While I wasn't adopted, one of the things that resonate with me about your entry is your realization as an adult of how your adoptive mother negatively treated you. I knew growing that my father was a very sick and abusive man; I had to experience it every day, and it ruined me, but the way my mother treated me was different and less ostensibly abusive. Not only did she do nothing while my father did the things he did to me (in fact, she protected him), but since I was a child she never treated me as a individual human being but as a projection of whatever she wished I was, which involved great degrees of manipulation and gaslighting. It was only much later in life that I was actually able to understand these things, because I knew nothing different while growing up. Regardless of how horrible these things were, they normal to me. For years I did try to have some bond with my mother, but I found it very difficult to feel any sort of real love for her due to the lack of it she showed me growing up, and that's despite her having given birth to me.
I've also felt like I never belonged anywhere all my life, but I guess the reasons are a bit different. Of course, everyone is unique, but having others who experience these things makes life's journey a bit less difficult. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Raven.
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While I wasn't adopted, one of the things that resonate with me about your entry is your realization as an adult of how your adoptive mother negatively treated you. I knew growing that my father was a very sick and abusive man; I had to experience it every day, and it ruined me, but the way my mother treated me was different and less ostensibly abusive. Not only did she do nothing while my father did the things he did to me (in fact, she protected him), but since I was a child she never treated me as a individual human being but as a projection of whatever she wished I was, which involved great degrees of manipulation and gaslighting. It was only much later in life that I was actually able to understand these things, because I knew nothing different while growing up. Regardless of how horrible these things were, they normal to me. For years I did try to have some bond with my mother, but I found it very difficult to feel any sort of real love for her due to the lack of it she showed me growing up, and that's despite her having given birth to me.
I've also felt like I never belonged anywhere all my life, but I guess the reasons are a bit different. Of course, everyone is unique, but having others who experience these things makes life's journey a bit less difficult. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Raven.