hood.....before I knew jesus....was that I considered at some level the baby person...had been rejected at birth, even in the womb and afterwards, and I hadnt been adopted, and the papers said that i was not adoptable becasue of my colour, so I felt that there must be something bad about this baby then....something unacceptable, and that was my beleif, and that if when I was with my parents I could be all that they wanted me to be as a duaghter, then perhaps I wouldn not be so "bad"...and I think I have been trying to deal with that for years and years.....until recently.....
this deep seated beleif, I now know is and was a lie I have beleived and become a stronghold in my life. But I am bringing those things to God now as I learn about his love.

xxshef

[Peggysue]

Hi Shef,

Thanks for your posts. I can understand how you felt rejected by your bmother, although she wasn't rejecting YOU as we said on other threads. Also how you must have felt knowing it was said that you were unadoptable. I cannot understand anyone discriminating on the grounds of colour - it seems an awful thing to do. Maybe they were trying to get as close a match as possible, so you would have similar roots to your adoptive parents, but there just wasn't anyone available. Again it was not a rejection of YOU as a person. But it must have hurt and I suppose you later tried to make yourself acceptable to your (foster/adoptive?) parents, not knowing that you already were. As you said, it was a LIE that you were unacceptable.

I was encouraged to think of my life starting at adoption, and in some ways it helped. I certainly bonded with my aparents, but you cannot ignore what went on before and I had fears and sadness related to that time. It sounds as if the same sort of thing happened to you, only at an older age. So you split off your emotions about the orphanage? Is that it? But they had to surface some time, and eventually they did. I would like to hear your testimony about how God reached the frozen baby inside you. Thank you.

I agree that it is God who heals. I look to psychology to give some understanding, but am careful of its source, and see it as God helping me to understand how and why I react as I do. But my healing itself is from God, who has given me pictures, put things in my mind and revealed things to me. As you say the journey is full of suprises. Which brings me to the issue of how I react to things today. My original question was about whether or not we expect others to know our needs, because of an unmet need arising from not having had our bmothers in infancy. It seems that we don't. But God has shown me that I do react from my frozen baby state in some respects.

I think I am still looking for that link with my bmother (although I loved my amother dearly; but she died when I was 20). So when I heard that God loved me I looked for maternal love. However the gospel is also about repentance. Adult Peggysue might cope with this, but the frozen baby couldn't; she just wanted love. So the gospel seemed harsh and I found it hard to see God as loving. Until now, that is, when God is showing me how I have confused my need for maternal love, with my need for a Saviour.

It is lovely what you said about God being a redeeming God. That gives hope. Thank you.

Peggysue

[shef]

Hello PeggySue.....

I can only sahre with you from my own experiences on this journey of healing....but I am realisin gthat no one can actaully fill the gaps left by a parent who could not nurture or give us the love we needed when a child....now we are adults......but God can reach back...and fill them. No we cannot become children again and go through it...well I dont think we can....but for me.......there was a day not long ago, when someone prayed for me who was speaking about the love of God and they had him and an older lady and they put their arms around me.....and prayed about the lost years...and I can rememebr just crying and crying and crying like a baby.....whilst this woman held me.....and somehow I knew that it was the arms of God around me holdin gme...as he began to pour his love into me that day.....to begin to reach the deep deep neglect I had in infancy..wehre only he can go....and he is still doing so.

I am not versed enough to give you theology about what happened, but he must have heard the cry of my heart, and come to do what he says he will do....mend the broken hearted, and minister to the crushed in spirit.....so really all I know is that if we recognize the gaps, and we ask God to come to us as a loving fatehr/mother in the way he wants....its supernatural really isnt it......he fills us up....he tends to us.......he holds us...and we will know its him.......

