what I've learned
Five days ago, I got an e-mail from my half-sister on Facebook. As my bio mom had promised, she told my half-sister, her daughter, about me after her wedding in June. She sent her daughter a link to my Facebook page, which is how she contacted me. So we've been talking via e-mail for the past 5 days. I’ll refer to her as C.
What I've learned from C about my bio mom is kind of what I expected, but was also afraid to learn. She described her mom as being very emotionally unstable, that after her father and mother divorced when she was 4 years old, due to an emotional "breakdown" on her mother's part, her mother became an emotional spender, and they often had to move from place to place in an attempt to get away from debt collectors and creditors, or angry landlords who her mother hadn't paid. C said there was a time when they lived at one of her mother's friend's houses to avoid being homeless. Her mother also had periodic relationships with men who she thought could help with financial and emotional issues, but they always ended badly.
As an aside, I've never really understood what people mean when they say they had a "breakdown." Do they mean they fell into a major depression? Do they mean they fell into a state of mental illness for several hours? I really don't know what the term "breakdown" means to them, and it's not a term that has any psychological merit for me. If they fell into a depression or lost their mental acuity for a period of time, why don't they use those terms to describe what happened? I don't understand their use of the word "breakdown."
…Anyway, according to C, she believes her mother (my bio mom) has the same disorder as my adoptive mother, borderline personality disorder. From the way C has described her mother’s behavior to me, it certainly sounds like it could be possible. C says her mom often spoke very negatively of her own family - her parents and brothers - and how they treated her when she was growing up. To the point that she isolated herself and C from her family, especially her mother, C’s grandmother, with whom my bio mom had a contentious relationship.
C also says her mom hates herself, and often felt like the “black sheep” of the family and that family members and others have often done things to intentionally hurt her. From what my bio mom has told me of her 4 brothers (two older and two younger, if I’m remembering correctly), they found jobs in education and finance, while my bio mom worked as a telephone operator for 30 years. I’m guessing my bio mom looks at her career and life choices as “lesser than” her brothers’, and is angry with herself for making them. But rather than try to improve her life and work on her feelings of anger towards her family and herself, she’s continued to let them fester.
Learning this information from C has been a big wake-up call for me, and a big disappointment, if I’m honest. As much as I hate to admit it, I think I was hoping that I might be able to build a relationship with my bio mom that would help heal some of the damage done by my adoptive mom. I’ve always tried to push that expectation away, told myself that I really shouldn’t hope for it if I ever found my bio mom. But I can’t deny that the expectation was still there, as much as I tried to talk myself out of it. I’m deeply disappointed that my bio mom is not who I hoped she’d be.
I feel like I can’t rely on anyone anymore, that everyone on the planet is screwed up, I’ll never find anyone to help “fix me,” and I can only rely on myself. I feel like I don’t want anything to do with my bio mom, or at least want keep a healthy distance from her, which I intend to do. …But at the same time, I don’t want to cut off all contact completely. I’d still like to talk with her on the phone. I have some other questions I’d like to ask, and I would like to meet her in person at least once. But I have to keep my emotional distance and not let my hopes and expectations get the better of me any more.
In the course of my e-mails with C, I revealed something about her mom that C didn’t know. A few years before she got pregnant and gave me up for adoption, my bio mom had another child, a boy, who she also gave up for adoption. I was told this information by social services, and my bio mom confirmed it during either our first or second phone conversation. She offered this information on her own, without me bringing it up or asking about it. She told me that, to her knowledge, her first child has never tried to find or contact her. And I shared this info with C, who apparently didn’t know.
I had a feeling she didn’t, and I knew before I shared it with her that I probably shouldn’t tell her. It was really my bio mom’s place to tell C, if she chose to. Having grown up in a very repressive family, myself, though, I don’t feel it’s healthy to keep secrets and not be completely honest with family members, and that’s mostly what was on my mind when I shared the information.
When C learned that her mom had given up another child for adoption, as she told me in her e-mails, it threw her for a loop. She contacted her mom the very next day and asked her about it, which caused an argument between them. My bio mom told C she was angry with me for sharing information she hadn’t wanted C to know. C defended my decision to share the information with her, but my bio mom remained angry, which C told me in her e-mail.
As I was responding to C’s e-mail and apologizing for causing tension between C and her mom, I received a brief e-mail from my bio mom, saying “C tells me you’ve talked; I’m glad I finally told her about you. I’m available to talk on the phone now. Give me your number and I’ll call you.”
