Healing – The World As I See It

Adoption Thoughts: Healing

June 3, 2014

This post went to a totally different place than I thought it would but I am going to leave it how it is because I think it will help someone out there. It also was a great way to get some feeling out that I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about. I want to THANK YOU for taking the time to read this post & pass it on to someone it may help.

I wrote a post last week about Mother’s Day and I want to do another post in this series. I am thinking to make this a bi-monthly feature on my blog if that is something you think you would be interesting in reading please let me know in the comments below and I will make sure it happens. For this post I am going to talk about how the healing process has gone for me over the years.

When I think of how healing has gone all I can think about it how the first year was so hard. I didn’t know for day to day how I was going to get through. There were times in the first days and weeks after that I had no idea how I was going to make it through the next hour or even the next minute. There were times where I had to just focus on the next breath because of how much it hurt. Everyday it got a little easier or it may just may that I found more ways to keep my mind busy so that I wasn’t constantly thinking about it.

After the first year things got easier in the fact that I didn’t think about it every minute of everyday but it still hurt. I know the hardest part for me was not having anyone to talk to about it. It has always been a closed subject with my grandparents so even today it isn’t something that is talked about and that makes it hard to heal. I know since I have started blogging about it and even telling some other people about it that is doesn’t hurt as much.

Even though it has gotten so much better I still have days where it is really hard to deal with and I have to focus on the next hour or the next minute to get through the day. I definitely have triggers and things that I know will make things hard so I try and avoid them as much as possible. People don’t understand how hard it can be and the triggers so they think I am being rude when I don’t want to be around their newborn babies.

I also have been having a hard time lately helping take care of my brothers son who is 6 months old. There are times when I feeding him or playing with him I wonder what it would have been like to raise my daughter and take care of her. When I voice this to people they think that I regret placing her but I will never regret that because I know it was the right choice. I just start doing the what if’s and that just leads into a vicious cycle for me. I have had to walk away and take a few minutes to myself to stop the cycle that goes on in my head.

Even though it is so hard for me to take care of him some days it has truly been healing for me. I personally don’t want to have children and if I didn’t have my brothers son in my life I know there are somethings that I would never be able to heal so I will always thank god for that little boy.

Now I know everyone’s healing process is different and I also know that everyone deals with things differently. I guess the reason I wanted to write this post is to let people know that it will be okay and it does get better over time. If you made it to the end I say thank you for taking the time to read this post. I will be back tomorrow with another book review that I know you will all love.

Rose Kennedy-Quote Of The Week

May 12, 2014

This weeks quote is by Rose Kennedy. Read the quote and then I will tell you my thoughts on it.

From the minute I saw this quote I knew I had to use it. I have wondered quite a few times in the past couple years if time really does heal all wounds or if like Rose says you just learn to deal with the pain because there are days when it feels like everything just happened yesterday and not years ago. I wish that time could actually make things go away completely because it is hard to not know when something is going to remind you of the past and put you into a tailspin.

What do you think of this quote??? What quotes are you loving right now???

Quote Of The Week ~ Marianne Williamson

August 11, 2013

Healing Of The World

Ways to Cope With Placing Your Child For Adoption

March 28, 2012

I placed my daughter for adoption in July of 2005. I attend a support group for unwed mothers that the agency I was going to had. Not everyone in the group was placing for adoption but I learned so much from the girls that have placed and listening to what worked and didn’t work for them. I figured that I would share some of the things that worked for me and things that may work for other birth parents.

Before I get into them I was researching some things on adoption and I found this article. While I reading through article I found this paragraph and I really liked what it said. I am going to post it here because I think it speaks volumes about how birth parents are looked at by people who don’t understand are choices. Here is the paragraph:

Most people at some time in their lives experience grief when they are separated from a loved one. However, in adoption, there are no standard grieving processes or approved rituals to help birthparents cope. When a well-liked co-worker accepts a new job in a new city, there is often a going away party. When a loved one dies, there may be a religious service, a wake, a funeral, and visits to the survivors’ home by friends and relatives. But birthparents’ grief is distinct from most other types of grief, because it is not always socially acceptable to talk about what happened.

Now on to the ways I coped and ways that others have coped with the greif.

Journal-I wrote out why I placed her in a journal that I then gave to the adoptive mom to give to my daughter when they thought she was ready to read it.
Talk to other birth moms-It helped me tons to be able to talk to other girls who had been though it and could tell me that it would get better with time. I never thought the first year would end but each year it gets easier at least it has for me.
Take one day at at time-There are time where You are going to have to take it minute by minute but know that time will heal the pain. At first the pain is so raw that it is all you can think about but it does get easier I promise.
Build a support system-I helps to have people who know the whole story and whither or not they agree with your choice they will still stand behind you and listen to you talk. There will be times that just talking to someone and having them not try to answer but just listen helps so much. It makes such a difference to just get the thoughts out of you head and have someone not feel the need to try and make it better but just listen.
Allow yourself to feel the emotions-I know in the beginning I wanted to run from the emotions I was feeling and not feel anything but by doing that you are going to be making it harder in the long run. Allow yourself to feel and grieve.
Keep Scrapbooks and/or pictures around-If you were to walk into my room right now the only pictures I have up are the ones of her when she is older. In the beginning looking at the pictures made me feel better but after the first year and even know it is so hard for me to look at the pictures of her while we were in the hospital because I want the baby. I heard from one of the girls in the support group that her child became two different people in her head even though she knew they were the same. She like me wanted the baby and not the child that she is now.
If you need help ask-Don’t be too afraid to talk to a counselor if you are having a hard time deal with all of the emotions. I saw one quite awhile after I placed my daughter and that helped me so much.

When I think of more ways I am for sure going to post them and if you know of any other ways to cope please leave a comment so that I can add it to my next post.