I’m Free

About a year ago I sent a post in response to someone who had lived with an abusive parent and that parent had recently died. I can’t remember if I sent it to her privately or to the whole list I belonged to. More than likely, privately. My question was, to me, so utterly taboo that I felt like the lowest creature on the planet for even asking it. Basically it was:

Upon the death of your mother did you feel a great loss or did you finally feel free?

I’ve known all my life to never butt heads with my mother, never tell her she’s wrong, never tell her she’s hurt me, never try to communicate issues because they will always be perceived as me calling her a horrible mother and never EVER EVER talk about adoption. I’ve had to walk on eggshells in silence my whole life.

When I found my birthfamily I can’t even begin to describe the fear that entered me on the thought of having to tell my mother. I KNEW I would be disowned. It was not something that might happen, it was something that would happen. So I never told them and I lived a double life that I hated. I knew at some point the truth would have to come out. My son has a relationship with his grandparents and when he would be old enough to understand everything I could not expect him to lie for me and pretend these people do not exist. Secrets and lies in adoption destroy everyone who participates in them.

My husband used to tell me that I should tell them for my own needs – to be truthful with myself and for myself. But I knew what would happen. I knew. He didn’t know and he didn’t believe me. But I knew.

And now, with everything that has happened, from something far less monumental as finding long lost family – he believes me. He knows now that I do know my parents and how they would react.

They chose, by their actions to my xmas present, to cut me out of their lives. They may still be alive but I have been freed.