Now, my bio mom and I haven’t talked on the phone for over two months. I’ve sent her periodic e-mails, suggesting that I’d like to talk on the phone again. She’s responded with excuses, saying that she was in the process of moving, and once she’d moved, she had to settle into her new place. By way of explanation, my bio mom finally found some government housing and is not living at the women’s shelter any more. She has her own apartment now. Which is great, and I’m very happy for her, but I feel like she’s been avoiding calling me for two months. …And yet, as soon as she heard from C that I’d told her about the other child she gave up for adoption, I received an e-mail from my bio mom, suddenly willing to talk.
In addition, I’ve given my bio mom my phone number several times before, as well as my e-mail address, which she’s lost several times. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she lost my phone number (again) while she was moving. She doesn’t have a cell phone to store phone numbers (to my knowledge). But I didn’t always have a cell phone in my life either and kept people’s numbers in my handwritten address book. It wasn’t that hard to do. If my bio mom is so disorganized that she can’t write my phone number in an address book and keep the address book in a place where she knows she can always find it, it only further supports what I’ve learned about her messed up life. As does her sudden response to me after months of avoidance and excuses, because she’s angry at something I’ve done and wants to let me know it.
I did respond to my bio mom’s e-mail, keeping it brief and giving her my phone number again. As yet, I haven’t heard from her. I’m guessing it’s for one of two reasons - she’s either still too angry and hurt to talk about it with me, and thinks I shared the information with her daughter C in an attempt to hurt her (my bio mom), or she had a brief but powerful flare of anger when she learned what I’d told C, but is now too afraid to confront me about it because she’s afraid of scaring me off with her anger.
Either way, I hope she calls me sooner than later so we have a chance to talk about it and clear the air. I’m sorry for sharing the information with C before my bio mom was ready for her to know. But I also don’t think it’s good to sit on secrets, to not be open with family members, and it’s equally harmful to not be open about your feelings, even if you’re angry and afraid of expressing that anger to another. Not expressing those feelings and letting things fester can cause more harm than good.
I’m excited to be in contact with my half-sister, but I’m still processing what I’ve learned about my bio mom and still dealing with the fact that she’s not who I hoped she’d be. Why is there so damn much dysfunction on this planet?
What I've learned from C about my bio mom is kind of what I expected, but was also afraid to learn. She described her mom as being very emotionally unstable, that after her father and mother divorced when she was 4 years old, due to an emotional "breakdown" on her mother's part, her mother became an emotional spender, and they often had to move from place to place in an attempt to get away from debt collectors and creditors, or angry landlords who her mother hadn't paid. C said there was a time when they lived at one of her mother's friend's houses to avoid being homeless. Her mother also had periodic relationships with men who she thought could help with financial and emotional issues, but they always ended badly.
As an aside, I've never really understood what people mean when they say they had a "breakdown." Do they mean they fell into a major depression? Do they mean they fell into a state of mental illness for several hours? I really don't know what the term "breakdown" means to them, and it's not a term that has any psychological merit for me. If they fell into a depression or lost their mental acuity for a period of time, why don't they use those terms to describe what happened? I don't understand their use of the word "breakdown."
…Anyway, according to C, she believes her mother (my bio mom) has the same disorder as my adoptive mother, borderline personality disorder. From the way C has described her mother’s behavior to me, it certainly sounds like it could be possible. C says her mom often spoke very negatively of her own family - her parents and brothers - and how they treated her when she was growing up. To the point that she isolated herself and C from her family, especially her mother, C’s grandmother, with whom my bio mom had a contentious relationship.
C also says her mom hates herself, and often felt like the “black sheep” of the family and that family members and others have often done things to intentionally hurt her. From what my bio mom has told me of her 4 brothers (two older and two younger, if I’m remembering correctly), they found jobs in education and finance, while my bio mom worked as a telephone operator for 30 years. I’m guessing my bio mom looks at her career and life choices as “lesser than” her brothers’, and is angry with herself for making them. But rather than try to improve her life and work on her feelings of anger towards her family and herself, she’s continued to let them fester.
