My Adoption Story part 13

November 27, 2019

Closing out NAAM with a letter I wrote - Dear Me When I Was a Little Girl

INTRO: I saved this one for the end of NAAM. I promised this post a while back. It is a letter that I wrote to a little girl. It is a letter I wrote to me as a little girl. I share it with you today, in the hopes that if you are an adoptee, maybe you can find comfort and support in it.
I share it with you today, in the hopes that if you are connected to an adoptee in any way, this will help make visible the depth of our trauma, the depth of our struggle, the depth of our experience.
I share it with you today, in the hopes that adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents will read this and get an idea of what one adoptee would have found helpful, comforting and validating to hear, even as a child.

I grew up with an enormous amount of shame. I was never made to feel shame, but it was always there. It was so constant it was part of me, and while I always felt something wasn’t right, I could not make sense of the guilt I felt, so I just carried it. I didn’t know where it was coming from or why I even felt it. But, it made me feel something was wrong with me.

Not knowing it had a logical explanation made me feel there was something wrong with me. Think about that for a second. From the age of 9 and up, until I was 33 years old, I felt there was something about ME that made me feel the shame, and that there was therefore something wrong with me. Not until I was an adult was I finally able to understand that it wasn’t me, it was the circumstances I had been through that caused the shame, along with a fear of rejection, separation anxiety, coping mechanisms, survival instinct, trauma responses, all stemming from one instance, and being increased by the lack of emotional safety since. No one talked about this with me. At least not in a way that would have helped me.

The one attempt I made at bringing up the actual emotions around my adoption and my adoptive family went ignored, and I never made another attempt again. The message was clear. So, I closed off. I built a high wall and shut my parents out. I learned early on that I could not go to them for emotional support or comfort.

Recently I wrote a letter. A letter to a little girl. A letter to me as a little girl.

Dear Me When I Was a Little Girl,

What you are feeling is normal. Not normal for most people. But normal for someone like you. Normal for someone who has been through what you have been through, this early on in life. There is nothing wrong with you. Hasn’t anyone told you? Listen, it won’t be easy to hear, but you deserve the truth. Here, grab a tissue and try to relax while I tell you.

When you were a baby you lost your mother.

Yes, it is true. And I am so sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine the sorrow you would have felt when you realized you had lost her. I am sorry, I cannot tell you any detail around how it happened, why or when. I wish I could. I can only tell you that it is okay to be sad, even today. To mourn her and to long for her. Even though you don’t remember her. I am sorry to be giving you this sad news. I thought you knew. You lost your mother as a baby. I don’t know anything about her that I could share with you. If you look like her or if you act like her. I don’t know why you lost her. I wish I could tell you.

I don’t know what happened before, while or after you lost her. If she abandoned you, if you were taken from her, if she was harmed in anyway or if you were kidnapped from her. I don’t know if she is still alive today, if she thinks of you, if she longs for you, if she is searching for you, if she is mourning you, or if she has long lost hope of ever seeing you again. I am sorry, I don’t know. I wish I could tell you.

What I do know and what I can tell you is that the fear you feel of crying, the wall you have put up, and the way you struggle with confronting people, it’s all normal. The way you carry yourself with confidence that you don’t actually feel on the inside but do a damn good job at showing on the outside, I know where that is coming from. I can tell you that the need you feel to hold yourself back in your behavior, not be too much for the people around you, has a logical explanation. The sadness you feel and the guilt you feel for wondering why and how you ended up where you did, can be explained and is normal. And it is okay. All the things you feel are okay to feel, being what you have been through.

I am sorry that you had to go through the heartache of losing your mother at a time when you needed her the most. While you were still a baby. I am sorry you feel the underlying sorrow of having lost her, every day. Oh, you didn’t know that’s what you feel sometimes, when you cry uncontrollably by yourself? You didn’t know you are still grieving a loss that marked your life at such a young age? Even before you could form memory that you would be able to later recall. I am sorry. It must not have been easy. It must no be easy to hear now.

I am sorry no one is talking to you about this. That no one is asking you about this. That no one is understanding the trauma you have been through, and how that has marked your life. I am sorry no one has opened that door for communication for you, that you feel so alone at times and that you feel like something is wrong with you. No one should have to feel like that. And not as a child.

I see you and I see your resilience. Your survival instinct. I know you look strong and independent on the outside. But is that how you feel? How do you feel? How are you? Do you need to talk about anything? Would you like to talk about anything? Do you have any questions?

With everything that you have been through, losing your mother as a baby, being taken in by strangers, being handed from person to person, being taken far away from your home and anything familiar, before you were old enough to understand what was happening or why. Seeing how you are growing up in a new place, where you don’t really fit in, where you don’t really feel comfortable, where you don’t feel like yourself, the confusion you are feeling is normal.

That is the reason, the logic and the explanation behind all the things that make you feel something is wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. You are normal. Not normal for most people. But normal for someone like you. Normal for someone who has been through what you have been through, this early on in life.

My heart goes out to you, and I am here for you.

You, many years from now

It is so sad how many of us adoptees report having felt alone in our experience all of our lives. Especially as children. It is so sad how many of us adoptees report wishing we would have had someone around who would have known to let us know we were normal, it was the circumstances around us that were not.

This is why the tag line I chose and the way I sign most messages and comments is , PS. We are all in this together!

I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for spending this time with me, reading my story.

If you would like to share your story, I would love to connect with you and help you share it here alongside mine.

Own your story, share your story, write your story.

All my love to all of you.

– Amanda Medina

PS. We are all in this together!

Amanda Medina

I was adopted from Medellin, Colombia to Sweden in 1985. I was about a year and a half when I started my life as an adoptee, and it would take 32 years until I was ready to face what that means, what that has always meant, and what that will always mean.