I thought when i met my bmother that there would be this natural nurture to me and the holes would be filled, but it didnt happen, and she couldnt do it....my foster mother did the best she could for me.....but only God I beleive can come to these deep wounded places within.....when we were kids.....(and adoptees dont have the monopoly on this lack of nurturing) and hold us whilst the frozen baby places gets thawed and ministerd too......is that not part of what the body of Christ is about to each other in ministry?

xxxshef

[Peggysue]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you Shef for sharing about those people praying for you and how God reached the hurt places inside you, and how He is still doing so. I am so pleased for you that He is making good the loss you suffered. The crying you did must have been tremendously releasing. It is supernatural - Christianity is supernatural living isn't it? Recently I read something written by Selwyn Hughes about the Lord's Prayer. He thought that Jesus taught us to pray to "Our Father in Heaven" to focus on the fact that where God exists there aren't the limitations which exist on Earth. So He can "do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine". It is good to know that He can reach those hurt places, and that He is tender and kind.

I think it is only God who can reach those places now. Like you I thought that meeting my bmother may undo the pain. I haven't pursued that course, but as I can't go back to my babyhood and the pain already lives within me I don't think it will. Nowadays I think I am expecting others to make good the deficit, without consciously realising it, and when they can't I feel the loss. I don't think my behaviour shows it, but I feel upset easily as if they should be sensitive to my needs and haven't been. They however have probably been acting perfectly reasonably and have not known my quest for acceptance. They already accept me but it's as if I need my identity to be continually reaffirmed. I'm only just realising this and don't fully understand it, but I think it stems from that unmet need I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Blessings

Peggysue

[shef]

Hi PeggySue.

What you have shared makes great sense to me as its a road I have travelled for too many years myself. But I was not aware of what I was doing till recent years, and then didn’t know how to deal with it, until meeting Jody on the internet...and other ladies who are Christians.

Although it hurts, I am realising it’s a good thing to admit to that part of us that is looking to others to meet these unmet needs, because if we didn’’t see it or feel it, then we cant bring it to God, it would still be in the dark. these must be the areas in our lives he wants to deal with....So when you say that though you are sure people accept you, but they cannot or do not meet the needs you have, you are then left to feel the loss. God is not being horrible to us, he is I think going to help us face the loss, to experience it again in our lives, in order for us to grieve it….and allow him to comfort us and bring his own healing into it. Well that is becoming my experience anyway, and its hard work allowing this depth of healing to take place. I like you have not wanted or felt able to stay with the loss because I thought it would drown me in grief and all that is attached to that when it happened……..I think people do accept us, but as you say we think they don’t becasue they are not scratching where it itches so to speak...if you get what I mean. then they can get upset because we are not receiving and believing or living in the good of what others are genuinely offering us.......because we are trying to get the gaps filled up with anything other than God himself. I hope that makes some sense. I am only sharing out of my own experiences and newly found understanding PeggySue.

It seems to me that there are two issues you are talking about, each with their own seperate needs, one is the deep hole that is left if we had not had in the beginning nurturing, and a sense of security established and of knowing we a re loved and lovable. A baby does not need to understand the whys of things...that comes later, they only need to have their pain relieved and needs met......it will come peggySue....as God is now showing you your need of Him....he will show you he can meet these deep needs as he brings that area into life by his love....
the other issue is about acceptance...are we acceptable.....are we ok, is what we do ok, its possible we think we have to be doing something to make ourselves acceptable in some way to people, and we look to others to confirm that .......and if we don’t get it, we can become anxious without it......but I think God can come and help us in our anxiousness as well, cos he understands why we do it.....I think its like psalm 131 says...about learning to "rest in His love"..to be weaned from our fretting like a baby.....but it takes time, as I have found...

You said this sentence and it shot out at me and if its ok I would like to just finish by sharing something that came to me as I read it……”It’s as if I need permission to live!”