Learning this information from C has been a big wake-up call for me, and a big disappointment, if I’m honest. As much as I hate to admit it, I think I was hoping that I might be able to build a relationship with my bio mom that would help heal some of the damage done by my adoptive mom. I’ve always tried to push that expectation away, told myself that I really shouldn’t hope for it if I ever found my bio mom. But I can’t deny that the expectation was still there, as much as I tried to talk myself out of it. I’m deeply disappointed that my bio mom is not who I hoped she’d be.
I feel like I can’t rely on anyone anymore, that everyone on the planet is screwed up, I’ll never find anyone to help “fix me,” and I can only rely on myself. I feel like I don’t want anything to do with my bio mom, or at least want keep a healthy distance from her, which I intend to do. …But at the same time, I don’t want to cut off all contact completely. I’d still like to talk with her on the phone. I have some other questions I’d like to ask, and I would like to meet her in person at least once. But I have to keep my emotional distance and not let my hopes and expectations get the better of me any more.
In the course of my e-mails with C, I revealed something about her mom that C didn’t know. A few years before she got pregnant and gave me up for adoption, my bio mom had another child, a boy, who she also gave up for adoption. I was told this information by social services, and my bio mom confirmed it during either our first or second phone conversation. She offered this information on her own, without me bringing it up or asking about it. She told me that, to her knowledge, her first child has never tried to find or contact her. And I shared this info with C, who apparently didn’t know.
I had a feeling she didn’t, and I knew before I shared it with her that I probably shouldn’t tell her. It was really my bio mom’s place to tell C, if she chose to. Having grown up in a very repressive family, myself, though, I don’t feel it’s healthy to keep secrets and not be completely honest with family members, and that’s mostly what was on my mind when I shared the information.
When C learned that her mom had given up another child for adoption, as she told me in her e-mails, it threw her for a loop. She contacted her mom the very next day and asked her about it, which caused an argument between them. My bio mom told C she was angry with me for sharing information she hadn’t wanted C to know. C defended my decision to share the information with her, but my bio mom remained angry, which C told me in her e-mail.
As I was responding to C’s e-mail and apologizing for causing tension between C and her mom, I received a brief e-mail from my bio mom, saying “C tells me you’ve talked; I’m glad I finally told her about you. I’m available to talk on the phone now. Give me your number and I’ll call you.”
Now, my bio mom and I haven’t talked on the phone for over two months. I’ve sent her periodic e-mails, suggesting that I’d like to talk on the phone again. She’s responded with excuses, saying that she was in the process of moving, and once she’d moved, she had to settle into her new place. By way of explanation, my bio mom finally found some government housing and is not living at the women’s shelter any more. She has her own apartment now. Which is great, and I’m very happy for her, but I feel like she’s been avoiding calling me for two months. …And yet, as soon as she heard from C that I’d told her about the other child she gave up for adoption, I received an e-mail from my bio mom, suddenly willing to talk.
In addition, I’ve given my bio mom my phone number several times before, as well as my e-mail address, which she’s lost several times. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she lost my phone number (again) while she was moving. She doesn’t have a cell phone to store phone numbers (to my knowledge). But I didn’t always have a cell phone in my life either and kept people’s numbers in my handwritten address book. It wasn’t that hard to do. If my bio mom is so disorganized that she can’t write my phone number in an address book and keep the address book in a place where she knows she can always find it, it only further supports what I’ve learned about her messed up life. As does her sudden response to me after months of avoidance and excuses, because she’s angry at something I’ve done and wants to let me know it.
I did respond to my bio mom’s e-mail, keeping it brief and giving her my phone number again. As yet, I haven’t heard from her. I’m guessing it’s for one of two reasons - she’s either still too angry and hurt to talk about it with me, and thinks I shared the information with her daughter C in an attempt to hurt her (my bio mom), or she had a brief but powerful flare of anger when she learned what I’d told C, but is now too afraid to confront me about it because she’s afraid of scaring me off with her anger.
Either way, I hope she calls me sooner than later so we have a chance to talk about it and clear the air. I’m sorry for sharing the information with C before my bio mom was ready for her to know. But I also don’t think it’s good to sit on secrets, to not be open with family members, and it’s equally harmful to not be open about your feelings, even if you’re angry and afraid of expressing that anger to another. Not expressing those feelings and letting things fester can cause more harm than good.
I’m excited to be in contact with my half-sister, but I’m still processing what I’ve learned about my bio mom and still dealing with the fact that she’s not who I hoped she’d be. Why is there so damn much dysfunction on this planet?