Well what came to me (because I have said the same thing)….that I always thought I wasn’t supposed to be around, exist..becasue of my mother giving me up….etc…..but in Ezekiel chapter 16 (amplified) it says: verse 6: When I passed by and saw you rolling about in your natal blood, I said to you in your blood, Live! Live….......(it would be good to read the first few verses)
PeggySue, these are the words of God that will breath life into you where something inside of you has died, or is dying for the desire to hear life affirming words…….He is the one you need to hear from…and he truly says to you as he says to me….Live….choose life over death…and we have to make that choice for that baby girl inside of ourselves…to live because God says he wants us to live. We have a right to life.....for God gave it to us......That whole chapter in Ezekiel is about God showing how much he cares and provides for the one who has been cast out and cast aside....its healing to my insides.....though i know it was written about israel....its his words to our situtaion too.

xxshef

[Peggysue]

Thank you Shef. It's amazing how the sentence about needing permission to live impacted on you, and thank you for what you said about Ezekial 16, as if God is telling us that it's okay to live. That helps a lot! But it's about quality of life as well as being physically alive isn't it? I want to live, with some sort of quality of life, not just exist in grief and loneliness. As God looked after the girl in that chapter, can we assume that He wants us to have the abundant life He speaks about elsewhere? In which case that is very good, and I look forward to it being worked out in all our lives.

When I mentioned about others not knowing my need for acceptance, I thought later that a better word would have been "significance". As if I want to feel that I have value. I think my friends would say that I have and be surprised at my questioning it. But I feel on another wavelength to them. As you say they don't scratch where it itches. I know it is only God who heals, but I feel like saying to my friends/church "you should help me". (I know they are in praying for me, and I realise I probably need to repent of my attitude.) I wonder if I'm really saying to my foster mother "you should notice me" as if I was still an infant.

Thank you Shef for sharing how you feel, which is so similar to me, and I expect to many others as well. And also for giving me hope in God's healing, which I pray we will all receive. And I thank God for what He is doing in our lives.

Peggysue

[Jody M]

Thanks Shef and Peggy Sue for sharing- Yes- I do believe that the baby in us who have been adopted fostered- does at times scream out for permission to live - for we feel we were not planned or welcomed into the world- but were a mistake or an inconvenience .Maybe we spend so many years spinning our wheels wanting to feel worthy of life and a family- that we yearn for. When one heres that they are adopted or not cared for by their birth parents- ( it should not, but it sends the baby a message in the emotions- you are not significant or worthy. Now I do not feel the birth parent or parents feel this- but when adoptees have this HUGE significant loss- this is how it can be read in their emotions.
Thanks for sharing, Shef and Peggy Sue. Only God can take us to healing and transform our thinking to the truth of who we are- God's child and who precious and valuable we are regardless of our birth parents inability to keep us or nurture us a babies.

Blessings, Jody

[gr8fuladoptee]

Well i have to admit I haven't read the book Primal Wound so i don't really have an understanding of the book. Maybe I should read it,huh? However I do think there is some validity to expecting others to know our needs. But isn't that just a general human thing and not adoptee related? Don't we all want others to meet our needs without telling them? I think I'm dealing with this better as i get older. There are times in my life when i notice I am way too emotionally needy. I wish they didn't happen but they do.

[Jody M]

Hi- You do make a good point. As humans we long for others to understand us and know us and for those closest to us to "read our minds" and know how to meet our needs. As I have grown older - I have taken classes at my church and seminars about communication with people and in marriage- and others (especially our spouses) do not likely see the world as we do or see what we are needing- We need to share verbally our needs and say thank you and encourage our loved ones when they do meet our needs/
I definately think this is a trait many persons face- but adoptees and others who have struggled with separation and loss may have added layers with this. I know as an adoptee I have felt deep down inside- "Don't rock the boat with others" Keep the peace and make everyone happy- and that MAY stem from- the insecurity in knowing that someone did not "keep" me and so I better do all I can to keep things happy and smooth- (Wrong thinking of course and a codependent trait- but it is easy to see how adoptees might develop this wrong thinking- we do not want to face that deep of a loss again or have other relationships break down)
Just knowing we may have adopted this wrong thinking and belief is half the battle- correcting our perceptions and walking in the light of the truth and what we know NOW as adults can make us live more emotionally healthy lives.
Thanks for sharing! Blessing, Jody M